Francis Kéré, the first architect from an African country to win the Pritzker Prize, has designed his first permanent building in Europe. The Kinderoase is a five-storey timber kindergarten for up to 60 children of Technical University of Munich staff. It opened in July.
Heatherwick Studio wanted Birmingham City FC's new ground to feel specific to its site, which once produced bricks. With specialist EH Smith it set out to source a million reclaimed bricks and found them at the derelict Victorian Birmingham City Hospital, then being demolished. The bricks are staying local.
Installation has begun on the Sunshine Coast Airport terminal designed by Populous and Fentress Studios, set to be Australia's first mass timber engineered terminal. Choosing timber over traditional steel and concrete gives an estimated global warming potential saving of roughly 40 tonnes, the designers say.
Three Scottish housing bodies, SFHA, Homes for Scotland and GWSF, say a proposed Scottish equivalent to the Passivhaus standard would add costs to new homes for a 'negligible reduction' in carbon emissions. They call the government's own impact assessment 'deficient'. Warm homes have started a heated debate.
New Zealand's NABERS system, which measures how efficiently a building uses energy so owners and tenants can compare and track performance, now covers shops, warehouses and cold stores as well as offices. NZ Green Building Council chief executive Andrew Eagles said it has shown significant savings in Australia.
The US Green Building Council has launched TRUE v2, the next version of its zero waste certification, with more emphasis on zero waste impacts and global applicability. USGBC says TRUE has certified over 680 projects totalling 272 million square feet in more than 10 years. Version two reuses the name.
An Aon analysis says better research, testing and industry collaboration are improving the evidence used to assess mass timber risk. It warns that favourable market conditions should be used to strengthen risk management, since insurability still depends on project quality, resilience and recoverability. Insurers are warming to wood, slowly.
A bipartisan bill in the US House, the Mass Timber Growth and Innovation Act, would offer tax incentives to expand domestic mass timber production. Backers say it would lower housing construction costs and create rural jobs, citing Oregon's need for nearly 500,000 new homes over the next 20 years.
Rare Collectiv, a group of fifteen international architecture students, has built Skroget, a 40-metre coastal sauna and community pavilion in Båtsfjord, Norway, nearly 500 kilometres above the Arctic Circle. It uses nineteen reclaimed timber portal frames arranged to resemble a ship's hull. The boat never leaves the harbour.
Orlando has launched an energy-savings pilot for low-income renters that helps households install heat-pump water heaters, induction cooktops and more to cope with rising energy costs. GreenBuildingAdvisor notes the US energy transition is moving ahead despite federal headwinds, including the sunsetting of certain tax incentives.
The International Convention Center Jeju's second centre, built with an investment of 88 billion won, has received a Good rating under South Korea's national green building certification. Its features include 277 kW of building-integrated solar power equipment. Grade 3, it turns out, is Good.
Heat pumps remain expensive, Elephant Energy's chief executive writes in Smart Cities Dive, and cities can help residents get efficient heating and cooling. The suggested tools are collective purchasing, streamlined permitting and targeted assistance. The machine is efficient. The paperwork is the bit that needs a pump.
Puran Kumar of Studio PKA turned a Mumbai apartment plan with one end swelling into a distinct curve into a 4,000 square foot family home shaped like a horseshoe. The owner, an old friend, brought him the plan during the pandemic and wondered if it could ever be livable.
DA Studios designed Vaikuntha Mahaprasthanam, a Hindu crematorium in Hyderabad completed in 2025, as a place where people can express sorrow and sit with memory. It occupies 3.7 acres within an existing burial ground, with roughly 1,015 square metres shaped into ceremonial paths, waiting zones and offices.
Maharashtra has barred housing society managing committee members, office-bearers and their relatives from acting as developers for their own society's redevelopment. The government says the new provision aims to prevent conflicts of interest and curb potential misuse of authority in Mumbai's redevelopment market.
Tamil Nadu has amended its Combined Development and Building Rules, 2019, raising the height limit for specified non-high rise buildings from 18.3 metres to 19.5 metres. The changes also ease office parking rules and revise commercial land use, which may unlock office space in central Chennai. Progress, in 1.2 metres.
Bihar Museum ranked ninth among the world's 100 best museums of 2026 in the Worth a Journey guide, first in Asia and the only Indian entry. It sits one place ahead of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bihar Museum opened in 2015, which makes the seating plan awkward.
Uttar Pradesh is moving towards automatic mutation of property after registration. Revenue, urban development, industries and other departments will connect to the stamp and registration department through a web interface for automatic access to registered documents. The paperwork, for once, will do the walking.
