Street view of Surat Diamond Bourse from southeast showing fin walls, Diamond Club, and four towers.
  • Surat Diamond Bourse

Passive strategies slash energy use at the world’s largest office building

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.
Exterior of Singapore Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai showing Singapore sign and entry path through garden.
  • Singapore Pavilion, Expo 2020, Dubai

WOHA’s Singapore Pavilion created a self-sustaining oasis in Dubai

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

Snøhetta models an energy-positive future for workplaces in Norway

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.
  • Toyota Woven City

Toyota envisions world’s first living laboratory for mobility innovations

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

BIG’s CopenHill integrates recreational space with energy infrastructure

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, SkellefteÃ¥

One of world’s tallest timber buildings is carbon-negative

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 Paris-Saclay University campus

Low-cost flexible university campus hub serves as urban shelf close to Paris

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.
  • Post-War Collective

A library in Sri Lanka offers hope to a community after a protracted civil war

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

Framework broke new ground with mass timber high-rise in Portland

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: Legacy Restored in Niger

A derelict mosque in Niger is revived into a hub for the community

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

Platforms for Life is a modular system for net-zero affordable housing

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.
  • Microlibrary Fibonacci

SHAU’s microlibrary promotes reading and social engagement in Bandung park

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

WOHA’s floating university campus integrates ecology and social space

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.
  • Buoyant Housing in Brazil

Community housing that floats on a river in the Amazon

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

A modular, incremental model for urban housing

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

Creating fountains of hope in Medellín through urban intervention

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.
  • Liyumen Waterway Park

Turenscape uses nature-based scheme to turn grey riverbanks green

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.
  • Arboreal Platform

A breathing lab as a symbol of sustainable rainforest management

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.
  • Shajing Ancient Fair

‘Acupuncture therapy’ saves Shenzhen’s district from demolition

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.
  • Green Lungs Hanoi

Hanoi breathes new life into eroded island landscape

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.
  • OSTIM Eco-Park Technology Development Center

Ankara’s Eco-Techno Park is a green oasis for business

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

A self-sustainable sanctuary on the outskirts of Chicago

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.
  • BillionBricks home

Self-financing houses combat homelessness and carbon emissions

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.
Night view of Krishi Bhawan's signature brick facade and adjacent forecourt with left and right lily ponds framing the entrance to the main veranda
  • Krushi Bhawan

Studio Lotus sets the bar for sustainable vernacular design

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.
  • Puyangjiang River Corridor

Turenscape restores river ecosystem and creates immersive landscape

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.