Inside a 40 m² São Paulo bookshop, ARCHITECTS OFFICE frames a continuous Klein-blue interior with a restrained off-white shell, using perimeter shelves, central displays and diffuse overhead light to turn a pause in the mall into an experience closer to a gallery.

Inside a 560.8 m² former villa in Ho Chi Minh City, studio anettai reorganises Pizza 4P's flagship through retention, stripping, returned earth and lightweight shade, allowing edible gardens, wetlands, old fabric and split levels to form an ecological setting that continues to grow.

At the 48,000 m² former US Embassy in London, David Chipperfield Architects restores Saarinen's Portland-stone facade and concrete diagrid, removes accumulated security boundaries, and introduces an atrium, public piano nobile and set-back crown to reconnect the hotel with Grosvenor Square.

At a 730 m² hotel restaurant on Lake Como, Herzog & de Meuron retains the existing greenhouse and extends five metres into the garden. An opening veranda, trellis shadows, cast-glass ceiling, walnut and two marbles reconnect the formerly enclosed dining rooms with lake light and the seasons.

At a 145.73 m² cafe and shared terrace in Yokohama, HAGISO uses a continuous 370 mm-high seating island to cross the boundary between tenancy and common space, combining coffee-ground plaster, layered plywood and floating ceiling volumes into a place of pause shaped by the city's changing flow.

At an existing RV campground in Three Rivers, California, Waechter Architecture uses a 724.64 m² clubhouse to connect parking, courtyard, pool, lawn, accommodation and the Kaweah River. A broad roof, four cedar-clad volumes and fully opening communal rooms turn the passage from highway to the Sierra foothills into a continuous guest experience.

At a 180 m² open-air gallery in Cabo San Lucas, Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos leads visitors four metres below grade along a 17-metre semi-covered ramp. Bush-hammered pigmented-concrete walls rising over five metres bring sky, wind, desert light and large-scale art into a shared field of view.

At a 199.08 m² hillside villa in Hannan, Osaka, Horibe Associates lifts the principal living floor roughly 3.5 metres on a reinforced-concrete base. A timber gabled roof, deep eaves, calibrated floor levels, teppanyaki kitchen and continuous sauna-bathing suite draw Osaka Bay, the lights of Kansai Airport and the changing seasons into a complete stay for one private group.

In a 712 m² South Tangerang residence, K-Thengono Design Studio splits and lifts the upper mass to connect an indoor theatre, rooftop pool, yoga terrace and planted roof, turning circulation into a domestic promenade through courtyards, light and tropical climate.

At an 860 m² flagship store in Fukuoka, TORAFU ARCHITECTS uses suspended light boxes and custom speakers below and an industrial aluminium grid above to shape two distinct sound fields, bringing light, audio, merchandise and movement into one spatial experience.

At a 321.90 m² house in Tokyo, and to Architects uses a U-shaped volume around a northern garden, spatial shifts from 2350 to 7050 mm and tactile materials including bamboo-board concrete to translate Noh cadence and the changing expression of a mask into an architecture of glimpses.

At a 550 m² visitor centre in Ardales, Spain, Luis Machuca Arquitectos abstracts the gorge through demountable glulam portals, combining off-grid photovoltaics, earth-tube cooling and a sequence from shadow to reservoir horizon as a prelude to the Caminito del Rey.

In a 2,400 m² hospitality residence in Kerobokan, Bali, UOS Architecture Studio uses brick screens, a shared pool, courtyards and staggered balconies to organise 20 apartments and five townhouses around ventilation, privacy and communal life.

At 1,600 metres above Colere, P2A Design transforms an existing 2,800 m² mountain building with Orobie stone, timber and continuous south-facing glazing, reorganising 28 rooms, dining, wellness and shared spaces as an all-season destination rather than a seasonal ski stop.

At the base of a ten-storey, 1,592.55 m² mixed-use building in Nihonbashi-Hamacho, Tokyo, Kubo Tsushima Architects uses layered roofs and ceilings to screen surrounding views and moderate natural ventilation, allowing the semi-open-air baths to retain a gentle sense of breeze, daylight and moving water within the dense city.

At a 110 m² off-grid house in Awaroa, New Zealand, Patchwork Architecture gathers compact timber rooms around a forest courtyard beneath one expansive roof, using deep eaves, screens and tent-ready verandas to let family life extend into camping.

In a 300 m² shop-house renovation in Batam, Kousou inserts a new frame within the existing concrete structure, reorganising three floors around a RAIN VOID where a long skylight, channelled rainwater and bankirai hardwood reconnect the brand's original home with the tropical climate.

In a 98.33 m² single-storey timber house in Oiso, ISO architects & associates pairs an almost equally sized living-dining-kitchen space and inner courtyard, using an engawa, deep eaves, an earthen terrace, rising beams and a continuous cedar wall to draw light, breeze and material change into life after retirement.

