Sixteen years ago, we launched the ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards with a simple yet powerful idea: to let our readers choose their favorite buildings from our ever-growing library of projects. Thanks to your engagement, this award has grown into one of the most democratic and influential recognitions in architecture. Year after year, your collective insight has highlighted architectural excellence across cultures, economies, and landscapes worldwide.
This year was no exception. The 75 finalists have already showcased an outstanding range of spatial solutions, reflecting the power of collective intelligence in crafting a snapshot of today's most compelling architecture. Now, it's time to unveil the winners.
The ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards is brought to you thanks to Dornbracht, renowned for leading designs for architecture, which can be found internationally in bathrooms and kitchens.
THE WINNERS
Best Applied Products
PETS & HUMAN - Positive House / Studio ruizvelazquez (Spain)
Dissolving the interior limits and modeling the structures, subjecting them to movement and expanding perspectives without angles, maintaining the visual continuity of the set, as it happend in the natural world, where everything flows in a subtle harmony, almost magically balanced, which should not be disrupted because everything has a good reason being and a purpose.
Commercial Architecture
COOSH Boutique Store / Sivak+Partners Studio (Ukraine)
COOSH is distinguished by its Scandinavian, minimalist style with accent details so we created a space that represents the same approach by not only being a comfortable store but also focusing a visitor's attention on surfaces, materials, and nuances.
Cultural Architecture
Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian / Kengo Kuma & Associates + OODA + VDLA (Portugal)
The building's redesign by Kuma draws from the Engawa, a sheltered walkway typical of Japanese dwellings, considered neither totally inside nor outside. Incorporating this typology, the architecture has been integrated into the surrounding gardens of the Gulbenkian Foundation.
Educational Architecture
Duling Educational and Cultural Centre / Elisabeth Lee (China)
Our design principle, grounded in sustainability and reverence for tradition, sought to transform a village beset by challenges into an environment offering a safe space in which children could play and learn, and a place for villagers to meet and connect.
Healthcare Architecture
Burtinle District Hospital / Architectural Pioneering Consultants (Somalia)
The design adopted the centuries-old principle of the wind catcher — a natural form of air conditioning that requires no additional source of power than the wind. The very hot local climate, with temperatures exceeding 35°C on the one hand, and strict hygienic requirements of the medical procedures made it imperative to provide a controlled level of indoor climate to the key hospital spaces.
Hospitality Architecture
The Elysée Montmartre Hotel / Policrónica (France)
Previously abandoned, the 850-square-meter space has been revitalized to reflect the architects' distinctive aesthetic, featuring a monochromatic interior defined by architectural woodwork and custom wooden furnishings.
Houses
Separo House / HYPERTEXT ARCHITECTURE STUDIO (Iran)
Considering that the project is located on the last plot of the village and adjacent to the western mountains, we chose adobe as the primary material in a color that matches the village context and surrounding mountains. This choice allows residents to perceive a harmonious image with the context at the end of the passage.
Housing
Fazenda Canuanã School Staff Village / Rosenbaum + Terra e Tuma Arquitetos Associados (Brazil)
The residences were designed to have thermal comfort without the use of artificial air conditioning and to meet the local climatic conditions, which are hot throughout the year, intense exposure to sunlight, winds that carry dust, and torrential rains.
Industrial Architecture
Waste To Energy Campus / INI Design Studio (India)
Water conservation and landscaping is a key focus. Unlike routine garbage collection landfills, which are shunned due to stench and toxicity, here citizens benefit from a green social landscape and fresh air. Orchards, green hedge walls, water bodies, and misting systems all guide cool breeze patterns, altering the microclimate.
Interior Architecture
Camel Step Coffee Roasters Shop / Faris Alosaimi (Saudi Arabia)
The indoor area, designed to resemble an outdoor space, adds a sense of openness and connection to nature, while the large stone fireplace adds warmth and intimacy.
Offices
JAX-MOC Offices / BRICKLAB (Saudi Arabia)
Office quarters are organized around three large planters along the spine to echo the micro-environments of the wadi. A small grove of palms is connected to a rainwater collection channel that extends across the park and down to the wadi to further highlight the narrative of the natural landscape.
Public & Landscape Architecture
Chaki Wasi, Artisanal Center of the Shalalá Community / La Cabina de la Curiosidad (Ecuador)
This is a construction based on communal logic; those in charge rotated weekly. Permanent mingas (collective work parties) were held with the participation of women, men, and youth from the community. Interesting links were formed with neighboring communities to obtain wood and straw. Everything was built by hand, with minimal tools, and the structural modules were raised and placed with everyone's strength, thanks to ropes and collective unity.
Religious Architecture
Ballie Mosque / Commonsense Studio (Albania)
At the core of the mosque's design philosophy lies a nuanced understanding of spatial experience and human-creator connection. Using geometry, an inexhaustible tool in Islamic art and architecture, the mosque's most distinctive features—its facades, domes, and minarets—authentically come to life while responding to the strong context.
Small Scale & Installations
Kanna Pavillion / Laure Friès Architecture (France)
Our intention is to offer anglers at the Marlens water body the possibility to fish in the shelter and set back from other visitors. To maintain an openness to the landscape, the triangular structure widens as one approaches the water.
Sports Architecture
Ferdinand E. Marcos Stadium / WTA Architecture and Design Studio (Philippines)
The minimalist and distinct geometry of an open bowl is defined by the corrugated PVC exterior wall and canopy that reflects the corrugated metal roofs of most local homes. This is carried by clean-cut curving steel columns that bend and narrow into the canopy rafters.
Once again, thank you for being a part of the ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards. Your participation and support have been invaluable to its success, and we truly appreciate your commitment to celebrating architectural excellence worldwide.
