Architecture

In recent years, earthen construction has gained renewed attention in architecture. Materials such as adobe, rammed earth, and compressed earth blocks, once mainly associated with vernacular traditions, are increasingly being explored by contemporary architects. Rather than representing a simple return to the past, this renewed interest reflects a broader reconsideration of how architecture engages with materials, local resources, and environmental conditions.

Madhu and Mandy, a couple based in Dallas, USA, approached thought parallels to design a residence adjacent to their ancestral home in India. They sought a contemporary architectural interpretation of the region’s vernacular style. Both of them, being aesthetically astute and well-traveled, ideated a refined vision of what a home should embody. They broke a stereotype of usually cliched project requirements.

BT Tower, one of London’s most recognizable postwar landmarks, is set to be converted into a hotel. London-based architecture practice Orms has been appointed to lead the redevelopment following the acquisition of the Grade II–listed tower by the American hospitality company MCR Hotels in early 2024. The project was initially expected to be led by Heatherwick Studio, though the practice is no longer involved; Orms will now advance the scheme and is expected to present its initial proposals during a first round of public consultations scheduled for May. Construction cannot begin until the decommissioning and removal of telecommunications equipment by BT Group, a process currently expected to conclude around 2030.

The Muro nursery school, in Mallorca, is located on elevated ground within a transitional area between the urban fabric and agricultural fields. In its immediate surroundings, landmarks of the landscape and collective life can be identified, such as an old marés stone windmill, the stands of the football field, and the built urban skyline. From its position, the site offers wide views of the area and its main references, including the Church of Sant Joan Baptista and the Convent of Santa Anna.

The recently opened Limbo Museum in Accra, Ghana, inaugurated a two-part architectural installation by TAELON7 on March 12th, led by architect Juergen Benson-Strohmayer. The installation was commissioned by the museum in partnership with Art Omi, a not-for-profit arts center in New York’s Hudson Valley. The project is the first commission of a collaboration between the two institutions and will be installed in both locations, Accra and New York. Titled Limbo Engawa, the modular, lightweight structure dialogues with the formerly abandoned Brutalist building housing the museum, transforming its skeletal concrete structure and its surrounding land into spaces for use, care, and encounter. The project reflects on the boundaries between unfinished urban architecture and the landscape, foregrounding the labor and stewardship often invisible in both urban and institutional contexts, and asserting that even incomplete or overlooked sites are vessels of civic possibility.

For most of human history, night arrived as a planetary certainty. Darkness spread across landscapes, and the sky revealed thousands of stars. Today, that sky is disappearing. Artificial light spills upward from cities, scattering through the atmosphere and turning night into a permanent haze. Research mapping global sky brightness shows that more than 80 percent of humanity now lives under light-polluted skies, and the Milky Way has vanished from view for over a third of the world’s population. The disappearance of dark skies is usually discussed within astronomy, but the sources of that change are deeply embedded in the built environment. Buildings emit light, reflect it through glass façades, and extend illumination far beyond their walls. In the technosphere, the vast system of infrastructures and materials humans have constructed, architecture now shapes both physical space and the sensory conditions surrounding it.

Snøhetta’s design for Good Finance’s Taichung office branch articulates the firm’s ambition to redefine the culture of finance into one that is open, inclusive, and nurturing.

In the master plan of the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH), a residential zone with clustered student dormitories is located at the northern edge of the campus. Adjacent to this area, a group of facilities supporting athletic and cultural activities is planned as the Sports and Cultural Complex. The complex forms part of the broader campus development realized through a collaboration between the Japanese government and IITH, led by the IITH Campus Design Team at the University of Tokyo, with Hidetoshi Ohno and Yoshiyuki Kawazoe as key members.