As Hyderabad faces worsening floods and water shortages, the Mee Baavi initiative led by Akarmaa co-founders Arunima Shankar and Kaushik Kumar is restoring the city's historic stepwells. They hope the work will help refill groundwater, reduce flooding and renew the city's traditional connection to water.
Mahindra Lifespace Developers has signed a joint development project on about 10.05 acres in North Bengaluru, with about 1 million sq ft of saleable area and a gross development value of Rs 1,250 crore. The company plans to launch it within the next nine months.
Singapore-based AT Capital Group has deployed nearly Rs 5,000 crore in Indian real estate through Experion Developers and plans another Rs 10,000 crore over five to seven years. Experion is eyeing land in Gurugram and Noida and exploring branded residences and senior living.
Mayfair Housing has entered Gujarat with Mayfair Polo Estate, a 250-acre luxury country estate at Aaglod near Gandhinagar, developed with 84 Investments. It will offer 350 villa plots and a 40-acre equestrian precinct with a full-size polo field. The neighbours will mostly be horses.
ACE Group says ACE Arte, its luxury project in Sector 150, Noida, has clocked Rs 2,100 crore in sales. Designed by Hafeez Contractor, it is built on the philosophy 'Art Meets Architecture' and offers neo-classical designs. The press release calls it a landmark achievement.
ICICI Prudential Real Estate Development Fund will invest Rs 210 crore in Ten X Realty West, a wholly owned subsidiary of Raymond Realty, to support a redevelopment project in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Raymond Realty's joint development portfolio has eight projects with about Rs 27,000 crore in revenue potential.
Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism has unveiled the Youth Orchestra Abu Dhabi building, designed by Frank Gehry before he died last December. Due to open in January 2027 in Mina Zayed, it holds a 600-seat concert hall and 18 rehearsal rooms in a more pared-back form.
Büro Ziyu Zhuang embedded four cultural buildings, including a viewing tower and a rammed-earth workshop, into parkland along Zishan Lake in Xianning, Hubei. The 3,000 square metre Zi Museum is the centrepiece, designed to 'blend seamlessly' into the meadow and complement a resort across the lake.
Almost a kilometre of London's Oxford Street, between Orchard Street and Great Portland Street, has been permanently closed to vehicles as pedestrianisation begins. Cars, buses, taxis, cycles, scooters and pedicabs are routed via side streets. Shoppers now have nothing to dodge except each other.
MVRDV, with Includi and Meyer Architekten, turned a former department store in Essen into the 11,000 square metre Essen Central Library, filled with red bookshelves. MVRDV designed it as a 'vibrant cultural and educational hub' offering more than a traditional archive. The shop finally stocks things people return.
Aston Martin and S3 Architecture designed Sylvan Rock, a residential compound in Red Hook, Upstate New York, with a faceted black-metal roofline that follows the stone outcroppings on the site. It is the carmaker's first US residence. 'We always let the land speak first,' the designers said.
Athens-based MOLD Architects shaped the M Residence on the Greek island of Serifos around seven open-air courtyards carved into a square volume. Curved passages and planted courtyards create a sheltered interior inside the terracotta-coloured home, whose flat roof is punctured by irregular openings.
OHLAB designed the 41-room Terreno Barrio Hotel in Palma, pairing a renovated 1935 heritage building with a new structure of cross-laminated timber and cork. The studio pitches it as 'a catalyst for the neighbourhood' of El Terreno, not a tourist object imposed on its context.
Foster + Partners has unveiled two linked skyscrapers at the heart of World Trade Center Yerevan, joined by three enclosed bridges that carry gardens and shared amenities. The towers will house offices, apartments and a hotel, with half the site opened to public life.
Robert A.M. Stern Architects has unveiled a new Welcome Hall for Chicago's Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, reopening the historic North Portico as a year-round entrance with a new glazed volume. The current entrance route passes through largely subterranean spaces. Science has rediscovered the front door.
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, the firm behind the Louvre Pyramid and Hong Kong's Bank of China Tower, has named four new partners and renamed itself PCF Architects. Founded in 1955 as I. M. Pei & Associates, it last changed its name in 1989. Seventy years in, the initials won.
Zuidpark in Antwerp, designed by Tractebel, Georges Descombes and atelier adr, won the 2026 European Prize for Urban Public Space from a 25-strong shortlist. It turns the former Gedempte Zuiderdokken commercial docks into green space with rainwater management, recreation and historic references.