In a 269 m² three-storey cafe in Maros, Indonesia, INS Studio links a social ground floor, an upper coworking level and a rooftop garden, using local andesite, terracotta screens, a moss wall and natural ventilation to turn an everyday visit into a gradual ascent toward Bukit Cenrana.

In a 90 m² jewellery boutique in Jingumae, Tokyo, Fumihiko Sano Studio uses a freestanding frame of octagonal cedar posts and beams to organise reception and three guest rooms, bringing marble ceilings, French herringbone flooring, Kyo Karakami paper, Nishijin textiles and a Rokko-stone display into a restrained dialogue between Japanese and French culture.

At a 158 m² timber holiday house in Rågeleje, Denmark, Jesper Kusk Arkitekter uses a north-south longhouse to connect a narrow hillside plot with the public beach, while sheltered east-west terraces, ridge skylights and Danish oak surfaces allow the sea to unfold gradually through arrival and everyday life.

At a 380.41 m² shared villa in Karuizawa, KAMIYA ARCHITECTS uses an inverted-conical roof and curved corridor to mediate collective and private life, while a 15-by-12-metre living room, reflective white ceiling and three-tonne stone fireplace give brief stays a lasting sense of belonging within the seasonal forest.

At a 321 m² community venue in Hengshiji Village, Zhuhai, StudioTiltedCircle renews two traditional stone houses with reclaimed masonry, layered concrete and lightweight metal, using a central light-filled passage, folding polycarbonate doors and a roof terrace to support cultural events, a café and everyday village life.

At a 390.71 m² headquarters for Fukuchiyama chicken restaurant Torinago in Kyoto, Japan, ninkipen! combines a tiled roof, charred-timber walls and a raised watchtower to connect the castle town, the Yura River and surrounding mountains with kitchen, office, terrace and forecourt spaces.

At a 1,700 m² winery in Los Chacayes, Argentina, González Olsina & Vega Arquitectos use a central axis, Corten steel and darkened concrete to shape a contemporary temple facing the vineyards and the Andes, turning winemaking into an experience of volume, light and shadow.

TORAFU ARCHITECTS transforms a 238.14 m² concept store in Osaka’s Shinsaibashi district into a tactile account of walking, using earth-infused washi, hovering timber pieces, a hand-stitched leather rail and facing mirrors to extend the route beyond its physical limits.

In the transformation of Arles’ former Église Sainte-Croix, Charles Zana uses retained masonry, a bronze-toned lattice entrance, corrugated aluminium ceilings, a terracotta stairwell and locally crafted terrazzo to organise three levels of galleries, keeping the building’s accumulated history in active dialogue with the contemporary programme of Fonds Bustamante.

In the approximately 12,000 m² renewal of the 63 Building podium on Seoul’s Yeouido Island, Wilmotte & Associés uses a 150-metre curved-glass box of light, a daylit central hall, sculpture garden and paired exhibition zones to turn a former commercial-events base into a public cultural frontage linking art, the Han River and everyday city life.

At an approximately 8,919 m² presidential library in North Dakota, Snøhetta combines an accessible prairie roof, a nearly mile-long boardwalk, local rammed earth and a timber-steel structure to turn architecture, exhibition and Badlands ecology into one continuous public experience.

Across a 13,500 m² renewal of Île de Bendor in France, Hardel Le Bihan Architectes, Niez Studio and Zannier Hotels reconnect the harbour settlement, Mediterranean ecology and public island life through repair, restrained additions, landscape recovery and varied hospitality spaces.

At a 2,150 m² woodland concert hall in Évian-les-Bains, PCA-STREAM combines oval seating, a conical acoustic shell, graded plaster relief and an oculus, shaping a reverberation time of about 1.8 seconds into an inhabitable instrument of sound and daylight.

Inside an 800 m² industrial water tower built in Nijmegen in 1929, Eek en Dekkers uses a vertical glazed incision, detached steel stair and timber insertions to organise a restaurant, meeting spaces and panoramic bar, making public life visible within the repaired concrete frame.

At a 214 m² woodland retreat in Wentworth-Nord, Atelier Carle uses three board-formed concrete walls, offset timber rooms and northern forest views to let two friends share one house while preserving the distance each needs.

In a 198 m² hillside residence in Yongin, Chiasmus Partners uses a circular courtyard, continuous walls and a shared roof to connect a parents' main house with their daughters' annex, balancing independence, family life and layered views of the wooded landscape.

Studio Maignan Architects transforms an approximately 353 m² 1930s brick house in Toronto through a kitchen and dining core that steps down to the garden, a frameless glazed corner, an exposed hemlock ceiling and a third-floor studio, reconnecting work, gathering and outdoor life.

In an 82.95 m² cafe in Harajuku, Tokyo, TEKI Design draws the alley into the interior through a continuous stainless-steel surface. Layered plaster walls, a pale blue reflective ceiling, and soft lighting create an inhabitable “slice of sky” between the surrounding buildings.

