Industry News

Meet the Judges: Matteo Bianchi
Each week we’ll interview one of the members of our high-profile judging panel for the World Interior News (WIN) Awards 2023, which includes over 50 of the biggest and best names in the industry.

Opinion: How can architects meaningfully contribute to net zero?
Co-founder of Hong Kong based design practice Lead8 Simon Chua has extensive experience in international design projects with a focus on transport and entertainment. Here he considers what decarbonisation means for architects today.

Opinion: How to spot greenwashing and make truly sustainable choices for your interiors projects
Founder and CEO of Bali based eco-friendly furniture company Unalome Interior, Ako Ardalan offers his tips on how to unmask greenwashing.

Meet the Judges: Lichen Ding
Each week we’ll interview one of the members of our high-profile judging panel for the World Interiors News (WIN) Awards 2023, which includes over 50 of the biggest and best names in the industry.

Metaverse Architecture Biennale (MAB), "Presence of the Future", to take place next month
Fancy visiting an architecture festival inspired by the Venice Biennale from the comfort of your desk? The Metaverse Architecture Biennale is taking place from September 21-24.

Opinion: Why architects don't need to be afraid of AI
Lisa Hinderdael, co-founder and creative director of London based studio HagenHinderdael, explains why she believes taking a collaborative approach to Artificial Intelligence can become an invaluable and empowering tool that raises the quality of designers' work.

Meet the Judges: Yasmin Shariff
Each week we’ll interview one of the members of our high-profile judging panel for the World Architecture News (WAN) Awards 2023, which includes over 50 of the biggest and best names in the industry.

Opinion: How can architects influence carbon-intensive supply chains?
Wilf Meynell, Director of London based Studio Bark Architects, on the urgent need for the built environment industry to use more sustainable materials such as timber.

Meet the Judges: Sofia Hagen
Each week we’ll interview one of the members of our high-profile judging panel for the World Architecture News (WAN) Awards 2023, which includes over 50 of the biggest and best names in the industry.

Seattle Architecture Firm Unveil Collaborative Design Hub
The Shop -a cutting edge space in which designers can share ideas - has been unveiled by LMN Architects in Seattle, USA.

Labour shortages and rising cost of materials mean architects must design smarter
Opinion piece from Saghir Hussain, Director of Create It Studios, based in Manchester, UK.

One to Watch: Pre-fab dome launched by andblack design studio
Darwin Bucky is a versatile black box that can be used as an exhibition gallery, town hall, performance arena, bar or nightclub.

Meet the Judges: Gary A. Li
Each week we’ll interview one of the members of our high-profile judging panel for the World Architecture News (WAN) Awards 2023, which includes over 50 of the biggest and best names in the industry.

Recycled bricks project launched by Canadian Architecture non-profit
Old bricks are being given a new lease of life in Montreal, Canada, thanks to an initiative launched by Architecture Without Borders Quebec, alongside masonry contractors Maçonnerie Gratton.

Construction needs an image makeover to attract more recruits
Construction is the fourth largest employer in the UK outside of the public sector, but perceptions are outdated says survey

£1 mn boost for planning authorities to create better neighbourhoods
Social enterprise Public Practice will use new funds to help place private sector executives into government roles

NBBJ becomes carbon neutral certified and commits to net zero carbon by 2050
The milestone makes the international architecture, planning and design firm one of the largest in the industry to be carbon neutral certified

Gingerbread City returns to London with ‘nature in the city’ theme
Museum of Architecture’s Gingerbread City 2021 call out to architects, landscape architects and engineers: ‘nature in the city’ plots go on sale

CLIMATESCOUT: CallisonRTKL launch new open source platform
The free climate analysis and educational platform is accessible to all and will help users create more sustainable buildings

Converting offices to residential buildings in a post covid world and best practice when working in an unfamiliar environment
Nancy Ruddy joins the World Build podcast to talk about how she set up her practice, working in Saudi Arabia and India and the future of cities post covid

Global collective of architects and designers launch International Design Alliance Network
A group of architects, designers, planners and strategists have created the International Design Alliance (‘IDeA’) Network, aiming to better serve clients by harnessing shared philosophies and expertise

London’s National Gallery announces shortlisted design teams for NG200 plans
Six design teams have been listed as potential partners to work with the gallery on series of capital projects to mark its bicentenary

Earth Day 2021 - most read sustainable stories from 2021 so far
Earth Day takes place on the 22nd April every year, and to celebrate we are sharing our most read projects with sustainability at their core

Designing healthcare for neurodiversity, staff respite and a post covid world
Brenda Smith, Healthcare Practice Leader for the New York studio of Perkins&Will, and former nurse talks about the new Medical University of South Carolina Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital, how the pandemic has impacted healthcare design and how her experience as a former nurse helped shape her career

