AD Opinion: The Latest Architecture and News

This article is part of our new Opinion section, a format for argument-driven essays on critical questions shaping our field.

The modern sustainability project is built on the promise that evolving technologies can reconcile urban and economic growth with ecological responsibility. By the metrics developed by the built environment professions and the policies adopted by governments, progress is tangible and accelerating: buildings consume less energy per square foot than they did a generation ago, vehicles emit fewer pollutants per mile, and urban infrastructure is more integrated and measurably cleaner in many cities. And yet total resource consumption continues to rise. Sustainability, as currently practiced across the built environment professions, has become a strategy for optimizing consumption rather than reducing it. Until the profession is willing to question the scale and structure of demand rather than the efficiency with which that demand is met, its most celebrated achievements will continue to fall short of the problem they claim to address.

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This article is part of our new Opinion section, a format for argument-driven essays on critical questions shaping our field.

Every architectural epoch has been defined by its instruments. The compass, the drawing board, the camera, and the computer have each altered how architects think and produce. Yet the current moment feels qualitatively different. As artificial intelligence and generative systems enter daily workflows, tools cease to be passive extensions of the architect's hand and begin to operate as semi-autonomous agents. They propose, optimize, and simulate, producing outcomes that are, at times, beyond the author's full anticipation.

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This article is part of our new Opinion section, a format for argument-driven essays on critical questions shaping our field.

Traditionally, a museum visit is a calendared occasion with a clearly scripted sequence. Arrival is ceremonially marked—by grand stairs or thresholds, by ticketing and information desks, by an audio guide and a concise institutional preface about mission and history. That deliberate "special occasion" quality extends from how museums were long conceived: deliberately exceptional, tightly curated, and organized around a specific narrative arc. In this model, the museum assumes an authoritative voice—its knowledge deep, vetted, and to be respected rather than contested—while architecture and choreography reinforce a rather singular way of entering, learning, and remembering.

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This article is part of our new Opinion section, a format for argument-driven essays on critical questions shaping our field.

Who designs architecture today? In a professional landscape increasingly defined by collaborative workflows, generative software, and distributed teams, the figure of the architect as a singular creative author feels both anachronistic and inadequate. This article argues that architectural authorship is no longer an individual act, but a collective and distributed condition shaped by institutions, technologies, and shared forms of labor. The transition from individual to collective authorship is not simply a consequence of larger offices or digital tools; it signals a deeper structural shift in how architecture is produced, communicated, and validated.

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This article introduces our new Opinion section, a format for argument-driven essays on critical questions shaping our field.

The Venice Architecture Biennale has always been larger than itself. Never content with merely being an exhibition, it has always carried ambitions that expand beyond the grounds of Arsenale and Giardini. Rem Koolhaas's Fundamentals sought to deconstruct architecture into a universal grammar; Alejandro Aravena's Reporting from the Front reframed it as a tool for social justice on the ground; Lesley Lokko's The Laboratory of the Future set out to decolonize and decarbonize the architectural canon.

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