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.
School of Specification – Zinc as a building envelope
Jonathan Lowy, Operational Marketing Manager at VM Building Solutions, has produced a School of Specification module exploring the use of zinc in roofing and façade applications. Here, he discusses the material’s performance and aesthetic qualities, as well as key specification considerations.
Enzo Favro
For Enzo Favro, regenerative design is about looking beyond a building's immediate impact to the legacy it leaves behind. The Director of In Opera Group explains why natural stone, terrazzo and a long-term approach to material value are central to creating places that last.
Reflections: Bait ur Rouf Mosque
John Pardey explores Marina Tabassum's Bait Ur Rouf Mosque in Dhaka, a modest brick building where primary geometry, natural ventilation and shifting patterns of light create a profound place of worship and community.
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Still standing: Sagrada Família, Barcelona, 1882-2026
Under the ninth generation of architectural leadership Antoni Gaudí’s Gothic masterpiece was finally inaugurated by Pope Leo XIV in June. So why does the world’s best-known construction project still seem curiously incomplete?
School of Specification – Forensic fire safety
Sam Morley, Senior Associate at Hawkins, has produced a School of Specification module exploring forensic fire safety. Here, he discusses how fire investigations reveal building defects and the lessons architects can learn from them.
Regenerative Design 2026: Moving from ambition to action
Regenerative Design 2026 brings the built environment together to turn ambition into action at The Building Centre in London from 1–30 October.
Marcus Lee
Sole practitioner Marcus Lee of LEEP Architects talks to AT about materials investigation, experimentation, designing for change and an 'agri-industrial' ethos that celebrates the raw aesthetic of agricultural infrastructure.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pangolin Shield
Studio Saar and Atelier One's landmark pavilion for the London Design Festival reinterprets traditional Indian shields to create a bamboo canopy that explores protection, power, displacement and cultural exchange in the heart of the capital.
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.
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.
Meet the client: Attzaz Rashid, Barratt London
Barratt London’s Head of Design, Attzaz Rashid, discusses the challenges of delivering high-quality, low-energy housing at scale, the realities of large-scale urban regeneration, and why collaboration is essential to creating better places.
Studio SAAR
Studio SAAR reflect on designing across cultures and climates – combining vernacular wisdom, circular material strategies and ecological thinking to create places that strengthen communities and landscapes alike.
Bridging the housing gap for the sustainable cities of the future
Holcim hosted a panel discussion to explore the challenges involved in delivering intelligent solutions to the housing shortage in the UK and worldwide at the Zaha Hadid Foundation on June 23rd as part of London Festival of Architecture.
2026 Regenerative Architecture Index
The 2026 Regenerative Architecture Index brings together 119 organisations demonstrating a commitment to regenerative design, delivery and practice.
RAI Dublin Round Table: From Infrastructure to Place – Building a Better Ireland
Those leading housing, planning, architecture, placemaking, and local government across Ireland, sit down to discuss the disconnect between major infrastructure projects, housing delivery, and holistic placemaking in Ireland.
Dispatches: Cotter & Naessens’ ‘Assembly’ Pavilion Tours Ireland
Following its presentation at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, Ireland’s national pavilion embarks on a nationwide tour, bringing its exploration of architecture, participation and collective listening to audiences across the country.
Video: Stephen O’Malley, Civic
Stephen O’Malley, Chief Executive of CIVIC, tells AT what surprised him most about our round table discussion, ‘From Infrastructure to Place’.
Dispatches: UKREiiF recap with Holly Lewis
Holly Lewis, co-founding partner of We Made That, reflects on UKREiiF, the value of targeted conversations, and why small practices should go in prepared but leave room for serendipity.
Studio Bark unveils ‘Planning Appeal Intelligence’ AI tool for beta testing
Studio Bark and tech consultant David Sinclair have developed ‘PAI’ (Planning Appeal Intelligence), an AI-powered planning research tool designed to help architects and planning professionals navigate the planning system more efficiently. Rather than searching planning precedents using keywords, it uses semantic search to identify relevant planning appeal decisions based on the specific constraints and characteristics of a project.
The next president of the RIBA needs to Make the Environment Great Again
Will Arnold explains why now, more than ever, the built environment needs a figurehead who can cut through the noise of short-term politics to convince both government and the public that environmental action is both positive and practical.
RAI members hone their photography skills
RAI members explored new approaches to photography at a workshop held by Timothy Soar at dMFK's Fitzrovia studio.