Leicho studio associato designed a new school on Via Caravaggio in Sinnai, near Cagliari, clad in undulating panels of perforated aluminium. Its compact, colourful exterior opens inside onto a sequence of voids, overlooks and flexible spaces, with the building conceived as a new civic hub.
Protean Practice and camera company Manual designed Manual's first storefront and photo lab in New York's Chinatown, with plywood seating, metallic finishes and baby-pink accents. Founder Malcolm Dia wants photographers to 'grab a camera, go live your life', then come back and hang out. Film now has a lounge.
Apple Music's first rebrand since its 2015 launch was made with musician Fred Again by passing sound waves through a pool of oil. Apple says the physical process comes as digital design and AI lead creative work. The logo was heard before it was seen.
Wood swells, shrinks and can decay with moisture, so outdoor use historically meant choosing durable species or protecting the timber, ArchDaily explains. Wood modification takes another route and changes certain properties of the material itself. A few thousand years in, wood is still getting upgrades.
ArchDaily rounds up eight new materials made from waste and living matter, from asbestos to fungi. It argues that facing pressures on the built environment means changing the technical, economic, time and regulatory conditions that shape what buildings are made of.
WASP, which wants to build houses and communities from local, sustainable materials such as ceramics, biocement and earth, is now mixing earth and plastic to make recyclable 3D printed composites. Conventional composites rely on resins and fibres that pose environmental risks and cannot be recycled afterward.
Graz University of Technology researchers made porous ceramic cubes that cool by evaporating water, recording a drop of almost 12.6°F beside one cube in an attic test. They can form cooling walls, though the drop was measured near the ceramic and does not prove a wall could cool a home.
Engineers at Ellsworth Air Force Base are building South Dakota's first 3D printed building, a Unit Control Center at Camp Lancer that is also the first in Air Force Global Strike Command. The 28th Civil Engineer Squadron added structural support, and a Denver-based firm supplied the concrete printer.
The Latvian municipality of Allaži is building the country's first 3D-printed bus stop, possibly the first in the Baltic. The printed concrete design has an arch evoking the letter A, and C2D is building it with Riga Technical University's concrete printing laboratory. The bus timetable remains handmade.
JSW Cement's second-quarter net profit fell 1.3% to Rs 85.3 crore even as revenue rose 33.1% to Rs 1,912 crore. EBITDA margin contracted to 14.5% from 18.6%. The board approved two capacity expansion projects worth about Rs 1,078 crore. More cement, slightly less glue holding the margin.
Cemex posted third-quarter sales up 8%, EBITDA up 12% to US$990 million and EBIT up 19%, according to AggBusiness. Both profit measures grew faster than revenue, signalling further gains in operating efficiency and margins. Free cash flow jumped 34%, and cash generation stood out.
Heidelberg Materials says it is seeing early signs of a construction recovery, supported by infrastructure investment in Germany and demand for energy infrastructure and data centres. Chief executive Dominik von Achten said projects linked to Germany's EUR 500 billion infrastructure package were beginning to move.
Alstone has added three aluminium louver profiles, series 5000, 3600 and 2600, saying energy codes, glass-heavy skylines and rising cooling loads are turning louvers from accent feature into core façade component. Glazed façades in Indian cities now wear a second skin of fins and blades.
Architects need to start considering the fire risk of rooftop solar as net-zero goals and Part L make PV routine, the AJ's regulations column argues. As principal designer, the responsibility lies with the architect, not the installer. Nearly 172,000 UK solar installations have been fitted since the start of 2026.
BDP paid contractor Laing O'Rourke £1,125,000, around 61% of its claim, as a full and final settlement over alleged K15 insulation in the walls of Block C at The Rock in Bury, court documents show. The practice is suing insulation maker Kingspan for the money it paid.
Ahmedabad's MRDA café, founded by Sanidhya Bhuva and Purav Patel, pairs lime plaster with local, tactile materials on a rooftop that is deliberately left feeling unfinished. The food leans on seasonal ingredients and fermentation, and there are no plug points, by design, so people talk. Laptops were not consulted.
STHAPATI designed the new Jodhpur Airport Terminal in response to local culture, climate and modern travel needs, the project description says. The design draws on Jodhpur's art and architecture, its fortified skyline and the city's royal aviation past. Rajasthan's sun appears to have been treated as a client.
The Red House in Okhla, which Arjun Shivaji Jain has shaped since 2016, mixes Gothic arches, brick jalis, terracotta roofs and exposed brick walls that evolved over years without a finished plan. In September it hosted its first and final fully guided architecture tour, led by Jain himself.
