Architectural heritage is not only what a building was, but what it continues to become: a long process of building, rebuilding, and re-occupying over time. Where opportunities allow, this continuity produces a layered condition—one in which visitors can witness, experience, and feel the gradual shifting of a building’s fabric, materiality, spatial order, and patterns of use, and occasionally even participate in that transformation.

The project addresses a challenge shared across Europe: how can we intervene in a complex urban fabric while preserving the histories of its inhabitants and the material traces that shape it? How can one act in an “acupunctural” manner—revitalizing the city without total demolition, without starting from scratch?

The new Cultural Center is located in a historic setting that is part of the Flix agricultural cooperative complex. The new space contributes to the recovery and enhancement of the building’s historical and social features and elements. The basic interventions to enable the new center’s use are: foundation and ground stability, structural consolidation, and comfort of the interior spaces.

In this complete renovation project, a 60m² apartment breathes new life, revealing a narrative that delicately blends past and present through architectural finesse.

In Vietnam’s accelerating urbanization, particularly in Ho Chi Minh City, the proliferation of new residential quarters has alleviated acute housing shortages yet frequently perpetuated obsolete typologies. Many developments recycle standardized house models from two to three decades past, failing to address contemporary demands adequately for spatial comfort, natural ventilation, daylight penetration, aesthetic sophistication, and personalized habitation.

Perched above the cliffs of Crimea, the Druzhba Thermal Sanatorium appears less as a building than as a landed spacecraft. Its circular forms, suspended decks, and spiraling ramps evoke a scene from Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972), where architecture and psychology merge into a single landscape. Built between 1978 and 1985 by Igor Vasilevsky, the complex was conceived as a thermal resort for workers of the oil industry, part of the Soviet Union’s extensive network of sanatoria dedicated to health and recreation.

House CR was born from the unlikely meeting between experience and the will to start over. The clients, a couple in their 80s, decided to build a new home. That alone inspired us.

The more than 300 modular student dormitories on the VUB campus, designed by modernist architect Willy Van Der Meeren in 1972, were once at risk of demolition. Today, the twelve modules included in this project not only act as a catalyst for preservation but also guide the transition of the remaining buildings towards a circular renovation model.

Hoguera de Madera is conceived as a shelter for a family who chooses to rethink their conventional way of living within the city. This reflection leads them to seek an alternative lifestyle, envisioning a space integrated with nature, a place capable of renewing and enhancing their human and professional qualities.

Two weeks and over 85,000 nominations later, the finalists of this year’s Building of the Year Awards are in. The selection is much like the ArchDaily audience that chose it: diverse in geography, generous in ideas, and precise in intent. With projects from 46 countries, in a variety of typologies and scales, they present a beautiful snapshot of the current architectural moment.