Harvard University Graduate School of Design shortlists four architects for 2021
Now in its ninth cycle, the Wheelwright Prize supports innovative design research, crossing both cultural and architectural boundaries, with a $100,000 grant intended to support two years of study

How to create a culture of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in your architectural practice
Perkins&Will and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) have both released best practice guidelines for creating and implementing comprehensive diversity programs

Studio L, London founder’s interior design predictions for 2021
Candy Floss colours and pastels, though mixed with slightly more saturated and acidic hues, are predicted to make bigger impacts in design this year

Global challenges, post-covid trends and how to write a perfect awards entry
Justin Lau and Maggie Mullan join the World Build Podcast to talk about the global challenges architects and interior designers are facing due to Covid-19, the trends they expect to see in the next five years and what they would like to see, as judges, in this year’s WIN Awards and WAN Awards

Woods Bagot open studio in Auckland NZ
The firm have relocated its Christchurch office to premises in Britomart, in the heart of the harbour city

Buro Happold pledges to be a net-zero carbon organisation in it’s Global Sustainability Report
Firm takes the to lead on environmental issues in ambitious January 2021 Global Sustainability Report

Iberostar aims for carbon neutrality in hotel operations by 2030
Iberostar announced its 2020 agenda roadmap for reaching carbon neutrality through nature-based solutions by 2030, to offset at least 75% of emissions by protecting nature in its destinations

Preventing coronavirus in workplaces, WELL Platinum certification and support from lemons
Natasha Bonugli and Tania Adir talk about what’s being done to protect people from coronavirus in global workplace interiors, how advances in technology will make for safer work environments, the challenges faced when upgrading an older building to WELL Platinum certification and finally how lemons can help with concentration

Canada’s post-covid condos with mindfulness at their core
Designed by Revery Architecture, The Butterfly is a new condo building in Vancouver which presents a bold, new approach to high-rise living by introducing shared outdoor garden spaces, and semi-private gardens, on each level to encourage social interactions among residents while reconnecting them with nature

Design Advocates expand pro bono design service mission for NY’s communities
Design Advocates is adapting their spaces and operations for reopening, and creating strategies to ensure safe and comfortable continuing operation to help local businesses, non-profits and institutions respond to the crisis

MVRDV’s new Berlin office opening celebrated with an exhibition
MVRDV have launched a new exhibition, MVRDV Haus Berlin, at the Architektur Galerie Berlin, celebrating almost 30 years’ worth of work in Germany

Norman Foster addresses first United Nations Forum of Mayors
Foster + Partner’s founder gave the opening keynote to the first UN Forum of Mayors, where mayors presented their experience dealing with the COVID-19 health emergency and other challenges their cities are facing

Reshaping Architecture in a challenging world
A conversation about architecture, climate change and the coronavirus

Hotel design and Covid-19
This WIN Awards 2020 content session looks at how hotel design could be affected by Covid-19

Covid-19: the potential impact on commercial real estate and sustainable design
This WIN Awards 2020 content session looks at the future of design

EDSA announce new leadership positions and enhanced services
The promotion of B. Scott LaMont to Chief Executive Officer and Eric B. Propes as Chief Operating Officer comes as EDSA celebrates its 60th anniversary

Chloe Rokelle’s sustainable smart technological response post COVID-19
Living Future livens public spaces with captivating aesthetics and makes sustainable handwashing inviting, an important first step toward increasing public hygiene in the post pandemic world

Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel merges companies and boost benefits
The merger of Citterio-Viel & Partners Interiors S.r.l. into Citterio-Viel & Partners S.r.l. positions them together at first place among Italy based architecture and design firms for 2019 earnings

LWK + PARTNERS new Director shares four planning and urban design strategies
Recently appointed Director at Gregory Leong will oversee the Planning & Urban Design Team

Unispace appoint new global Chief Executive and Chief Revenue Officer
New global CEO Steven Quick and Chief Revenue Officer Michael Casolo aim to guide the business and clients out of COVID-19 and beyond

One of the largest US neighbourhood-scale sustainability plans launched
The Battery Park City Sustainability Plan is a comprehensive pathway of strategies, goals, and specific actions to achieve progressive sustainability targets over the next decade to make NY State carbon neutral by 2050

Enterprise Hub: first of its kind in South Africa’s Lesotho
The annual fundraising initiative for rise international (Relationships Inspiring Social Enterprise) aim to raise $100,000 to design and build the hub for unemployed youth