Civil engineer Bijal Brahmbhatt leads Ahmedabad-based Mahila Housing Trust, an Earthshot Prize 2026 finalist helping low-income women tackle extreme heat through cool roofs, climate insurance and community-led action. The figure behind the work, per India Today: women were losing 23% of their income to extreme heat.
Luxury housing in Bengaluru is increasingly judged on water security, energy efficiency, tree retention and climate-responsive design alongside finishes, amenities and location. Groundwater shortages and extensive loss of tree cover have pushed developments to manage natural resources more responsibly. Premium now includes the trees.
Ekarth Studio built the Maestro Ilaiyaraaja Centre for Music Learning and Research on the 250-hectare IIT Madras campus in Chennai as a series of bamboo pavilions with dramatic vaults, minimising concrete. The studio calls bamboo 'a serious construction material'. The grass has been promoted.
Assam-type houses evolved for floods and earthquakes, India Water Portal notes. Raised structures protect against floods, sloping roofs handle heavy rain, open verandas move air and bamboo and timber frames flex in earthquakes. The piece cites a 2025 review by Salim Barbhuiya and colleagues on material innovations for these homes.
Swati Dhiman and Anil Kumar hand-built Paarli Dhara, a three-storey mud home and art residency on a hill in Bir, Himachal Pradesh, reached only by a 20-minute walk from the road. 'We used to talk about never owning a house,' Swati says. The asset-light plan now has three storeys.
Energy Efficiency Services Limited, a joint venture of public sector undertakings under the Ministry of Power, has signed an MoU with Thermogreen Cool to promote passive cooling and cool-roof solutions in India. The aim is better indoor thermal comfort, less heat gain in buildings and lower cooling demand.
Fewer than one in five Indian homes has an air conditioner, yet cooling already accounts for around 60 GW of peak power demand, Firstpost notes. Old houses used courtyards, verandahs, high ceilings, jaalis and thick walls to stay cool. The AC arrived late and took the credit.
India's cities are now generating heat as well as experiencing it, a Mint opinion piece argues. Concrete replaces wetlands, glass towers rise where trees stood and air conditioners cool homes while warming the street. Cities respond with advisories, water kiosks and early school closures, which the writer calls necessary.
HYDRAA commissioner AV Ranganath told the National Disaster Management Authority that areas around six restored Hyderabad lakes saw no flooding this rainy season. He said desilting the lakes has also helped improve the city's groundwater table. Lakes, it turns out, work better when they have room for water.
The Maharashtra Maritime Board plans shore-based and floating digital billboards at 20 coastal locations in Mumbai, including Juhu Beach, Lotus Jetty at Worli and the Bandra Sea Link Jetty. Environmental experts are concerned about the impact of artificial light on marine ecosystems. The Arabian Sea may soon have ad breaks.
The Centre is considering a Rs 1,150 crore scheme, proposed by the housing and urban affairs ministry, to give eligible industrial units in Delhi and the NCR one-time capital support to retrofit plants with pollution control and effluent treatment systems, two people aware of the development told Mint.
Noida Metro Rail Corporation will cut peak-hour gaps on the Aqua Line from 7 minutes 30 seconds to 6 minutes 35 seconds from 1 November, citing rising passenger demand. It is also considering later night services, though that proposal is yet to be finalised. Commuters have gained 55 seconds.
Agartala Municipal Corporation has launched a Rs 1.5 crore project to renovate and beautify the pond next to Women's College in Ward No. 22. The plan aims to restore the waterbody and turn the surrounding area into an attractive, well-planned public space for residents.
Dehradun residents have raised safety concerns over missing or faulty streetlights on Tapovan Road, DL Road, IRDE Chowk-Thano Road and Subhash Road. Residents say the problem is compounded by a lack of clarity over which agency is responsible, since different parts of the city are managed by different bodies.
Fairfax County's Urban Heat Island Mapping Project sent 80 volunteers across Northern Virginia on 16 July and found Tysons, Reston, Fair Lakes, Chantilly and Springfield among the hot spots. FFXnow says the results likely won't surprise residents. The pavement had been saying so for years.
After a major zoning reform, Cambridge, Massachusetts has launched a public-facing dashboard that tracks nearly 250 housing projects in various stages of development, Smart Cities Dive reports. Residents can now watch the housing pipeline in real time, starting with the paperwork.
British Land has paused its £3.6bn Canada Water scheme of up to 3,900 homes and hopes the 28 October Budget offers extra stimulus for housing, the AJ understands. It will focus on leasing commercial space and selling first-phase homes before committing to phase two.