In a 60 m² space within São Paulo’s Galeria Metrópole, Estúdio Cajalima uses an open sandwich-making counter to connect sightlines between the ground floor and mezzanine. White ceramic tiles, red pigmented cement, blue perforated metal, and stainless steel transform this “library of flavours” into a visible theatre of preparation.

In a 307.14 m² narrow urban residence in Milwaukee, Johnsen Schmaling Architects uses progressively rotated wood-aluminium composite louvers to balance daylight, privacy, and solar shading on the south-facing facade, while reorganising three levels of family life around a linear courtyard.

In a 4,120 m² four-storey flagship in Beijing’s Sanlitun district, MVRDV brings together a colour-shifting aluminium-tile facade, seven moon-gate openings and six Bold Rooms to create a retail narrative that gradually transforms traditional forms into contemporary abstractions.

Atelier MEME arranges cubic volumes of varying sizes along a spiral plan for this 145.75 m² timber house in Nikko, Japan. Rooms are tucked into rock-like masses, while the living and dining areas unfold through the spaces between them. Small openings, shifting ceiling heights and an integrated waterproofing system respond to the mountain landscape, neighbouring privacy and the family's evolving way of life.

In a 900 m² residence in Singapore, Ming Architects arranges an L-shaped volume around a 25 m swimming pool and garden, using sliding aluminium screens, deep overhangs, cross-ventilation and mature rain trees to balance street-facing privacy with open tropical family life.

Urban Egg stands in Jeonpo-dong, Busanjin-gu, Busan, where a district of small factories and warehouses has gradually become the commercial and cultural quarter known as Jeollidan-gil. Confronted by narrow lanes, dense buildings and competing urban signals, U.GA Architects did not treat the 454 m² mixed-use facility as an isolated object. It is conceived instead as a refuge within the city: a layered concrete shell that makes room for pause, accommodation and recovery amid the surrounding intensity.

JNG House is a 446 m² private residence in Bangkok, developed by BodinChapa Architects through a long conversation with its owner. Complexity was never the point. The masterplan, circulation, atmosphere and material palette were refined around the family's routines and their capacity to change over time, with unnecessary elements gradually removed.

In an 88.42 m² two-storey timber pet hotel in Komae, Tokyo, miCo. layers colourful graphics in two line weights across the acrylic enclosures, creating abstract patterns at close range and, from a distance, a “village landscape” united by a shared facade.

On a hillside in Thornton, Victoria, JAK Architecture arranges two L-shaped volumes around a courtyard and swimming pool, using board-formed concrete, timber, and full-height glazing to respond to views of the Cathedral Ranges, cross-ventilation, and bushfire risk.

EcoNeo Summerhouse stands in Asnæs on the Danish island of Zealand. Within a compact 35-square-metre footprint, it accommodates the everyday rituals and holiday life of a family of four.

Villa Suki stands in Pererenan, Bali, and was designed by Alexis Dornier. A perfect square is rotated 45 degrees within the near-rectangular plot, creating a family of triangular gardens between the house and its boundaries. Landscape is not treated as a leftover perimeter. Together, the central void and peripheral gardens establish the order of a tropical residence that looks outward while remaining anchored by a quiet interior core.

Nachan the Antique Courtyard Hotel stands in Chiang Khan, northeastern Thailand, near the Mekong River. Rather than concentrating its 1,200 square metres in a single resort building, PAVA architects breaks the programme into intimate timber units arranged around a series of triangular courtyards. The resulting cluster reads as a small village, forming a gradual transition between an urban pace of life and the stillness of the river landscape.

TOM WOOD SHIBUYA occupies a street-level space in Tokyo and is the Norwegian jewellery brand's second flagship store in Japan. In a district saturated with movement and visual information, the shop is not treated as a sealed display box. A portal-like frame gives the entrance a clear civic presence, allowing the street, the interior and the brand's restrained material language to meet in a single view.

The Art Museum of AHUA stands beside the lake at the south-eastern edge of the university campus in Hefei, close to the School of Fine Arts. A professional museum often depends on opaque walls, artificial lighting and uninterrupted display surfaces to create a controlled “black box”. Here, that enclosure conflicts with the openness of daily teaching, student exchange and an exceptional lakeside setting. The design turns this tension into the starting point for its spatial organisation.

Yuiichimi Processing Facility and Shop occupies part of an existing house in Nishinomiya, Hyogo, where FUMIASO ARCHITECT & ASSOCIATES created a small place for processing and selling chilli products. Rather than turning the whole residence into retail space, the project gives a family-run product a distinct public threshold within a timber house that is around two decades old.

Located on the main campus of the Technical University of Munich, TU Munich Kinderoase Daycare by Kéré Architecture and HK Architekten is conceived as a vertical kindergarten. On a compact and noisy urban site, the project creates a timber play environment for 60 children while offering a more humane link between work, research and family care.

