The Un-habitat or the United Nations agency for human settlements and sustainable urban development, whose primary focus is to deal with the challenges of rapid urbanization, has been developing innovative approaches in the urban design field, in order to encourage the active participation especially of children, women and underprivileged individuals.

The House Challenge 2019 has released the results of this year’s competition that gathered entries from all over the world. With a theme focusing on the Desert House, applicants designed new and original concepts for temporary housing in this harsh environment.

Goldman Sachs has released a report on the effects of climate change on cities across the world. The study explored the major changes that will transform the planet and highlighted several metropolises that will be at risk of flooding.

Kjellander Sjöberg, one of the leading architectural practices in Scandinavia, in collaboration with GHB Landskabsarkitekter, Mogens A. Morgen, Realise and Tyréns, was selected to design a strategic development plan for Faaborg. The coastal town in southern Denmark is facing many challenges like a high risk of flooding and an important decrease in its population.

+ 11

The Hengyang authorities selected RMJM Shanghai to design the Xiangjiang Gate in the province of Hunan in China. Winner of the design competition, the proposal of the architectural bureau integrates “the history and culture of the place with the new master plan for the new city”.

Chiza Architecture Bureau founded by Chingiz Agharzayev and Zaki Jabiyev, in Azerbaijan has developed a conceptual proposal for a multifunctional building in Baku, located in close proximity to the Heydar Aliyev Center and Baku Congress Hall.

+ 5

The world’s greenest football stadium, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects will be built in Gloucestershire, England after planning permissions were finally granted by the local council.

Part of a bigger vision and a master plan by Peter Zumthor, Studio Akkerhuis’ new 55.000 square meter project in Leiden’s 19th-century flour mill complex is under construction. With a landscape by Piet Oudolf and Lola, the development that recently won the "Future Project - Commercial Mixed Use” at WAF, will include shops, galleries, apartments, workspaces, a hotel, and a spa.

+ 30

Although cities are supposed to be built for everyone, they are in most of the time, thought, planned and designed by men: “Cities are supposed to be built for all of us, but they aren't built by all of us.”

With basic different needs, men and women expect different outcomes from their urban surroundings. A city should be able to fulfill everyone’s essentials. Lately, the topic that has everyone's attention revolves around cities designed by women. With a female mayor onboard and a feminist agenda, for the past four years, Barcelona has been undergoing major transformations on this subject.

The municipality of Patras in Greece launched a competition for the design of the Crematorium, a highly debated subject in the Orthodox Greek context. The winning scheme was imagined by architects Stelios Andrikopoulos, Konstantinos Grivas, and Alexandra Stratou.

+ 8

City of the Future is a bi-weekly podcast from Sidewalk Labs that explores ideas and innovations that will transform cities.

In the final episode of season 2, hosts Eric Jaffe and Vanessa Quirk discuss the past, present, and future of responsive architecture with Sidewalk Labs’ director of public realm Jesse Shapins, engineer and microclimate expert Goncalo Pedro, Bubbletecture author Sharon Francis, and renowned architect Liz Diller of Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

Once completed, the Dubai Municipality will become the world’s largest 3D printed building, standing tall at 9.5 meters with an area of 640 square meters. Executed by Apis Cor, a U.S.-based company, the structure was directly built on-site.

+ 32

DMDmodular is manufacturing modules for the world's tallest modular hotel, in the Big Apple. The modular elements of the 26-story AC Marriott New York NoMad, designed by Danny Forster & Architecture, are produced in Skawina, Poland and shipped to the United States.

Wafai Architecture and Fragomeli+partners, two architecture practices based in Torino, Italy have imagined an Islamic cultural center in the Piedmont area. The project features a mosque and a center for cultural and social activities, a space that promotes constructive dialogues.

+ 2

Quatre Caps, a group of architects from Spain visualized in a series of images, the unbuilt works of Fernando Higueras. In fact, the pictures portray the buildings in their context, as if they were built back when they were first conceived.

+ 9

The National Architectural Competition for the Research, Rescue, and Rehabilitation Center for the Sea Turtles in Iztuzu Beach, organized by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanisation of Turkey, selects KÂAT Architects to design the environmentally sensitive facility.

+ 4

Krft, a young architecture studio based in Amsterdam, was selected as the winner of the Brighton College competition, for the new performance arts building. Finalists included international firms Haworth Tompkins, Sauerbruch Hutton, Mecanoo, and Morphosis.