Challenges, support and coronavirus
To mark Black History month in the UK, we spoke to three women about the challenges that come with being both female and black in this sector, the support available in the UK and the US and how the coronavirus pandemic has revealed problems within the built environments of black communities

LWK + PARTNERS expand global footprint with 12th studio in Riyadh
The new LWK + PARTNERS' Saudi Arabian studio will be led by Kerem Cengiz as Managing Director, and Usama Aziz as new Director

Nadel Architecture + Planning complete leadership transition and launch new design studio
Greg Lyon and Patrick Winters are to continue the firm’s evolving legacy and Ryan Weller joins as Director of Retail to manage the firm’s new design studio in LA, US

Founder of Hill West Architects predicts COVID’s lasting effects on NY’s zoning laws
Drawing on more than 30 years of experience, zoning expert David West gives his predictions on how zoning laws will change as a result of COVID-19’s effect on almost every aspect of real estate

Website to support interest in architecture careers
Those Amazing Professions Inc. (TAP) has launched Those Amazing Architects, an innovative website to inform young people about careers in architecture

Pandemic ‘playbook’ published
Dyer Brown’s ‘Future Shift: Work spaces in Transition’ is a post Covid-19 guide for returning to offices and shared work settings

The future’s bright, the future’s Orange Architects
The UK’s JSA and Netherlands based Orange Architects have merged to create a multidisciplinary and internationally operating office for architecture, urban design, interior design and outdoor space

WRNS Studio Partner Pauline Souza elevated to AIA College of Fellows in 2020
The College of Fellows honors members who have made significant contributions to the profession of architecture and society on a national level

Blenheim Estate Land appoints all-female VeloCity team to help shape sustainable future
Award-winning, all-female multidisciplinary team of architects, planners, urbanists and engineers VeloCity - who are pioneering fresh thinking on how to sustain rural villages - appointed by Blenheim Estate Land in Oxfordshire

Spacesmith hires seasoned designer David Roberts to join growing Hudson Office
David Roberts joins architecture and interior design firm Spacesmith as it expands its service in the Upstate New York and the capital region

HOK and Germfree Partner to design mobile Covid-19 Testing Lab
Mobile Covid-19 testing lab for higher education, corporate and manufacturing campuses comes from a partnership between HOK and Germfree

'Age friendly city' revolutionizes post Covid-19 elderly care
Montgomery Sisam Architects develop an innovative new project: Peel Manor Seniors Health and Wellness Village, a redevelopment project aiming to improve design standards for long-term care, infection control plans and resident experience

WTA designs Emergency Quarantine Facilities to help fight Covid-19
WTA Architecture and Design Studio initiative in helping contain the spread of Covid-19 in the Philippines works on building Emergency Quarantine Facilities (EQFs)

Calgary shelter reveals post-Covid-19 future for community-centric design
YWCA in Calgary by Kasian Architecture and Entro opens YW Hub facility – a women’s centre that provides accessible support for at-risk women and their families

LWK + PARTNERS integrating mental and physical wellbeing in design
LWK + PARTNERS says behavioural changes can be induced through environmental design, calling for healthy habits that elevate the quality of life

Health, Covid-19 and the healing power of architecture
An LWK + PARTNERS director who leads the practice’s healthcare and senior living team, shares the trends of healthcare spaces and the role of design in improving people’s experience in complex facilities

How the public realm must adapt to a post-COVID-19 world
Richard Hyams, former Norman Foster architect and founder of astudio, reflects on how the design of public realm spaces needs to change in the wake of COVID-19

Architects retrofit school buses into mobile Covid-19 testing labs in New York
Push to bring testing to vulnerable communities comes from architecture and design firm Perkins and Will, along with its Denmark studio Danish firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects and Arup Group

Film stars, artists, business owners and residents celebrate Black Los Angeles with groundbreaking of Destination Crenshaw
More than 2,000 people gathered along Crenshaw Boulevard to commemorate an unprecedented Black L.A. community-led outdoor cultural experience

Studio Ma design challenges the idea of what an office should look like when we return post-coronavirus
Studio Ma's design for The Phoenix Law Group's new light-filled office in Arizona asks what workplaces of the future should look like, and how should they perform?

Spatial implications of a post-coronavirus world explored in MVRDV NEXT video series
MVRDV’s tech task force announces a new eight-part video series examining post-coronavirus spatial requirements and the impact at a range of scales from the individual person to the planet

Boston’s Leers Weinzapfel Associates wins 2020 AIA COTE Top Ten Award
First cross-laminated timber (CLT) academic structure comes to University of Massachusetts with John W. Olver Design Building

World’s first Master in Business for Architecture and Design launched
IE School of Architecture and Design in Spain becomes the first higher education institution in the world to offer a Master in Business for Architecture and Design

Construction on Santander’s landmark new workplace is underway in Milton Keynes UK
The £150m state-of-the-art campus, called Unity Place and designed by LOM architecture and design, will be a centre for digital banking innovation and will incorporate a range of community facilities

Singapore’s City in a Garden vision: Design Council and University to co-host webinar
Experts will explore the interaction between buildings and the city as ecological system and address questions of concept, planning, design, technology and experience.