Casa Co is located in Guadalajara, Mexico, with architecture by JDEstudio and interiors by Aagnes Studio. Although the project unfolds at the scale of a private house, it places beauty back at the center of architectural thinking: not as surface decoration, but as an ordering force for space, material, light, and the rhythm of domestic life.

PERMA Serifos Retreat is set into a rocky north-facing slope on Serifos Island, Greece. Designed by MOLD Architects, the project consists of five residences and is conceived less as a freestanding building than as a measured piece of terrain made habitable, embedded within the island's rugged ground, sea views and dry vegetation.

Terra Catarina House is located in the mountain landscape of Campo Alegre, Brazil. Designed by Nola Arquitetura, the 600-square-metre residence sits among dense araucaria forest and opens toward a valley shaped by a Permanent Preservation Area. History, memory, nature and architecture are brought together as the house becomes a countryside refuge for family life.

Cerdeiras House Hotel is located in the Labruja Mountain area of Ponte de Lima, Portugal. Designed by Tiago do Vale Arquitectos, the project transforms an 18th-century rural ensemble into a hotel, working with surviving granite and schist walls, a reconstructed granary, courtyards, terraces, and views toward the Labruja River valley and the nearby Sanctuary of Senhor do Socorro.

Located in Odense, Denmark, between an industrial district and the natural landscape around Glisholm Lake, Dymak's new headquarters by BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group is conceived as a circular building wrapped around a sheltered green courtyard. The 2,800-square-meter headquarters brings offices, showrooms, a photo studio, fitness facilities, and shared spaces into a daily environment shaped by daylight, landscape, and social interaction.

SNARK Inc. has completed NANZUKA TAKEN, a dining and bar space in Shibuya, Tokyo. Operated by the contemporary art gallery NANZUKA, the art bar was planned in collaboration with multiple artists, bringing together two sharply contrasting atmospheres: a main bar that evokes outer space, and a timber-lined VIP bar concealed beyond it.

85 Design has completed The TH Villa Hoi An in Vietnam, a coastal villa conceived as both a family retreat and a flexible hospitality-oriented residence. Located on Nguyen Phan Vinh Street in Tan Thanh, Hoi An, near the transition zone of the city’s heritage core, the 610-square-metre project sits within a seaside setting where domestic life, guest accommodation and the surrounding seascape are intended to coexist.

Fragmentos has completed Sublime Comporta Sand in Grândola, Portugal, a hotel project set within cork oak and umbrella pine forest in Comporta. Occupying a 51-hectare natural site, the project marks the next chapter of Sublime Comporta, one of Portugal’s most recognisable hospitality destinations. Rather than functioning as a simple extension, it establishes a new layer of resort experience through a more complete spatial organisation and a clearer relationship with the landscape.

EktraArhitectura has completed Laboratorium Coffee Shop in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, transforming a late 19th-century pharmacy into a contemporary coffee space. The project occupies the ground floor of Palatul Széki, a corner building in the heart of the city and the former home of Matia Corvin Pharmacy, once part of an important threshold into the historic centre.

Panamanian firm Mallol has completed El Arca, a single-storey residential pavilion built almost entirely from cedar harvested on its own site, on the slopes of Volcán Barú.

British practice WilkinsonEyre has completed the second phase of CIBC SQUARE, a 330,000-square-metre mixed-use development that bridges one of Toronto's busiest rail corridors with an elevated, one-acre sky park.

Osaka-based architect Yasuo Imazu of ninkipen! has completed a Blue Bottle Coffee café in Kamakura, Japan, suspending a ceiling of stainless steel panels above the room in a contemporary echo of traditional Japanese coffered ceilings.

Canadian studio Michael Taylor Architecture + Design has completed Percy Lake Cottage, a one-storey retreat dug into a granite slope above Ontario's Percy Lake that disappears from the road while opening fully toward the water.

MVRDV has completed Nieuw Bergen, a mixed-tenure residential development in the heart of Eindhoven comprising seven buildings that together redefine how density can coexist with daylight, greenery, and neighbourhood character.

OMA has completed Beymen Tersane, a new department store for Turkish luxury retailer the Beymen Group, housed within a cluster of former imperial shipbuilding halls along Istanbul's Golden Horn. The project marks the Dutch firm's first completed work in Turkey and stands as one of the most compelling examples of adaptive reuse in the country's recent architectural history.

Herzog & de Meuron has transformed a decommissioned Swiss Army antenna tower into a dramatic alpine landmark perched at over 3,000 metres above sea level on Mount Titlis, Switzerland.

Dutch architecture studio MVRDV has completed La Vallée Verte, a 70-unit residential complex in Bordeaux’s emerging Bastide Niel district, where a restrained white exterior conceals a wildly lush interior world of cascading greenery.

