For millions of years, we lived on this planet but left no trace we were here.
Event Context
Tools changed that, and cave art. Then came architecture. Built habitation remains our stamp upon the world; a signature of who we are.
It’s not a great scrawl, the one we’ve been using in recent centuries. Modern architecture’s biggest flaws are well-documented: blocky templates replicated over and over, with little thought for local traditions and contexts; price as the greatest determiner, leaving homes and schools, malls and offices darker and dingier than they needed to be; every sq ft capitalised on, leaving open spaces and green cover shrinking in cities.
Now, the urban-density and climate crisis offer a chance to hit reset.
“Cities are the coral reefs of humanity,” as Nils Fischer, director of the award-winning UK-based Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), puts it. “An expression of the layer cake that human societies are. And their emergence is closely related to the techniques that allowed us to emerge and succeed as a species.”
If we think of cities like this, as the built incarnations of societies, he says, they will either become more defensive where hostile conditions emerge — think sea walls, flood protection, water generation, solar protection — or contribute to improving conditions: controlling and reversing sprawl, lowering energy footprint, increasing surface permeability.
“I believe the future in this field will likely be evolutionary rather than revolutionary,” adds Neil Gillespie, chair of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), whose international awards recognise excellence globally in this field. “A built environment is a conversation, and the core of that conversation today is the climate crisis. It underpins every discussion about architecture.”
This sweeping complex of metal cones and sails is not a single building but a hive of horizontal and vertical galleries, connected by glass bridges and catwalks, planned around a central covered courtyard.
Designed by the late legend Frank Gehry (1929-2025), the 10 cone-shaped structures are inspired by barjeel wind towers (a traditional cooling method that forced hot winds upwards and channelled cooler air downwards, over settlements in the desert).
This Guggenheim museum has been under construction for 20 years and is scheduled to open later this year.
On the edges of Albania’s bustling capital of Tirana are homes that offer panoramic views of the city and its surrounding forest and mountains. With its growing economy, though, Tirana is expanding outwards. As it grows, The Nest sets one possible example for the future.
The foundation has two similar efforts underway at nearby sites, with plans to convert a 19th-century timber-framed madrassa and a former kindergarten into artist residencies, with the support of the Aga Khan Foundation. Together with the contemporary-arts centre, which opens in September, this will create an art district within a heritage hub where there was simply neglected heritage before.
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* Milan, Italy: Glass meets ice at the Santa Giulia arena
Built as an ice-hockey venue for the 2026 Winter Olympics held in February, this 16,000-seat arena in Milan — a cylindrical building composed of three rings at different heights, connected by transparent glass bands — is now the largest in Italy.
As of May, the Santa Giulia has been open to concerts and festivals too. But the real highlight is the 10,000-sq-metre public space that wraps all around the facility.
A collaboration between two UK-based firms, Arup and David Chipperfield, the arena echoes the elliptical form of the Ancient Roman amphitheatre. The wraparound public space mirrors the piazza.
Opened in March, and commissioned by the non-profit arts and cultural foundation Casa Wabi, the Mushroom Pavilion is a dome made of concrete panels fixed around an oculus that allows natural light to flood the space within.
This is where things get interesting.
The space within houses galleries for art and allied activity. But all along the walls of the flattened dome are rows and rows of handmade terracotta pots growing edible fungi, turning the arts and community space into a functional agricultural site too.
The ground level is a park that is open to the public, and uses porous paving as part of an ongoing effort to naturally regreen and regenerate this once-toxic site.
Rainwater runoff is channelled towards a lake that was allowed to form, through the initial seven years, in the spongy depression at the heart of the plot.
BRAC University was designed by the Singapore-based studio WOHA.
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* Shanghai, China: An opera house and a lookout point
Designed by the Norwegian firm Snohetta, the 10-storey helical facade of the Shanghai Grand Opera House is a unique affair.
The firm achieved this reflection with a design that isn’t just linear, but also floats about 13 metres above ground level, supported by concrete cores and steel columns. The space beneath will serve as a public plaza, while open-access rooftop walkways and a sky garden will offer elevated views of the canal.
