The MonacoPavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka explores the fusion of Mediterranean and Japanese landscapes, creating a unique cultural dialogue through architecture and landscape design. The pavilion's design, centered around a harmonious blend of Mediterranean and Japanese garden elements, embodies Monaco's global initiatives and its commitment to environmental stewardship. Reflecting the Expo's theme, "Take Care of Wonder," the pavilion invites visitors to experience a captivating and serene environment that celebrates both nature and culture.
Delving into the realm of unbuilt architectural projects by renowned offices offers a peak into the design principles and ethos of the studios. The curated list of unbuilt projects submitted by established architecture practices has the potential to reveal new perspectives on the socio-cultural and environmental factors shaping contemporary architecture. These designs often respond to complex challenges such as sustainability, urbanization, and cultural preservation, reflecting architects' efforts to navigate and contribute meaningfully to the built environment.
Within this curated selection, one standout project is Rafael Viñoly Architects' Médano El Pinar, marking the late architect's last contribution to the architectural landscape. Other projects such as Aedas' Ellinikon Commercial Hub explore the opportunities of new developments, such as the disused airport transformed into Europe's largest coastal park in the periphery of Athens, while others are highlighting natural landscapes or offering spaces for creative and innovative programs. Featuring internationally recognized offices like SOM, Kohn Pedersen Fox, Gensler, or GAD Architecture, the selection showcases the unrealized concepts and architectural experimentations of renowned offices.
The Sacred Grove Burning Man Temple / DIALOG. Image Courtesy of DIALOG
In the world of architecture, competitions serve as catalysts for innovation and creativity. By promoting the architectural community to contemplate a given theme and intervene in well-defined spaces, they provide some of the best platforms for experimentation, allowing architects and designers to explore new concepts, challenge conventions, and address pressing societal needs, all while comparing the wide variety of emerging solutions. This week's curated roundup gathers examples of worldwide competition proposals submitted by the ArchDaily Community.
The selected projects vary in size and program, from world-renowned competitions such as those hosted for the national pavilions at the next World Expo in Osaka, or the Temple at the center of Black Rock City at Burning Man, to local interventions that highlight unique spaces such as the creative reimagining of a popular market space in the historic center of Sibiu, Romania, or the subtle presence of a villa in the Mediterranean wilderness.
Located 270km north of Dakar, the capital of Senegal, and near the border with Mauritania, is the Island of Saint-Louis. It is a prominent colonial city in West Africa, known for its blend of Mediterranean architecture with a tropical climate. Saint-Louis was founded by the French Colony in 1659 as its first trading post on the Atlantic coast of Africa. It later became the capital of French West Africa (AOF) and Senegal. However, it lost this status in 1902, which led to its economic decline.
This complex history has made Saint-Louis a melting point for different layers of architecture and urbanism. The island showcases a grid urban form with double-storey villas, which is typical of 19th-century French colonial urbanism. Additionally, it features tropical courtyards, shaded balconies, 1920s art déco houses, and early '30s modern civic buildings. However, due to its economic and infrastructural isolation, this architecture and urban heritage have continuously degraded. Therefore, it seeks new interventions for the conservation, restoration, and re-adaptation of the city.
"The details are not the details. They make the design." – Charles Eames. Creating attractive spaces that anticipate the needs of users relies on several factors: scale, circulation, functionality, and comfort. However, the past few decades have proved that the visual appeal of a project is also greatly important, and can make or break the interior space. In this interior focus, we will explore the aesthetic side of interior design, looking at popular styles across the world and how architects and designers use elements such as color, furniture, accessories, and finishes to define their spatial identity.
With an on-going digital and physical evolution, the 5th Istanbul Design Biennialtook a new approach. “Rather than focusing on the presentation of final results in a compressed period of time and space”, the global circumstances created the opportunity to present new projects on a longer period of time and in expanded spaces, offering not an exhibition but “a digital and research program with a series of permanent interventions in the city.”
Tour extraordinary historic homes as Pasadena Heritage presents Wallace Neff, Master Architect.
The Dr. Allan B. Kavanel House was commissioned by Dr. Kavanel from Chicago in 1921. It incorporates fine Mediterranean details that were popular during the Golden Age of Southern California architecture.
The Morse & Gates (Mrs. Ethel Guthrie) House was commissioned in 1925 by the Morse and Gates Company, a real estate, insurance and building firm. The house is a beautifully simple Spanish Colonial revival home typical of Neff's designs.
The Mr. and Mrs. Edwin D. Neff House is a Tuscan style villa designed for Neff's parents in 1927. The interior
Given a chance to realize the architect’s dream of creating his own utopian city from a blank slate, French architect Jean Balladur was inspired by lost civilizations of the past. His designs recall the architecture of grand Mayan ruins with some added flair from the 1960s, all in the form of a seaside resort village in southern France, La Grande Motte. Balladur devoted nearly 30 years to his life’s work, which today welcomes over 2 million tourists annually.
Over the following weeks we will be sharing a selection of unrealized student projects, alongside realized schemes by practices who explore representational techniques, in collaboration with KooZA/rch. The aim is "to explore the role of the architectural drawing as a tool for communication" and, in the process, provoke a conversation about the contemporary use, format, and role of drawing.
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