Perched on a sun-drenched slope in Kitasaku, Nagano, this family residence by Tokyo-based Yaita and Associate Co., Ltd. demonstrates how a single sweeping roof can transform a hillside into a place of profound spatial richness. Designed for a family relocating to the Karuizawa area, the house occupies a southeast-facing incline pitched at approximately thirty degrees. Rather than resist the gradient, architects Hisaaki Yaita and Naoko Yaita embraced it, draping a generous roof across the slope and orchestrating a layered sequence of interior and exterior space beneath it.

Thai studio Sitti Architects and Design has completed a healthy café and restaurant in Hat Yai that distils the owner’s brief — “simple yet truly outstanding” — into a striking architectural statement of curved concrete and open sky. Situated within a densely populated residential neighbourhood in southern Thailand, the 200-square-metre project was completed in 2026, deploying a bold circular plan to create an inward-looking sanctuary.

Perched on a forested hillside above the shimmering waters of Saanich Inlet in Willis Point, British Columbia, Layer House is a 6,477-square-foot waterfront residence designed by Vancouver-based studio W O V E N Architecture and Design. Completed in 2025, the project was conceived for a visual artist and craftsperson who sought a home that holds equally the demands of creative work and quiet contemplation.

Tokyo-based practice Torafu Architects has completed GODIVA Bakery Godipan Kyoto Shijo, a compact retail bakery for the Belgian chocolate brand GODIVA, positioned adjacent to the historic Nishiki Market in central Kyoto. The 101-square-metre shop translates the spatial language of the Tokyo flagship in Yurakucho into a response specific to Kyoto’s layered urban fabric, distilling the brand’s guiding concept — a neighbourhood bakery meets GODIVA — into a space that feels simultaneously festive and rooted in the everyday.

Completed in 2025, i8 is C.F. Møller's latest contribution to Munich's rapidly evolving Werksviertel district — a 20,000-square-metre office building that redefines what a contemporary workplace can be. Positioned at the threshold of the quarter, the building operates as a deliberate gateway, its muted green anodised aluminium facade evoking the surrounding forest while anchoring itself firmly in the industrial memory of the site. The recycled cladding, modular in composition and precise in execution, wraps three distinct office zones beneath a single unifying skin — a formal move that projects coherence without sacrificing internal diversity.

Nestled within the forested highlands of Chiang Rai, Thailand, The Wood Cabin by S.O.S Architects is a 705-square-metre commercial retreat that redefines the relationship between built form and natural landscape. Completed in 2026, the project is led by architects Chaikla Dangboon and Tariya Tiwan, whose guiding ambition was to dissolve the boundary between architecture and its environment rather than assert a building against it.

On the rural edge of Klatovy in the Czech Republic, Stempel & Tesar Architects have completed a family home that treats landscape not as backdrop but as the organizing force behind every architectural decision. Positioned on sloping terrain at the boundary between village and forest, the 246-square-metre house negotiates its site with quiet intelligence, embedding itself into the hillside to minimise its visual presence while maximising its connection to the panoramic mountain horizon beyond.

Japanese architecture studio Kenta SANO and Associates, Architects has completed a combined ballet school and residence in the Toshima ward of Tokyo, where the dense layering of the city becomes the audience to an elevated stage.

Czech practice Mimosa architects has completed a compact riverside cabin on the banks of the Sázava River, composing a bold material dialogue between charred timber and ancient stone.

KAMIJIMA Architects has completed House M, a residential rebuild located in a scenic preservation district of Tokyo for a client who works in horticulture. The project transforms a private dwelling into a measured threshold between domestic life and the surrounding neighbourhood. Its conceptual point of departure is a straightforward observation: the rare and unusual plants cultivated in the client's previous garden had long served as catalysts for informal exchange with local passersby.

Nestled within the steep, forested terrain of the Niagara Escarpment in Belfountain, Ontario, Belfountain House by Toronto-based studio UUfie is a four-level residence that transforms a modest 1970s chalet into a 400-square-metre family home of remarkable spatial intelligence.

Nestled within a protected stretch of Brazil's Atlantic Forest, Casa Iporanga is a masterful renovation by São Paulo-based practice Nati Minas & Studio that transforms an existing modernist beach house into a precision-tuned retreat for contemporary living. Completed in 2026 and located in Guarujá, the 750-square-metre residence demonstrates how sensitive intervention can deepen a building's relationship with its landscape rather than override it.

House Y, designed by Takashi Yamaguchi of Mikazuki Architects, is a private residence for the architect himself, situated in a quiet suburban neighbourhood in Chiba, Japan. Completed in September 2025, the project emerges from a deeply personal investigation into what it means to live richly in an environment that is, at first glance, unremarkable.

Scott & Scott Architects has transformed a 1973 warehouse in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant industrial district into a working studio for denim label Purple Brand, delivering a 1,300-square-metre interior that channels the brand’s affinity for raw materiality and utilitarian precision. The space accommodates operations, design, archives, sample storage, photography, and meeting areas within a single, continuously functioning atelier.

