Cities: The Latest Architecture and News

President Ilham Aliyev has signed an order declaring 2026 the "Year of Urban Planning and Architecture" in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The decision establishes a national framework focused on urban planning policy, architectural culture, and sustainable development, aligning with Azerbaijan's preparations to host the 13th World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku in May 2026. According to the order, the designation aims to preserve Azerbaijan's centuries-old traditions while integrating contemporary approaches that respond to current social, environmental, and spatial challenges. The President's Administration will now prepare and submit a comprehensive action plan for the year within one month.

Across different geographies and scales, this week's architecture news reflects a sustained focus on how cities and buildings are being recalibrated in response to evolving patterns of movement, work, and collective life. Across multiple contexts, public space and mobility remain central concerns, with streets, downtowns, and large-scale developments serving as testing grounds for new approaches to accessibility, resilience, and everyday use. Pedestrianisation initiatives and community-led visions point to evolving governance models and long-term urban strategies, while cultural and research-driven platforms continue to frame these changes within broader public discourse. In parallel, progress on major mixed-use and corporate projects underscores the growing integration of digital infrastructure, environmental performance, and flexible spatial frameworks within contemporary architecture.

+ 15

Across Europe and North America, pedestrianisation is increasingly being deployed as a context-specific urban strategy shaped by distinct economic, social, and spatial pressures. As cities continue to reassess the role of streets in the wake of economic shifts, climate pressures, and changing mobility patterns, pedestrianisation is emerging as a tool in current urban transformation efforts. Across London, New York, Houston, and Stockholm, ongoing pedestrian-first projects are testing different pathways toward more resilient and walkable cities, ranging from statutory planning and capital construction to research-driven visioning. London's Oxford Street is advancing through consultation and governance reform to address retail decline; New York's Paseo Park is moving from a temporary pandemic intervention into permanent infrastructure; Houston is accelerating the pedestrianisation of its downtown core in preparation for a global sporting event; and Stockholm's Superline is using design research to rethink the future of an inner-city motorway. These initiatives reveal how pedestrianisation is being actively negotiated, designed, and built today, adapting to local motivations while converging on a shared objective of streets that perform as resilient public spaces rather than traffic conduits.

+ 12

Across Europe's major tourist cities, housing affordability has increasingly emerged as one of the most pressing urban challenges, prompting governments to reassess the role of short-term rentals within residential neighborhoods. In Barcelona, Mayor Jaume Collboni recently announced plans to phase out tourist short-term rentals entirely by 2028, framing the decision as part of a broader effort to protect residents' right to remain in the city. The announcement coincides with a €64 million fine imposed by the Spanish government on Airbnb for advertising unlicensed properties, placing Spain at the center of an intensifying debate over how tourism-driven accommodation models intersect with housing access, inequality, and urban stability.

+ 1

Where cities were once shaped by simple structures that could adapt to new uses, they are now packed with rigid dwellings—often designed with a single use in mind and fixed in both layout and lifespan. As climate deadlines tighten, communities demand more resilient, resource-conscious spaces, and work and living patterns continue to shift, this rigidity is becoming a liability. When buildings refuse to bend, they are often treated as disposable, triggering cycles of demolition, downtime, and loss. Adaptability, once considered an added convenience, is becoming an imperative—something the inaugural Adaptable Building Conference (ABC) in Rotterdam aims to put front and center.

Every year brings new ideas, projects, and shifts in architectural culture, but it also marks the loss of voices that have shaped the discipline across decades. Architecture moves forward, but it also advances through absence. When figures who helped articulate its language and its ambitions disappear, they leave behind more than completed works or influential texts. Their absence becomes a threshold, a moment in which the discipline pauses to understand what remains, what evolves, and what continues to guide us. These moments of loss remind us that architecture is a long, collective construction, carried not only by those shaping the present but also by those whose visions continue to orient how we think about cities and landscapes.

The architects and thinkers we lost in 2025 came from remarkably different worlds, yet the questions that shaped their work often intersected. Some approached the city through identity, symbolism, and historical continuity, seeking to ground the built environment in cultural memory. Others interpreted it through engineering precision, ecological systems, or radical experimentation, expanding what architecture could be and how it could be experienced. Their work spans contexts as diverse as postwar Britain, rapidly urbanizing China, Central European avant-gardes, and the evolving cultural institutions of Berlin and New York. Together, they form a spectrum of responses that defined, and continue to define, architectural culture over the last half-century, revealing the multiplicity of ways in which architecture can engage with society, technology, and the environment.

+ 33

Ubani — Tbilisi Cityscape Research Center has released "Kala," the first publication in its new Guide to Tbilisi Districts series, offering an in-depth look at one of the Georgian capital's oldest urban areas. As a non-profit organization dedicated to researching and promoting Tbilisi's architectural heritage and landscape, Ubani develops public programs, exhibitions, workshops, and events aimed at making the city's built environment more widely understood. This inaugural guidebook continues that broader mission, situating Kala within the long-term evolution of Tbilisi's urban fabric.

+ 9