Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

When Hong Kong's architectural story is told, it is often reduced to a handful of icons. Many people most readily name I.M. Pei—Pritzker Prize laureate and architect of the Bank of China Tower in Central (1990), as well as global works such as the Le Grand Louvre in Paris and the Miho Museum in Shiga. Looking elsewhere, one also encounters a long lineage of British and international architects whose imprints have shaped the city's institutional skyline: from Ron Phillips' civic works—most notably the former Murray Building (1969), now The Murray Hotel, and Hong Kong City Hall (1962)—to Norman Foster's infrastructural and corporate monuments, including the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) Tower (1986) and Hong Kong International Airport (1998), and, more recently, Zaha Hadid Architects' The Henderson (2024).

Yet within the same period as Pei and Foster, local architects were also producing buildings of enduring significance—works that carried the legacies of Bauhaus, but translated them into a language distinctly calibrated to Hong Kong's climate, density, and civic life. These projects may not always read as commercially prominent icons, yet they often register a sharper sense of social responsibility and public agenda. Among the most important figures in this lineage is the late architect Tao Ho, whose work and public role formed a quieter—but no less foundational—strand in Hong Kong's modern architectural heritage.

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This week's news brings together developments in professional recognition, cultural programming, and large-scale urban strategy, reflecting the multiple scales at which architecture shapes contemporary discourse. As the field anticipates the next Pritzker Architecture Prize announcement, conversations around authorship, civic responsibility, and long-term impact unfold alongside the American Institute of Architects' 2026 Honorary Fellowship appointments, situating individual achievement within broader institutional frameworks. At the same time, updates from Riyadh to London foreground the role of architecture in both enabling new cultural platforms and safeguarding post-war heritage. Complementing these narratives, the reassignment of the 2029 Asian Winter Games and progress on expansive public landscapes highlight how cities are aligning infrastructure delivery, environmental resilience, and territorial planning with long-term economic and social agendas.

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Concéntrico is an urban innovation laboratory that invites reflection on the city through architecture and design. Since 2015, it has carried out more than 180 interventions in Logroño, Spain. The new 2025/2026 season of the festival expands on this experimental spirit with three international calls for proposals that bring the ideas in the book Concéntrico: Laboratorio de Innovación Urbana (Park Books, 2025) into action. Through these calls, the organization seeks to explore further three lines of research, the ephemeral, the ecological, and the symbolic, to imagine different ways of inhabiting the city. The winning projects from this edition's calls for entries will be developed, built as urban installations, and presented in the exhibition during the festival, taking place in Logroño from June 18–23, 2026.

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Post offices stand among the most enduring monuments of civic life in the United States. Across towns and city centers, they carry the shifting architectural ambitions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from Greek Revival formality to Beaux-Arts monumentality and Art Deco ornament. Architects and federal planners would give these buildings a clear public role and a powerful physical presence. Stone façades, monumental halls, and crafted interiors projected stability, trust, and permanence. The post office placed the federal government directly into the everyday landscape of American life.

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The single-family house remains one of the most complex territories in contemporary architecture. At once intimate and technical, everyday and symbolic, it concentrates debates around comfort, sustainability, landscape, and ways of living, while also serving as an instrument for projecting the identity of its inhabitants. It is within this field that ARK Architects operates. Based in Marbella and Sotogrande, the studio's work, under the creative direction of co-founder Manuel Ruiz Moriche, develops from a direct relationship between architecture, natural light, and environmental context.

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Construction continues on King Salman Park in Riyadh, a 16.9-square-kilometre public landscape taking shape on the grounds of the city's former airport. Led by Omrania as lead design consultant, in collaboration with Henning Larsen for master planning and urban design, the project reimagines the centrally located site as a large-scale green and cultural district. Conceived as a new civic core for the capital, the park combines ecological restoration, public programming, and mixed-use development. Initial phases are expected to open in late 2026, with substantial completion targeted for 2027, following a phased construction schedule currently underway.

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On December 23, 1972, Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, was struck by a 6.3-magnitude earthquake. In a matter of minutes, its urban core, which for decades had functioned as a compact political and economic center, abruptly collapsed. In the reconstruction process that followed, the authorities sought not simply to rebuild but to reorganize. Their objective was to decentralize the city and prevent future paralysis by dispersing functions across multiple zones. Among the most significant architectural outcomes of this shift was the new Metropolitan Cathedral. Its modernist language symbolized both institutional continuity and urban transformation. In doing so, it embodied Managua's transition from a Spanish-style, centralized urban grid to a contemporary, decentralized metropolis.

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The role of heritage rehabilitation in the contemporary architectural landscape is shaped by a wide range of research, beliefs, memories, and efforts aimed at redefining and strengthening our built environment. When undertaking a transformation, renovation, or preservation project, architects can employ diverse strategies and tools to encourage a meaningful coexistence between what already exists and what is newly introduced. Together with three Madrid-based architecture practices—SOLAR, Pachón-Paredes, and BA-RRO—we set out to engage in conversation and explore their creative processes and ideals, recognizing the complexity and value of historic buildings as repositories of materials, structures, and construction techniques from other eras.

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As the building industry continues to account for a significant share of global carbon emissions, digital platforms are increasingly being developed to support carbon reduction across different stages of the design and construction process. These initiatives range from material-focused knowledge databases to project life-cycle guidance and early-stage embodied carbon assessment tools. While differing in scope and methodology, they commonly aim to improve access to technical knowledge, clarify responsibilities across the value chain, and facilitate more informed decision-making in the built environment. Recently, Henning Larsen launched OpenDetail, joining related efforts by Grimshaw and MVRDV to address decarbonization through shared digital infrastructure.