Tucked into a narrow residential plot in western Japan, the House of Birds by Yumiko Tokuno Architecture Office challenges the conventional anxieties surrounding compact urban living. Measuring just 4.3 metres wide and 14.3 metres deep, the site is hemmed in on three sides by neighbouring buildings — yet the architect has responded not with compromise, but with quiet invention.

Casa Luce is a comprehensive renovation of a 1960s mid-century modern residence in the Catalina foothills of Tucson, Arizona, originally conceived by local modernist architect Tom Gist. Led by principals Kathy Hancox and Michael Kothke of HK Associates Inc, the project is guided by a single, overriding ambition: to flood the heart of the home with natural daylight and reorient a formerly introverted dwelling outward toward the desert landscape and distant horizon.

Japanese architect Jo Nagasaka of Schemata Architects has transformed a disused ironworks on the island of Teshima, in Japan's Seto Inland Sea, into a working cafeteria and food production facility that honours both the industrial memory of the building and the ecological identity of its island setting.

At the southern end of the Ossau Valley, where the terrain opens toward the Pyrenees, Mesnil Architectures has transformed a former automobile repair workshop into a 150-square-metre artist's residence. The building's unusual ground-floor height and the former office space above together defined the terms of the intervention. When successive layers of finishes and suspended ceilings were stripped away, a timber-framed structure re-emerged at its original generous proportions, its accumulated traces of former use becoming the raw material for a new spatial narrative.

In a narrow, irregularly shaped residential plot in Ebara, Shinagawa, Tokyo, architect Yosuke Maizumi of Plus Maizumi Architect has completed a compact twelve-unit rental apartment building that transforms one of urban housing's most persistent challenges, confined and lightless interiors, into a study of luminous spatial ingenuity.

KIAS Ishida Architects Studio has completed a residence in Suginami, Tokyo, that quietly redefines the boundary between private dwelling, artistic community, and public parkland. Sited directly opposite the verdant Zenpukuji Park, the two-storey timber structure integrates a rental gallery for emerging artists on its ground floor with the owner's home above, creating a rare hybrid building that serves both its inhabitant and its neighbourhood with equal intention.

Perched above Portola Valley in Northern California, Moksha House is a meditation on grief, renewal, and the passage of time, designed by San Francisco studio SAW for a family marked by profound loss. Named after the Sanskrit concept of liberation from the cycle of life and death, the project carries its emotional weight directly into its architecture, making it one of the most deeply personal residential works to emerge from the American West Coast in recent memory.

Completed in January 2026 within a forested site in Hangzhou's Tonglu district, the Houses of Stealth resort is the work of SpActrum lead architect Yan Pan, commissioned by Tonglu Tourism Investment and Kaiyuan Cultural Tourism. Across a building area of 705 square metres set within a 5,740-square-metre site, the project is a masterclass in restraint. Rather than imposing a dramatic overhaul on a landscape that had accumulated twenty years of organic growth, the architects made the radical choice to disappear into the forest, letting the trees take the lead.

Limberlost Place rises ten storeys above Toronto's eastern waterfront as the campus building commissioned by George Brown College, designed by Moriyama Teshima Architects in joint venture with Acton Ostry Architects, and completed in 2025. Widely regarded as the world's first tall timber public building, the 203,330-square-foot structure accommodates George Brown College's School of Architectural Studies, the Brookfield Sustainability Institute, executive offices, a fitness centre, a daycare, and an event space, with a student capacity of 3,400.

Descending a staircase from the street above, visitors to Tremolare find themselves transported into an entirely different world. Located in the basement of a building in Nishi-Azabu, Tokyo, this Italian restaurant was designed by Fumihiko Sano Studio, who drew their inspiration directly from the raw, cavernous quality of the existing space.

Nestled within the sun-drenched landscape of Loulé, Portugal, PCG House by Visioarq Arquitectos is a masterful exercise in geometric precision and environmental sensitivity. Completed in 2024 and spanning 418 square metres, the residence stands as one of the most compelling examples of contemporary Iberian residential architecture to emerge this year.

Nestled within the dense urban fabric of Ho Chi Minh City, the 160-square-metre Vesp House by Story Architecture is a deeply personal dwelling that transforms the nostalgia of a lifelong passion into inhabited space. Designed for a young man with a profound love for vintage Vespa motorcycles, the house does not merely shelter its occupants — it holds their memories, habits, and aspirations within its walls. A front yard is carved out of the tight site to provide the homeowner with a place to care for and display his beloved Vespas, anchoring a private emotional narrative at the very threshold of the home.

Nestled between a lakeshore and an access road on a narrow strip of land in Wentworth, Canada, the HarPie residence by Nathalie Thibodeau Architecte is a masterclass in contextual sensitivity and restrained contemporary design. Completed in 2025, this 6,350-square-foot lakeside home demonstrates how architecture can be simultaneously rooted in its landscape and boldly of its time.

