Architects carefully calibrate their relationship to the earth, adjusting foundations to soil, groundwater, climate, risk, and culture. Driven timber piles, rammed-earth platforms, and poured concrete slabs are each a response to a specific set of ground conditions, and each shapes the architecture that rises from it. The way a building meets the earth determines its durability and its limits because foundations are among the most consequential design choices an architect makes.

The city of Rotterdam sits approximately one meter below sea level, an organizing condition that shapes daily life in the Netherlands' second-largest city and is a growing preoccupation amid unstable coastal conditions. The city occupies the delta of the Rhine and Maas rivers, a landscape that was never naturally dry but has been kept functional through centuries of hydraulic intervention. The water boards in this region are among the oldest democratic institutions in the world, created in the thirteenth century to manage shared water drainage and still operating today as elected bodies with technical capacity. As sea levels rise and rainfall across Northern Europe grows less predictable and more extreme, Rotterdam faces a significantly increased risk of coastal storm surges and urban flooding driven by overwhelmed drainage infrastructure.

• architects: L. McComber
• Location: Cap-à-l'Aigle, Canada
• Project Year: 2023
• Photographs: Ulysse Lemerise / OSA images
• Area: 2800.0 ft2

From April 21 to 26, the 64th edition of Salone del Mobile.Milano returns to Rho Fiera Milano, bringing together over 1,900 exhibitors across more than 169,000 square meters of sold-out exhibition space. Yet beyond its scale, the 2026 edition signals a more structural shift through collaborations with figures such as Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten (OMA) and Formafantasma, the Salone continues to reposition itself as an evolving cultural infrastructure rather than a conventional trade fair. This year introduces new curatorial and strategic layers, most notably the preview phase of Salone Contract and the debut of Salone Raritas, alongside immersive installations and exhibitions, while the Salone's footprint across Milan grows further through city-wide interventions during Milan Design Week.

• architects: Bjarke Ingels Group
• Location: Sagishima, Setouchi, Japan
• Photographs: Kenta Hasegawa
• Area: 2350.0 m2

"Map the New World" is the motto of Project PLATEAU, led by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), to develop and expand access to 3D models representing the diversity of cities across the country. Japan comprises a total of 744 cities, including 14 with populations exceeding one million, 190 with between 100,000 and one million inhabitants, and 540 with populations between 10,000 and 100,000. To date, 3D models of more than 250 cities have been made available as open data through the country's public G-Spatial Information Center, and can also be accessed via an online browser viewer. According to public authorities, the project aims to strengthen urban resilience by providing society with new tools to address local challenges. This involves not only urban space modeling but also collaboration with local governments, private companies, and technology communities. The project also includes a digital reconstruction of the recently closed Osaka World Expo site.

The well-known phrase "man is what he eats" (Der Mensch ist, was er isst), by Ludwig Feuerbach, asserts that the physical, mental, and even moral constitution of human beings is directly linked to what they consume. Today, this idea is widely internalized, with growing awareness around food, nutrition, and the impact of what we ingest on our bodies. Yet, this same level of awareness doesn't extend to the environments we inhabit, where materials continue to be treated as technical decisions rather than active agents in the relationship between body and space. Considering that a large portion of the global population spends around 90% of their time indoors, it is rarely discussed what actually composes these spaces at their most fundamental level: materials. Walls, floors, and finishes are often approached as technical or aesthetic choices, when in reality they can function as continuous sources of exposure to potentially harmful substances.

• architects: Riegler Riewe Architekten
• Location: Graz, Austria
• Project Year: 2023
• Photographs: David Schreyer
• Photographs: Paolo Rosselli
• Photographs: Helmut Pierer
• Area: 105.148 m2

• architects: Tristan Burfield
• Location: Aireys Inlet, Victoria, Australia
• Project Year: 2025
• Photographs: Tasha Tylee
• Area: 58.0 m2

In the city, aesthetics are not measured by the height of towers or the width of roads, but by their ability to evoke meaning within space. From this perspective, the Mujassam Watan initiative emerges as more than a mere artistic endeavor. It involves a deliberate attempt to redefine the relationship between people and place, between material memory and imagined identity. In the city of Khobar, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia—where urban modernity intersects with rapid social transformation—this initiative raises the question: How can a sculpture become an open text, one that is both visually read and experientially felt?

• architects: Shanghai ZF Architectural Design
• Location: Pudong District, Shanghai, China
• Project Year: 2024
• Photographs: Li Wei
• Area: 79300.0 m2

• architects: Arcke
• Location: Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
• Project Year: 2025
• Photographs: Christopher Frederick Jones

• architects: Estúdio Vinicius Macêdo
• architects: Novais Arquitetura
• Location: Aquiraz, Brasil
• Project Year: 2025
• Photographs: Felipe Petrovsky
• Area: 1185.0 m2

• architects: Bakyta architekti
• Location: Bernolákovo, Slovakia
• Project Year: 2024
• Photographs: Matej Hakár
• Area: 3986.0 m2

• architects: LUO Architects
• Location: Oulu, Finland
• Project Year: 2023
• Photographs: Kalle Kouhia
• Area: 203.0 m2

At a time when satellites orbit the planet, submarine cables sustain the global flow of data, and algorithms organize everyday life, a question emerges within architecture: at what scale are we actually designing today?

While design was once primarily shaped by local or regional conditions, it is now entangled in chains that begin with resource extraction, pass through industrial systems, and extend across planetary infrastructures that are often invisible, yet operate continuously and interdependently.

Within this shift, architecture begins to act as a mediator of a much larger field: the technosphere.

• architects: The Purple Ink Studio
• Location: Bengaluru, India
• Project Year: 2026
• Photographs: Saurabh Suryan
• Photographs: Stories of Kunju, Advait Vinod
• Area: 11000.0 m2

The global offsite construction market—encompassing modular, precast concrete, and hybrid prefabricated systems—was valued at USD 172 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 225.7 billion by 2030 (CAGR 4.9–8%). In the UAE, government targets call for 25–30% offsite content in public projects by 2030; the UK currently leads globally, with 15–20% of housing using offsite solutions. Offsite manufacturing is increasingly promoted as the sustainable future of construction, with benefits including reduced waste, accelerated delivery, and improved quality control. Sustainability is not defined by how quickly a building is assembled. It is defined by how long it performs.

Observed annually on April 7, World Health Organization's World Health Day draws attention to global health priorities while situating them within broader environmental and societal contexts. Established following the first World Health Assembly in 1948 and observed since 1950, the day has evolved into a platform for addressing the shifting conditions that shape health, from local systems of care to planetary-scale challenges. The 2026 edition, held under the theme "Together for health. Stand with science," calls for renewed engagement with scientific knowledge as a basis for collective action. The year-long campaign emphasizes collaboration in protecting the health of people, animals, plants, and the planet, foregrounding the One Health approach as a framework for understanding their interdependence.