Speaking to AJ100 architects at The Lighterman in King's Cross, housing campaigner Tweneboa drew on his family's experience of temporary accommodation to call for better collaboration between architects and local authorities. Housing should be judged by how it serves residents, he said, and architects should challenge unsafe decisions.
HD Hyundai Site Solution has been chosen as lead contractor for a Korean government project to build a simulation-based digital twin platform for AI-powered autonomous excavators. It will recreate machine operations and the physical interaction between machinery and soil in a virtual environment. The excavators will practise digging first.
Schneider Electric plans to commercialise its Immersive Twin next year after a pilot linking real-time power and cooling simulation to Nscale's live AI factory at SIN01 in Portugal. Built on NVIDIA's Omniverse DSX Blueprint, it models the 26MW first building on Start Campus's 1.2GW Sines campus.
BuildingsLife, born from Pedro Vaz Paulo's doctoral research in 2012, is evolving from a building lifecycle management system into an urban digital twin platform to support disaster response and recovery. It combines visual evidence, artificial intelligence and 3D modelling for urban assessment.
Vectorworks 2027 subscribers can now use Google's Nano Banana 2 and Nano Banana Pro models in the AI Visualizer palette for realistic AI-generated visuals. The company says Nano Banana 2 is great for testing concepts and iterating on designs. Architecture software now officially runs on bananas.
FORMAS.AI co-founder Carlos Bañón says AI must move beyond visual experimentation to become a meaningful part of designing, developing and constructing buildings. His answer is tools that preserve architectural intelligence and creative control. The renderings were always the easy part.
Construction's future will not be built in closed ecosystems, a PBC Today piece argues. The winner will be the technology ecosystem that connects the right data across the right tools into decisions professionals can trust, rather than the platform that captures the most data. Every platform agrees, about the others.
RMIT University's School of Architecture and Urban Design has launched a survey, funded by the Architects Registration Board of Victoria, on how AI is used in architecture across design, marketing, project administration and documentation. Respondents need not use AI to take part, and responses stay anonymous.
Sylvia Lavin, interim dean since January, has been appointed dean of the Princeton School of Architecture from 1 November. She succeeds Mónica Ponce de León, who stepped down after 10 years. Lavin wants to renew conversations among design, history and theory, and building technology. The interim title has been retired.
Hashim Sarkis will step down as dean of MIT's School of Architecture and Planning at the end of June 2027, after 12 years. His tenure expanded interdisciplinary programmes, moved the school into the renovated Met Warehouse and secured full tuition support for graduate students.
Public Practice will embed 41 people across 28 local authorities in England in its autumn 2026 cohort, with a high share in planning roles. The not-for-profit says the mix reflects the wider focus on planning reform as the government looks to drive up housebuilding.
Two final-year geoinformatics students from JNTUH won first prize at the 47th Asian Conference on Remote Sensing for a project using artificial intelligence and geospatial technology to monitor and mitigate urban heat islands. They received Rs 25,000 and an I-CON Awards 2026 certificate.
A year after nearly 2,000 members answered the Your Voice, Your RIBA survey, president Chris Williamson explains what he heard and what is already changing. Another 42 members and practices gave hours of interviews. He says the listening must continue. The survey has a sequel.
RIBA Journal names Ahmad Mohammed, associate at Cartwright Pickard and design lead across its Leeds and Manchester studios, a Rising Star 2026. He mentors colleagues through professional qualifications and works with the Muslims in Construction Network to widen access to the profession.
Design schools face administrative shake-ups as universities consolidate, Architectural Record reports. At the University of Oregon, College of Design dean Adrian Parr Zaretsky cited budget savings for plans to merge with the School of Music and Dance, and said there would be some reductions in staff.
Kemide Lawson's House Proud gathers vibrant, ornate homes and the people who made them, from an African Russian army general to the first president of post-colonial Senegal. The AJ's reviewer says the book pushes the idea of a singular Black aesthetic to the edge and over it.
Greece's Ministry of Environment and Energy has opened a public call for the commissioner who will represent the country at the 20th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, running from 8 May to 21 November 2027. Registration closes on 11 December 2026.
Ho Chi Minh City University of Architecture marked its 50th anniversary on 27 October and outlined a new training direction for the era of AI. Founded in 1976, it is one of the leading institutions for architecture, urban planning and construction training in southern Vietnam.
Twenty-seven students from the School of Architecture at IPS Academy, Indore, joined an international study programme in Dubai and Abu Dhabi from 17 to 22 September, organised with NSD Architectural Consultant. The aim was exposure to global practice, contemporary design and urban planning.