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From 7 March to 31 May 2026, Brazilian architect Eduardo Longo's Casa Bola will open to the public for the first time. The futuristic ball-shaped house in São Paulo will host one of the two parts of the ABERTO5 exhibition, alongside a project on Faria Lima, a major avenue at the heart of the city featuring landmarks by architects such as Ruy Ohtake and Isay Weinfeld. Founded in 2022, ABERTO is an exhibition platform that promotes the encounter of architecture, art, and design in Brazil and internationally. After its first international exhibition at Maison La Roche in Paris, ABERTO returns to São Paulo for its fifth edition, presenting over 60 art and design pieces by 50 Brazilian and international artists. According to architect and curator Fernando Serapião, Casa Bola represents one of the most radical works of Brazilian architecture, challenging conventional domestic space and reflecting Eduardo Longo's experimental vision for housing.

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The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has elevated 78 architects to its College of Fellows, recognizing members whose work has demonstrated a sustained impact on the discipline and on society. Fellowship is described as one of the Institute's highest honors and is conferred upon architects who have advanced design excellence, strengthened professional practice, expanded architectural education, or contributed to public service. Selected by a nine-member Jury of Fellows chaired by Sanford Garner of RG Collaborative, this year's cohort reflects a wide range of geographic and professional backgrounds, with honorees representing firms, public agencies, and academic institutions across the United States.

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The Southbank Centre is a cultural complex in London built between 1963 and 1968 and widely regarded as a representative example of British Brutalism. Today, the site hosts a wide range of events, including visual arts, theatre, dance, classical and contemporary music, literature, poetry, and debate. The building was designed by a team from the Architects' Department of the London County Council, led by architect Norman Engleback. It became a controversial example of modern architecture following its opening in October 1967, when engineers voted Queen Elizabeth Hall "the supreme ugly" in a poll of new buildings, and the Daily Mail referred to it as "Britain's ugliest building." Fifty-nine years later, on February 10, 2026, the complex was granted Grade II listed status by the UK government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), following a 35-year campaign advocating for its protection as modern architectural heritage.

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Architectural heritage is not only what a building was, but what it continues to become: a long process of building, rebuilding, and re-occupying over time. Where opportunities allow, this continuity produces a layered condition—one in which visitors can witness, experience, and feel the gradual shifting of a building's fabric, materiality, spatial order, and patterns of use, and occasionally even participate in that transformation.

Yet many projects—particularly those driven primarily by commercial imperatives—do not choose to value, or even to recognize, this slower work of adaptive reuse and heritage continuation. Developments governed by a numbers-only logic often opt for the easier path of demolition and rebuild: maximizing plot ratio, GFA, and rentable area with the efficiency of a clean slate. And still, every now and then, an opportunity surfaces that allows us to see—and to enjoy—the city's process of architectural "heritaging" in real time.

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The ArchDaily Student Project Awards submission deadline has been extended by one week. Students now have until February 20, 2026, at 11:59 pm (CET) to submit their projects.

Open to students subscribed to ArchDaily Campus, the inaugural edition of the Awards centers on the theme Architecture of Coexistence, inviting proposals that explore inclusive spaces for communities and collective forms of care. The extension provides additional time for students to refine their conceptual projects and strengthen both their spatial and narrative arguments.

The third edition of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale opened on January 30, 2026, and will remain on view through May 2, 2026, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Organized by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation, the Biennale takes place at JAX District, a former industrial area in Diriyah near the UNESCO World Heritage Site of At-Turaif. Titled "في الحِلّ والترحال" / In Interludes and Transitions, the exhibition is led by Co-Artistic Directors Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed, while Milan-based architect Sammy Zarka contributed as the Associate Architect and Exhibition Designer. The exhibition scenography is designed by Formafantasma, and the event brings together more than 65 artists from over 37 countries, including more than 25 newly commissioned works.

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On February 5, 2026, Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest metropolis, was officially declared the host city of the 2029 Asian Winter Games. The Host City Contract was signed between the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) and the National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan during a ceremony in Milan, Italy, one of the host cities of the ongoing Winter Olympics. Established in 1986 in Sapporo, Japan, the Asian Winter Games will mark their tenth edition in 2029 and are held approximately every four years. The announcement follows an earlier decision to postpone the Games, which were originally scheduled to take place in the Trojena ski resort, masterplanned by LAVA and currently under construction as part of the NEOM mega-project in Saudi Arabia.

A building still being adjusted, repaired, and debated is declared World Heritage. Another, equally influential, must survive five centuries before anyone considers protecting it. This is not an anomaly in the heritage system; it is the system. Across the world, architecture does not age at the same pace because time itself is not neutral. It is cultural, political, and deeply uneven. What we call "heritage" is not simply old architecture; it is architecture that has reached the right moment in a particular place.

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Rojkind Arquitectos, in collaboration with artist Pedro Reyes, SON Architects, Motus Holdings, and ASAB, has been selected as the winner of the mixed-use component in the International Concept Design and Build Competition for the redevelopment of the Zyber Hallulli site in Tirana, Albania. Organized by the Albanian Investment Corporation in partnership with the National Agency for Territorial Planning, the competition was launched in September 2025, with the jury announcing its decision on January 29, 2026. The proposal led by the Mexico-based office was awarded the mixed-use development, while a separate Mexican practice, Taller Héctor Barroso, was selected to design CASA FAMILIA, a new children's campus to be built on a greener, more child-oriented site.

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