Archdaily

Constructing a New "Locality" — As China's urbanization enters its "second half," the revitalization of underutilized assets has become an inevitable challenge for governments, developers, and designers alike. Located in the heart of the old city of Shangyu, Shaoxing, the Banshan1994 Commune serves as a critical case in the stock renewal of county-level cities. We believe that locality is not a static relic but a continuous process of writing and creation. In this project, renovation is conceived as an "open-source system" --a framework that interfaces with multiple timelines, landscapes, and lifestyles, resulting in a site-specific, continuous, and layered architectural condition.

Conceived as a dialogue between architecture and landscape, CASAVIVA transforms the house into a sequence of spaces where nature becomes an integral part of everyday life.

Perched atop a rise on a sloping street within a quiet residential neighborhood, Moment is surrounded by a retaining wall and perimeter enclosure that conceal the interior from the street below, ensuring a high degree of privacy.

This project is located in the iconic Colonia Americana neighborhood. Inside a house dating from the early 20th century, architects Aureliano Alejos and Leonora Castorena developed an intervention that elevated the property's spatiality and habitability, giving it a unique language that is coherent with its preexistence.

The lack of play environments in the peripheral neighborhoods of Medellín has limited opportunities for recreation and family gatherings. Moreover, the scarcity of natural soil and permeable surfaces has intensified the heat island effect and increased the risk of environmental pollution, instability on hillsides, and runoff flooding near creek basins.

Global architecture, interior design, and landscape architecture firm, ODA, has completed the first phase of the highly anticipated POST project in Rotterdam, a new tower rising at the rear of the historic Postkantoor, the city's former Central Post Office. Located in Rotterdam's city center, this historically significant building stands as a testament to the inextinguishable spirit of the city. Designed by Gustav Cornelis Bremer and constructed between 1916 and 1923, the Postkantoor was one of the only original structures still standing after the Rotterdam Blitz, the 1940 aerial bombardment that leveled nearly all of the city's historic core.

From the outside, this loft had it all: double-height ceilings, natural light, and a sense of spaciousness that promised great possibilities. However, upon entering, the space lacked order. The ground floor was fragmented by a poorly resolved bathroom, and the upper floor was an unused, functionless void. The challenge was to transform this unstructured volume into a coherent, livable place with a distinct identity.

Architecture has long been understood as a discipline created by humans and for humans. But in We the Bacteria: Notes Toward Biotic Architecture, Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley challenge that assumption, arguing that "microbes invented architecture." From this premise unfolds an alternative history of architecture that shifts the focus away from human exceptionalism and toward the microorganisms that have shaped life, environments, and the built world for billions of years.

Wadhal has completed Wade House, a compact two-bedroom home in Ruislip, West London, on a brownfield site once occupied by two garages. At 70 square meters, the house meets the London Plan's minimum size for a two-bedroom dwelling and turns strict planning constraints into an opportunity for a more inventive model of suburban densification.

Wild's Collection – A Fold of Time Hidden in a Modern Shell - "A Perch" at Aranya Guangzhou Jiulong Lake — Aranya's first semi-open park commercial complex. The raw, site-cast concrete volumes are bold, modern, and open, exuding a quietly powerful restraint. And our task was to design a "street-side museum" within this context — Wild's Collection, a wilderness natural history discovery hub.

The site faces Daehyeon Elementary School to the south, with Hwimun High School and Samseong Station within walking distance to the north — yet it sits within an alley less than six meters wide. This condition favors educational facilities, quiet corporate offices, or tenants who value parking over street-front exposure. The open frontage created by the school is a clear asset, but it equally demands careful attention to visual privacy and noise.

Built as Grantage Shin Nakano in the Chuo district of Nakano, Tokyo, the reinforced concrete residential building rises five storeys above a basement level and holds eleven units within a total floor area of 416.68 square meters. It was designed to give an architectural form to the geography that has shaped life in western Tokyo for millennia.

A borrowed garden and a single point of origin transform a leftover corner of a food court into a space with its own identity.

This residence enjoys a south orientation and a gentle slope towards the back of the plot. The house is strategically located at the top of the plot, leaving a large front space where the pool and garden are located.

The University of British Columbia has completed a major expansion of the Beaty Biodiversity Centre on its Point Grey campus, adding research space, offices and collections along the university's central Main Mall. The addition is the new home of the Conservation Science Initiative and extends UBC's distinctive biodiversity precinct, a series of bar buildings framing landscaped courtyards, with 4,400 gross square metres of new space above and below grade.