Surat Diamond Bourse in India’s Gujarat state hosts the most sizeable community of diamond workers on the planet. The vast office building designed by Morphogenesis boasts a strong agenda for reducing energy consumption.
At Expo 2020 Dubai, WOHA’s Singapore Pavilion was a prototype for a lush and sustainable built environment of the future. This three-dimensional tropical garden functioned as a self-sustaining ecosystem.
Powerhouse Telemark in Porsgrunn is one of a series of energy-positive office buildings designed by Snøhetta that sets new standards for low energy consumption and surplus energy production.
Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and Toyota Motor Corporation joined hands in 2020 to create a carbon-neutral smart city with an innovative multi-modal mobility system in Susono, Japan.
CopenHill is a waste-to-energy power plant by Bjarke Ingels Group that doubles up as an urban landmark. It serves as a recreational space for Copenhageners and a habitat for flora and fauna in the region.
Sara kulturhus is a multifunctional centre with cultural facilities and an attached hotel in Skellefteå, Sweden, and one of the tallest timber structures in the world that is also carbon-negative.
Lieu de vie is a multifunctional public facility on the new university campus of Paris-Saclay, France. This low-cost building is designed to encourage interactions of diverse communities living near one another, but rarely meeting.
The Post-War Collective project, a community library in Ambepussa (Sri Lanka), aims to reintegrate former soldiers into the civilian workforce after 25 years of conflict, teaching them construction skills on-site.
Framework was one of the first tall buildings designed in timber to receive approval for construction in the USA. The project by LEVER Architecture resolved many technical challenges associated with the material.
Hikma religious and secular complex is a community node in Dandaji, Niger, juxtaposing a new mosque next to its predecessor, now retrofitted into a library. The two are linked by inclusive public spaces.
Platforms for Life is an innovative design-to-delivery system that tackles pressing issues in the North American housing sector — cost, performance, urban sprawl — while producing accessible and high-quality homes.
The open-sided Microlibrary Fibonacci appears like an ‘urban ruin’ in a public park, as if reclaimed by nature, a visual metaphor both playful and attractive in a city short on public amenities for the youth.
BRAC University’s new inner-city campus aims to transform a polluted lake in Bangladesh’s capital into a bio-retention pond surrounded by accessible urban green spaces to unite local communities.
Vernacular forms and local materials set apart Buoyant Housing, a residential complex for a low-income coastal community in Manaus, Brazil, currently living in perilous and unsafe conditions.
Housing Infill is a dwelling prototype with a compact, flexible and adaptable construction model proposed for the city of Córdoba in Argentina where housing demand is constantly challenged by the scarcity and high cost of land.
UVA de La Imaginación is one of 20 obsolete water reservoirs turned into parks by Colectivo 720 in Medellín, Colombia. The goal is to create quality public amenities in low-income neighbourhoods grappling with crime.
The Liyumen Waterway Park is a pilot project in Shenzen (Guangdong, China) that aims to transform a polluted greywater channel into a popular community resource by banking on symbiotic nature-based solutions.
FUNDECOR, a non-governmental outfit overseeing the sustainable development and management of Costa Rica’s rainforests since 1989, is looking to move into its new signature headquarters in Puerto Viejo de Sarapiquí.
To preserve the cultural heritage of the largest surviving historical district in Shenzhen (China), ARCity Office has drawn on a model of ‘acupuncture therapy’ to rejuvenate a 70-kilometre stretch along the Longjin River.
ODDO Architects is spearheading an ambitious project to restore part of the subtropical alluvial forests of Hanoi’s Bãi Giữa island, boost air quality and give the battered site a new lease on life.
Eco-Techno Park is a groundbreaking hub for sustainable research and technological innovation set in a biophilic environment within the OSTIM Industrial Zone, a bustling industrial precinct in Ankara (Turkey).
House as Garden in Illinois is a residential prototype for Chicago’s South Side (USA). It is a partnership initiative between Michael Sorkin Studio and the non-profit organisation Blacks in Green.
A carbon-negative community of affordable homes is underway in the Philippines. Conceived by BillionBricks, it will house 125 homeless families and function as a 2.5 MW solar power plant simultaneously.
Krushi Bhawan is a government complex in Bhubaneswar (Odisha, India) that defies the expectations of an office building morphology by letting the state’s rich cultural heritage seep through its site.
Beijing firm Turenscape has restored the heavily polluted Puyangjiang River in eastern China and turned its banks into an alluring park, crisscrossed by an elevated network of colourful sinuous boardwalks.
Punggol Digital District (PDD) is a large business park developed in the northeast part of Singapore in which architecture, nature and are all integrated assets of the masterplan.