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The 18 towers have only recently lost their construction cranes, and now finally stand clear, representing the 12 apostles, four evangelists, Mary and Jesus himself.
Construction has been overseen, through the project’s duration, by the La Sagrada Família Foundation, with different head architects and construction firms collaborating.
As the timeline of 10 years stretched out through his life (and far beyond; he took on the project in 1882 and died in 1926), Gaudi would famously say “My client,” referring to God, “is not in a rush.”
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What is now the Centre for Contemporary Arts was, incidentally, the home of Tashkent’s first-ever tram line, making this repurposing by the NGO Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation a key heritage initiative.
The Santa Giulia is part of a new urban district rising in Milan as the result of a massive redevelopment plan. As recently as 2003, this was an industrial area dotted with defunct steel and chemical units. It is now a mixed-use neighbourhood of homes, office spaces, malls, cultural venues, cycling paths and pedestrian walkways, many leading to a lush central park.
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* Oaxaca, Mexico: A mushroom pavilion
It looks like something from another world: A grey blob in the middle of a desert, set between mountains and a roaring ocean.
The stepped lower half, somewhat like an amphitheatre, allows access to these pots, crafted by local artisans. Take a winding staircase up to a rectangular viewing platform and one can look out towards the ocean, and down to where food is growing as a part of the live performance of life itself.
The Mushroom Pavilion was designed by Shohei Shigematsu, partner at the New York-based firm OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), as part of an effort to use science, art and activism to examine, interrogate and reimagine how we live.
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* Dhaka, Bangladesh: From landfill to green university
It took seven years to turn a 5-acre landfill in Dhaka into a plot ready for a uniquely green university.
Completed in 2024, here’s what the BRAC campus now offers.
Classes and other educational spaces “float” in a 13-storey vertical oasis that holds a total of 1.7 million sq ft. Here, horizontal breezeways drive natural cross-ventilation through the privately run research university.
Expansive green walls and garden terraces house vertical landscaping systems and bio-retention ponds that have won the structure a RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) international award for excellence.
“The helical roof mimics an unfolding fan, an ode to the dynamism of performance and the human body,” Snohetta founder Kjetil Traedal Thorsen says. “The radial movements of the roof form a spiral that connects ground and sky, while offering views of the city and Huangpu River. It is designed to promote the idea of public ownership of the building.”
Eventually, the plan is for the stepped facade to host events too. The space is scheduled to open in October.
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* Hangzhou, China: Reflecting ribbons of glass and water
The canal still helps fuel agricultural, economic and cultural development across a massive region. In addition to carrying water across flat plains, and now urban skylines, it helps move massive stores of grain and goods from wealthy southern agricultural regions to political centres in the north.
“The water and the museum face each other, creating a visual and material dialogue… The museum is reflected in the water and the water in the museum’s facade,” said a statement released by Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, during the unveiling of the design in 2020.
* Dhaka, Bangladesh: A mosque with net-zero goals
Located in what was once agrarian wetland in Dhaka, the Zebun-Nessa Mosque sits atop a plinth, inspired by the manmade mounds on which traditional homes were built in this flood-prone region.
That’s where the similarities with a village home end.
The dramatic curved structure of the masjid, crafted in pink concrete, uses light-filtering motifs across double-layered walls to create a “breathing pavilion” that invites sunlight and ventilation in, keeping energy use low.
Designed by the Dhaka-based Studio Morphogenesis and completed in 2023, the 14,000-sq-metre compound also houses a women’s centre, daycare facility and lush landscaping, all of which is powered by solar panels and a greywater recycling system.
For its net-zero goals, innovative design and socio-religious mission, the structure won a RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) international award this year. “Stripping away ornamentation, Zebun-Nessa Mosque revives the essence of the first mosque, a spiritual, inclusive, ecological, and deeply social space,” the RIBA citation notes.
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Team Analysis
Check out new buildings that represent the future, in Bangladesh, China, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Uzbekistan, Albania, Abu Dhabi: a church, a mosque, a township, office buildings, and an opera house with helical gardens on a stepped roof open and accessible to all.