The House of Time is located in Babahoyo, the capital of Ecuador's Los Ríos province, a city whose identity is historically and culturally inseparable from the river that runs through it. One of the most significant built works to emerge from Natura Futura Arquitectura's practice in recent years, the project occupies a modest 180 square metres yet constitutes a rigorous argument against the accelerating logic of contemporary construction, assembling a residential space in which slow living, artisanal heritage, and ecological attunement are made architecturally legible.

Bjarke Ingels Group has completed its first built works in Japan, unveiling three rammed earth villas on the remote island of Sagishima in the Seto Inland Sea for luxury hospitality brand NOT A HOTEL. The project, known as NOT A HOTEL Setouchi, marks a significant milestone for the Copenhagen-based practice, blending Scandinavian design sensibility with deep reverence for Japanese architectural tradition.

The Azumigawa House stands within the Biwako Quasi-National Park in Takashima City, Shiga Prefecture, Japan, making it one of the most quietly compelling residential projects to emerge from the Kansai region in recent years. Designed by principal architect Fujita Tokihiko of atelier umi, the single-storey timber residence occupies a generous plot of over 1,200 square metres, and translates the client's foundational ambition, to live inside a forest, into a precise and restrained spatial order.

Perched high above the Pacific coastline of Bahia Ballena, Casa Komorebi is one of the most compelling residential projects to emerge from Costa Rica in recent years. Designed by Studio Saxe under Lead Architect Benjamin Saxe, the 470-square-metre home redefines what it means to live in harmony with a tropical landscape through a rigorously resolved architectural strategy.

Located just 400 metres from the Baltic Sea in Sopot, Poland, the Wave 4 and 5 buildings of the ECR Health Care Complex by Warsaw-based studio FAAB represent a decisive shift in how healthcare architecture can function as a therapeutic instrument. Completed in 2025, the 4,744-square-metre project accommodates an analytical laboratory, outpatient clinic, day surgery hospital, and specialist hospital, all united beneath a cohesive architectural language rooted in the healing potential of the natural world.

Amsterdam-based practice Studioninedots has completed Light House, a boldly conceived family residence on Centrumeiland, the city's ambitious new neighbourhood built on a culture of self-build experimentation and sustainability. Conceived as a vertical landscape of stacked boxes, the 257-square-metre home dismantles the conventional logic of domestic living.

Perched on the canal's edge in Nassau, Bahamas, Villa Lyla is a masterwork of tropical architecture by South African studio SAOTA, a residence that transforms grief into spatial poetry. Named in memory of the homeowner's late daughter, the 1,203-square-metre estate carries its emotional weight with remarkable restraint, channelling quiet reverence into every architectural decision.

Setsuko Sakakibara Architect & Associates has completed Ki no Kasa (Wood Umbrella), a compact single-storey residence in Izumiotsu, Osaka, conceived for an owner approaching retirement who will live alone. Encompassing just 29.81 square metres of floor area, the project confronts one of architecture's most quietly urgent questions: what does a home become when the rhythms of working life recede, and time itself becomes the primary material of daily existence? The result is a dwelling of uncommon spatial ambition, one that achieves both dynamic structural presence and still, contemplative warmth within an exceptionally modest footprint.

Nestled on the tapered shores of Lake Memphremagog in Magog, Canada, Maison de la Pointe by Montreal-based YH2 Architecture is a masterful meditation on memory, restraint, and architectural dialogue. Completed in 2022, this 3,700-square-foot residence confronts one of contemporary architecture's most compelling dilemmas: what to do when a beloved heritage structure no longer serves its inhabitants, yet remains too meaningful to demolish.

Nestled within a sprawling 500-acre landscape in upstate New York, this artist residence and studio by Horizontal Design represents a rare convergence of Eastern philosophical thinking and the wild, untamed nature of the Catskills. Completed in 2025 after a six-year journey shaped by pandemic delays, budgetary pivots, and deep client collaboration, the 1,026-square-metre home for artist Emily Cheng and her husband Wolf-Dieter Stoeffelmeier stands as one of the most culturally nuanced residential projects to emerge from the region in recent memory.

Situated within the subtropical landscape of Queensland, Australia, Vespa House by Habitat Studio Architects is a rigorously conceived residence that responds with precision to its climate, site, and the evolving rhythms of family life. Completed in 2024, this 540-square-metre single-family dwelling is grounded in bioclimatic design principles, weaving together the material weight of raw concrete, the warmth of natural timber, and the precision of black metal detailing into an architectural language that is simultaneously raw and refined.

