In this issue: the Test of Time Awards finalists, Lahdelma & Mahlamäki’s Lost Shtetl Museum, Ian Volner on Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família, Marcus Lee of LEEP Architects in Reinventing Practice, The Drift in Suffolk, Axo Architects’ Benedictine Monastery at Kylemore Abbey, Materials Library with BakerBrown, and Farid Esmaeil’s Dubai in My Kind of Town – and much more.
Safe doesn’t have to mean the same
Janie Mullaney of Equitone argues that greater transparency, earlier collaboration and better procurement can deliver social housing that is both safe and architecturally distinctive.
Shenzhen Natural History Museum
Rising from the landscape beside Yanzi Lake, Shenzhen Natural History Museum by 3XN, B+H Architects and Zhubo Design establishes a new cultural landmark for South China while blurring the boundaries between museum, landscape and public space.
Bringing clarity to low-carbon aluminium
Senior Architectural Systems argues that meaningful carbon reporting requires greater transparency, with product-specific EPDs that account for complete system build-ups rather than relying on aluminium billet figures alone.
House in a clearing
TaylorHare’s low-lying family home in East Sussex brings together a series of corrugated metal volumes and sheltered courtyards, embedding the building within its woodland setting.
Cork Loft
Office S&M has transformed a neglected Victorian house in east London with a loft extension built almost entirely from cork, demonstrating the material's architectural, environmental and aesthetic potential.
Helping small studios thrive
SumUp explores the operational challenges facing small architecture practices, from cash flow and technology to talent and long-term growth.
Lost Shtetl Museum
Designed by Lahdelma & Mahlamäki Architects, the Lost Shtetl Museum tells the story of Jewish life in Šeduva before the Holocaust. In the summer of 1941, 664 of the town’s Jewish residents were murdered, a fate repeated across more than 200 Lithuanian shtetls. Julian de Metz examines the building’s relationship to its highly charged physical and cultural context, and asks to what extent architecture can – or should – seek to shape collective memory and conscience.
Circularity in architecture – designing for a zero-waste future
Watch the AT webinar, in partnership with TECHNAL UK & Ireland, exploring how circular design principles are being put into practice across the built environment, from material recovery and verified product data to closed-loop façade recycling and the radical reuse of existing buildings.
Glasgow School of Art to abandon full restoration of Mackintosh Building
The Glasgow School of Art is expected to replace Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s fire-damaged masterpiece with a contemporary building behind retained sections of its historic façade.
Frameworks, quality and the future of NHS estates
With NHS trusts and their delivery partners under increasing pressure, a round table discussion, hosted by Architecture Today in partnership with IKO, explored whether healthcare procurement frameworks are delivering better buildings, and what is needed to improve design quality, collaboration and standardisation.
2026 Test of Time Awards finalists announced
Find out which projects have made it to the finals of 2026 Architecture Today Test of Time Awards.
2026 RIBA Stirling Prize shortlist
Projects by Sergison Bates, Bennetts Associates, Mary Duggan Architects with RUFF Architects, Renzo Piano Building Workshop with Adamson Associates, Haworth Tompkins, and Witherford Watson Mann Architects are in the running for this year’s Stirling Prize for the UK’s best new building.
Braemar Mountain Rescue Centre
Moxon Architects has renovated Scotland's first dedicated mountain rescue base in the Cairngorms National Park, extending and refurbishing the facility to create a robust operational hub that improves welfare, training and emergency response while respecting the character of its rural surroundings.
De Beauvoir Townhouse
Mosley Thorold’s transformation of a Victorian townhouse in east London reshapes the home around light, movement and materiality, employing carefully reconfigured interiors with reclaimed craftwork to create a calm retreat for everyday living and entertaining.
Tall buildings: balancing performance, safety and wellbeing
Watch the AT webinar, in partnership with Knauf UK, exploring how tall buildings can balance fire safety, acoustic and thermal comfort, environmental performance, regulatory compliance and resident wellbeing.
Per Kirkeby: making mystery and magic out of ordinary brick
Publisher Torsten Bløndal and architecture professor Thomas Bo Jensen have joined forces to produce a compendium of the paintings, sculptures and buildings of Danish artist, poet, sculptor and film maker Per Kirkeby. John Pardey enjoys a lyrical tour through an eclectic portfolio rooted in love for the humble brick.
Lifeline Community Centre
Assemble has transformed a pair of former United Dairies warehouses on the Becontree Estate in Dagenham into a flexible community hub for LifeLine Church and Community Resources.
Moon House
Office S&M has turned a dark Victorian townhouse in Kensington into a light-filled home for two art collectors. A three-storey rear extension, bespoke architectural interventions and commissioned artworks combine to create a house that functions equally as a family home and a carefully curated gallery.
in partnership with AccuRoof (formerly SIG Design and Technology)
Stefano Boeri’s Parliament of Living Species
Stefano Boeri’s Parliament of Living Species transforms Milan’s council chamber into a forum where non-human life is given a political voice, challenging conventional approaches to urban planning by asking how cities might be designed if animals, insects and ecosystems were represented alongside people.
Free photography workshop at Art Deco Marine Court and architectural walking tour of Burton’s St Leonard’s for RAI members
RAI members are invited to join Timothy Soar's free-to-attend photography workshop at one of the UK's most iconic Art Deco seaside buildings – and enjoy a bespoke walking tour of the architectural highlights of St Leonard's-on-Sea.
Reflections: Säynätsalo Town Hall
John Pardey revisits Alvar Aalto’s Säynätsalo Town Hall in Finland, a building founded in history, landscape and civic life, and one of the architect’s most consummate works.
Spotlight on products in use
in partnership with manufacturers
Quality in numbers: why working with a stable of practices produces better outcomes on large regeneration schemes
Michael Clark, Design Director at Hadley Property Group, explains how working with Haworth Tompkins, Metropolitan Workshop, Studio Egret West and dRMM on 980 Great West Road in Brentford is producing richer outcomes than any single practice could achieve alone.
Camille Chevrier
Engineer Camille Chevrier discusses the central role that applied research – from revisiting craft, to using robotic or digital-assisted construction methods – plays in the practice's work.
White Breakers
Unknown Works has retrofitted a modest coastal bungalow in Pembrokeshire, transforming it into a low-energy family home that responds sensitively to its National Park setting.
Digitising roofing specification: tools, data and detail
David Coldham, Technical Director at IKO, discusses how the company’s Information & Resource Hub provides architects with the technical advice, tools and support needed to develop coordinated, compliant and buildable roofing specifications.
Using data to unlock value
PropertyData discusses how data-driven insights can give architects a competitive edge when it comes to securing residential retrofit and refurbishment projects.
Designing for care: specifying colour and paint in healthcare environments
Dulux Trade’s Dawn Scott and Andrew Cleaver, in conversation with Architecture Today’s Technical Editor John Ramshaw, discusses how evidence-based colour strategies and high-performance paint systems can support wellbeing, inclusivity and long-term performance across healthcare projects.