Articles by Miwa Negoro

Located within an industrial suburb of Bangalore, Sunrise Garden Restaurant emerges as a quiet counterpoint to its context — transforming a previously utilitarian structure into a layered spatial experience rooted in the idea of the garden as a place of pause, gathering, and imagination. Conceived as an urban oasis, the project explores how architecture can introduce softness, greenery, and sensory calm within an otherwise rugged industrial landscape.

Located directly opposite a leafy park, Abbie House is a modern, single-level addition to an existing Victorian weatherboard in Melbourne’s inner-city suburb, Abbotsford.

Lightness and solidity, exposure and retreat. On the easternmost reaches of Waiheke Island, a house occupies the crest of a ridgeline – permanence in an otherwise shifting landscape.

Closely hemmed in by four neighbours and with a narrow street frontage, this new home for a young family on a sub-divided block makes the most of its patchwork setting. The local character is highly variable with a range of materials and styles, and single- and double-storey homes that accommodate families from diverse backgrounds.

“Architecture must do more than exist within its surroundings—it must engage with them, carving its own presence through mass, proportion, and materiality,” expresses Malay Doshi, Principal architect at Studio Saransh. How does architecture express itself on a site embraced by nature? PBR House, by Studio Saransh, began with this fundamental question. Set amidst lush orchards on the outskirts of Vapi in Gujarat, this family home is designed as an exploration of materials and forms. The house, instead of relying on external cues, anchors itself through the careful articulation of spaces and a refined material palette to create a self-sustained identity that is both timeless and intimate.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a lightweight architectural installation conceived as both exhibition object and public pavilion, exploring how minimal structures, craft, and movement can create quiet spaces of gathering within Dhaka’s dense urban fabric. Rooted in the environmental realities of the delta—marked by water, monsoon cycles, and fragile ground—the project responds to a context where architecture must remain adaptable, porous, and temporally aware. Designed with a dual life, it transitions from gallery artifact to urban canopy, negotiating between representation and use. Within a compact footprint of just 113 square feet, it achieves spatial generosity through lightness, reversibility, and ease of assembly, disassembly, and relocation.

The design of this mixed-use private residential project is influenced by the owners’ lives, which have revolved around China since their teenage years. It also responds to their request for an architectural approach that showcases exposed structures, materials, and building systems.

Located in the rapidly densifying area south of Sydney’s new international airport, the design of a new sports pavilion references the nearby remains of ancient clay ovens, traditionally used by local Indigenous people. Sam Crawford, director of SCA, said: “Willowdale Sports Precinct is located at the juncture of an ancient landscape (with archaeological evidence suggesting inhabitation for the past 10,000 years or more) and a burgeoning new suburb in the changing southwest Sydney region.” “Our design for the sports pavilion is inspired by archaeological finds in the nationally significant Indigenous sites nearby. It’s a unique place within the Sydney region because it contains evidence for ground ovens lined with baked clay balls (like heat beads) that were manufactured, traded, and used for cooking by the local Dharawal and Darug peoples.”

The idea of a home in a large rectangular room isn’t appealing to us. The design evokes the iconic features of the familiar rooftop, veranda, screen, and garden, drawing inspiration from the existential era of architecture. A narrow walk from the front yard leads to the main door of the home, discreetly located behind the screen. Ascending the stairs, the living space is spacious, opening out to the backyard and the sky above.