Located in the heart of downtown Redmond, Oregon, the new Redmond Library by The Miller Hull Partnership and local practice Steele Associates Architects, commissioned by Deschutes Public Library, is one of the most considered works of civic architecture to emerge from the United States in 2025. The two-storey mass timber building, totalling 3,716 square metres, more than doubles the footprint of its predecessor and fundamentally redefines what a public library can be as a piece of urban infrastructure.

Nestled within the forested landscape of Hongcheon, Gangwon-do, the Monologue Café by Seoul-based practice SOSOKKI ANAC is one of the most quietly commanding architectural statements to emerge from South Korea in 2025. Spanning 455 square metres, the project defies the conventions of commercial hospitality design, positioning itself instead as a work of speculative architecture rooted in myth, memory, and materiality.

Slovak architecture practice alchitekt has converted a top-floor apartment in a 1928 Bratislava landmark into a flexible creative studio, revealing the building's raw structural soul in the process. Situated within a historic building designed by celebrated Slovak architect Juraj Tvarožek, the 85-square-metre studio navigates the tension between preservation and reinvention with quiet confidence.

Sited on the southern shore of Lake Memphremagog in Potton, Quebec, the Counter-Slope House by Montreal-based YH2 Architecture is a deeply considered response to one of Canada's most geographically and atmospherically intense landscapes. Completed in 2024 across 4,530 square feet, the residence navigates a steep slope frequently cast in the shadow of surrounding mountains with deliberate restraint. Rather than imposing upon the terrain, the project emerges as an exercise in co-habitation, a building that occupies the land with discretion and reverence.

Nestled within the verdant neighbourhood of Kannelmäki in Helsinki, the Aurinkokallio Daycare Center by Verstas Architects stands as a compelling example of how civic architecture can respond sensitively to its natural and urban context. Completed in 2025, the three-storey building replaces an ageing 1970s facility, delivering a thoroughly contemporary vision for early childhood environments across 2,270 square metres, accommodating 210 children in spaces calibrated to nurture rather than overwhelm.

Nestled into a steep, forest-clad hillside on the shores of a glassy Swedish lake, the Borås Getaway House by Claesson Koivisto Rune is a masterclass in doing more with less. Completed in 2024, the 65-square-metre retreat distils the art of Scandinavian minimalism into four scattered cubic volumes that hover between the trees like crystalline formations emerging from ancient rock.

DARP - De Arquitectura y Paisaje has completed the Rehabilitation of Casa P. Colina in Medellín, Colombia, a project grounded in a regenerative approach to architecture. Rather than replacing the existing fabric, the intervention treats the building's inherited frameworks, carpentry details, and structural strata as active design inputs, reconciling the natural, the constructed, and the historical within a unified spatial system that redefines the terms of contemporary domestic life.

SAKAI ARCHITECTS director Kazunori Sakai has completed a radical off-grid family home on Amami Oshima, a subtropical island in Kagoshima Prefecture, that severs its connection to the public electricity grid entirely. Named House in Amami Oshima, the residence operates as a fully self-sustaining micro-infrastructure, powered exclusively by solar energy and conceived as a live-in laboratory for autonomous living.

OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu has completed the Mushroom Pavilion at Fundacion Casa Wabi in Puerto Escondido, marking the firm's first built work in Mexico. Located within the foundation's 65-acre natural landscape between the Sierra Madre mountains and the Pacific coast of Oaxaca, the pavilion transforms a specific agricultural brief into an architectural meditation on growth, community, and time.

MARS Architectes has completed a new school cafeteria for the Philippe Auguste Middle School in Gonesse, a northern suburb of Paris, delivering a quiet yet architecturally precise intervention that redefines how institutional dining spaces can feel. Rather than treating the cafeteria as a utilitarian afterthought, the architects conceived it as an independent building, a deliberate act of spatial generosity within a campus built in the late 1970s. By relocating the dining function into a new extension, the studio simultaneously freed the original structure for additional classrooms and gave students something rare: a purposefully calm environment carved out of the rhythm of the school day.

Scenic Architecture Office has completed Wave Cube, a landmark multi-purpose cultural facility located in the Fengxian New City of Shanghai. Spanning 29,700 square metres on a peninsula along the eastern shore of Jin Hai Lake, the project synthesises the immersive exhibition of the "Three-Body" sci-fi narrative, public education, and community social spaces into a cohesive architectural landscape that serves as a vibrant gateway for contemporary urban culture.

Kawashima Yohei Architectural Design Office has completed THE CASE, a multi-purpose commercial interior located in Unzen City, Nagasaki Prefecture. Occupying a single 115-square-metre tenancy within an existing building on a quiet pedestrian street, the project synthesises three distinct programmatic functions, namely an event and exhibition venue, a cafe, and a curated apparel boutique, into a spatially coherent and operationally efficient environment for contemporary urban life.

Canadian architecture studio YH2 Architecture has completed Maison Aube, a masterful restoration and contemporary extension of a heritage home dating back to 1811 in Saint-Eustache, Quebec, situated on the banks of the Riviere des Mille Iles.