Interior Design

Perched on a Cycladic hillside overlooking the island of Naxos, LofoS emerges as an inhabitable landscape where architecture and terrain merge into a continuous spatial experience.

physical remains of industry become a testing ground for how architecture can extend memory and generate new forms of experience.

The post open-air museum reshapes remembrance through reclaimed materials and oral history appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Chilean architect Smiljan Radić Clarke has developed a body of work that resists easy categorization. His buildings often seem both ancient and provisional, carrying a monumental presence while retaining an unexpected sense of fragility. Stone, concrete, timber, fabric, and fiberglass are combined in unexpected ways, producing architectures that hover between permanence and ephemerality. Rather than pursuing a stable formal language, the 2026 Pritzker laureate approaches architecture as an open field of experimentation, where material behavior and structural perception are constantly tested.

In today’s competitive design landscape, Building Information Modeling (BIM) is no longer just a trend—it has become a baseline expectation. Yet many practices still struggle to balance the complexity and effort involved with the actual value they receive in return. But what if it were possible to unlock the benefits of BIM without adding unnecessary workload? Exploring a lean approach to BIM—focused on efficiency, clarity, and real project outcomes—can help architectural teams streamline their design workflows, strengthen collaboration, and maintain creative control from concept through delivery.

CRA–Carlo Ratti Associati has been selected to design the Buzzi Heritage Cultural Center in Casale Monferrato, Italy. The proposal introduces a 100-meter-long suspended truss that links two former educational buildings, consolidating archival, research, and cultural functions within a single structure. The project also marks the first real-world application of a patented structural system developed through research by Carlo Ratti Associati in partnership with Maestro Technologies. Positioned above a system of open spaces, the intervention reconfigures the site as a publicly accessible cultural complex while maintaining a clear distinction between built and landscaped areas.

Falling Leaves House occupies a ten-acre hillside in West Austin, where the design interprets the curved motion of oak leaves as a series of sculpted pavilion roofs. Three glass pavilions step down the limestone bluff, positioned to frame the surrounding forest, creek, and wildlife corridor. A carved cut in the slope forms the building pad and exposes the natural stone, echoing the grottos found along the creek below.

Falling Leaves House occupies a ten-acre hillside in West Austin, where the design interprets the curved motion of oak leaves as a series of sculpted pavilion roofs. Three glass pavilions step down the limestone bluff, positioned to frame the surrounding forest, creek, and wildlife corridor. A carved cut in the slope forms the building pad and exposes the natural stone, echoing the grottos found along the creek below.

Today’s housing crisis is a global phenomenon that can be broadly divided into two major problems: a shortage of residential buildings and barriers to accessing those that already exist. The deficit is real and concrete when it comes to what the UN calls “adequate housing for all.” According to UN-Habitat, an estimated 96,000 new housing units would need to be built per day to meet population needs by 2030. Climate change and forced migration are broadening the gap. But 2.8 billion people worldwide, representing nearly 40% of the global population, lack access to stable shelter, secure land, and basic sanitation services not only because of underproduction, but also due to an economic barrier: an affordability crisis. As demand grows and prices rise, housing, now increasingly functioning as a form of social security, becomes a target for rental income and real estate speculation. As adequate housing is a human right, pressure on governments and private entities is increasing worldwide to limit speculation and ensure fair access to existing dwellings. Below, we present four examples of initiatives in Spain, Australia, France, and the United States that aim to urgently expand housing access while limiting speculation.

Architecture has traditionally been described as a discipline concerned with space, form, and material presence. Yet this understanding becomes increasingly limited when confronted with the conditions that shape contemporary construction. Buildings no longer emerge from a stable relationship between site, program, and material. Instead, they are produced within a dense web of technological systems that operate across territorial, ecological, and temporal scales. Energy networks, data infrastructures, extraction processes, and global logistics shape architecture as decisively as climate or urban context.