Harvard University Graduate School of Design shortlists three architects for 2020 Wheelwright Prize
Now in its eighth cycle, the international competition for early-career architects to pursue innovative, boundary-driving design research announces shortlist

Carbone Interior Design win Luxury Lifestyle award for architecture and interior design
Carbone's interior design specialists have given shape to elegant rooms in 5-star hotels, celebrities’ homes and villas worldwide

The Architectural Team unveil the five main values coming in 2020
The new and in-process works reveal the power of innovative design solutions to make American communities more livable, more exciting, and more resilient in 2020

Harvard GSD appoint Chair of Department of Urban Planning and Design
Rahul Mehrotra has been appointed as Chair of Department of Urban Planning and Design and John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization, effective 1 July 2020

Perkins and Will expand its Canadian practice
Calgary studio are increasing capacity to provide architectural, interiors, and urban design services to clients in Alberta

Perkins and Will's Irish practise
The firm’s expansion into Ireland’s capital reflects its commitment to Dublin and the surrounding region

Russian Architecture Biennale for Young Architects: the only one of its kind
A youthful redevelopment of industrial sites in Tatarstan, Russia

Austrian Architect’s project: highlight at Moscow Museum exhibition
Johannes Baar-Baarenfels presented his project "Sofia Serdika" at the Schusev Architecture Museum in Moscow

The challenges and rewards of adaptive reuse: One Wall Street case study
Lilla Smith, Architecture and Design Director at Macklowe Properties, is overseeing the iconic transformation of One Wall Street. In this analysis she examines the issues for working sustainably and managing the old and new throughout the updating process

Italian architect Vittorio Gregotti dies aged 92
Vittorio Gregotti, an Italian architect who helped design the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics stadium, has died after catching the coronavirus, Italian media have reported

BuroHappold to develop Climate Action and Adaptation Plan for West Hollywood
Sustainability leader tasked to create aggressive, long-term action plan to reduce emissions and mitigate effects of climate change on city’s most vulnerable communities

Saunders Boston Architects shape the future of architecture with sustainable innovation
More than 130 leaders in sustainable innovation gathered at Cambridge-based Saunders Boston Architects’ event, SBA100: Looking Forward in February 2020

SAS’s sWELL investment: supporting architects
SAS International is announced as the first UK supporting partner for the Blue Building Institute

Hanna Harris appointed as Helsinki’s new Chief Design Officer
Licentiate of Social Sciences and Urban Researcher Hanna Harris has been chosen for the position of Chief Design Officer at the City of Helsinki

Acquiring Northern Virginia engineering firm marks LandDesign’s first in 40 years
Its acquisition of BC Consultants demonstrates its continued growth in America, adding 200 plus people and raising its profile in Washington, D.C.

Visionary designs for living on the moon from SOM and ESA
Memorandum of Collaboration signed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and the European Space Agency to advance moon village research

Ebbsfleet Garden City projects: significant carbon-reducing schemes
A range of carbon reduction measures including solar panels, sustainable drainage and electric vehicle charging points will be included in the development

Retrospect: Gábor Csanády’s work spanning 25 years
Seven projects detailing the Hungarian architect’s portfolio

Hassell in Asia joins Architects Declare Climate and Biodiversity Emergency response
Hassell becomes the first and founding Asian member to launch the UK petition to bring the Asian architectural industry together on climate issues

London’s first Timber Technology masters launched in response to growing demand
The course from London Metropolitan University will help tackle the UK housing crisis, as local authorities increasingly establishing a ‘timber first’ approach to planning

Public choose top 10 gingerbread city creations in London
The Museum of Architecture (MoA) has revealed the top 10 gingerbread creations from its recent Gingerbread City exhibition

Industry News: Landscape architecture firms call for response to climate and biodiversity breakdown
UK landscape architecture firms are calling on landscape architects around the world to act in response to climate breakdown and biodiversity collapse

Industry News: architecture trends and technology predictions for next decade
GlobalData has asked eight architects, designers and industry experts to give their predictions for architecture trends and technologies in the 2020s.

Industry News: CetraRuddy’s emerging women leaders mentorships boost design innovation
Architecture and interior design firm promotes elevates women leaders in design innovation, project and strategic management