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* Abu Dhabi, UAE: A Guggenheim in the desert
While the Louvre Abu Dhabi is the first Louvre facility outside France, this will be the Guggenheim’s third museum outside its home country, the US, with the other two being in Bilbao in Spain and Venice in Italy.
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* Tirana, Albania: A terracotta township called The Nest
This luxury township, designed by UK-based Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), blends into the hillside with its curved lines, terraced architecture, and terracotta and red stucco facades.
It embraces the region’s fluctuating topography, using it to create overhanging balconies, recessed terraces and cantilevered balconies that offer each home sheltered outdoor spaces.
The masterplan involves shaded zones that aim to lower outdoor temperatures in the Mediterranean city, high-albedo surfaces to keep interiors cool, and permeable paving to allow rainwater to percolate.
Across the township, the plan is for water to be managed as a closed loop, with rainwater harvested and greywater treated on-site for non-potable reuse.
ZHA, known for award-winning buildings in cities ranging from Rome to Azerbaijan, was set up by the late Zaha Hadid (1950-2016), a pioneer of post-Modernist architecture and the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize, in 2004. The project was announced in June.
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* Tashkent, Uzbekistan: Contemporary art in a 114-year-old tram depot
A 1912 tram depot and diesel station has been painstakingly restored and transformed by the Paris-based Studio KO into the first permanent centre dedicated to contemporary arts in Uzbekistan.
The exposed-brick framework and industrial character of the structure were retained, with the expansive emptiness now serving as large exhibition spaces. Details in glazed ceramic serve as a nod to Central Asian handicrafts, while light-filtering motifs aid in ventilation and cooling, and are a nod to local building traditions and local Islamic culture.
Outside, the façade itself forms a massive stepped space that will serve as a free, 24-hour lookout point and park.
* Barcelona, Spain: La Sagrada Familia, a living cathedral
For nearly 150 years, a Gothic marvel has famously, and slowly, been rising over the city of Barcelona.
The church, which combines Gothic architecture with elements drawn from nature, was born of a grand dream. Gaudi envisioned a temple that resembled a forest, with columns branching out like trees. There are branching columns inside the nave too, holding up the roof and towers above.
Many in Spain have nonetheless been enraged, from time to time, over the manhours and expense dedicated to the project. Others see it as one of humanity’s great endeavours.
It is no longer clear how much of Gaudi’s vision actually lives on in the cathedral. Given that plans have been lost in wars and damaged by anarchists over the years, it is a labour of love that is fittingly no longer attributable to one man alone.
Match Outlook
What will it take to boost this revolution, and what could hold it back?
“The human, and the human,” says Fischer. “We are the creators of our own biggest problems, and masters in then solving them. Our history is about erring just a little less often than succeeding.”
Featured in this Wknd special are 10 buildings that succeed more than they err, and in doing so, point to a way forward. One has been built by ZHA. Two have been awarded prizes by RIBA. What they all have in common is that they are soaring feats of construction and imagination, all uniquely responsive to climate, community and place.
Built on Saadiyat Island, it will sit alongside the Louvre Abu Dhabi, with its turtle-shell like structure covered in intricate metal work; the Zayed National Museum, with its soaring white falcon-like wings; and the newly announced Dar Al Funoon performing arts centre, which looks like giant sheets of corrugated metal tossed one on the other. (Click here for a view of these structures, and more images of the buildings on this list.)
Together, these ultra-modern marvels are part of Abu Dhabi’s mission to raise its global image from oil giant to hub of contemporary art, culture and tourism too.
The Abu Dhabi space will accommodate galleries, an education and research space, a conservation laboratory, and centres for contemporary art and culture.
Inside, three auditoriums serve as performing-arts venues.
It’s taken six years to build the Grand Canal museum in Hangzhou, with its rippling glass facade that mirrors the world’s oldest and longest artificial river. Work on it is expected to conclude this year.
The “manmade river” it celebrates is the 1,794-km north-south Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, parts of which date to 500 BCE.
In February, a massive white cross was placed atop the tallest of its 18 towers, officially making it the tallest church in the world. Then, in June, Pope Leo XIV visited the cathedral to mark the death centenary of its designer, the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi, and performed a solemn mass, thus officially opening La Sagrada Familia.
