The Habitat for Orphan Girls is a ground-breaking prototype of an orphanage designed to challenge the dictated way of life of orphan girls in Iran. It builds on vernacular architectural introversion to create a safe, nurturing environment while allowing the girls to be a part of the world beyond the orphanage's walls on their own terms. 

Cavendish House is a contemporary addition to the street front of Cavendish Avenue, designed to respect the milieu of (mostly Victorian) detached houses along it. It has a mass timber structure and is divided into two main volumes: a small, shingle-clad and protruding volume emulating the front bays of neighbouring houses, and a main, cuboid volume clad in glass and cement fibre, hosting most of the house’s functions. 

The Organization for Desert Development asked well-known architect Hassan Fathy to design a new agricultural village near the Kharga Oasis after discovering water resources in 1963. Hassan Fathy was known for his low-cost village for agricultural worker families in New Gourna, another pioneering project built 20 years prior. Fathy, who generally attaches importance to creating a strong community with inhabitants in his projects, used architecture as a tool to enable 250 families with no ties to live comfortably in this isolated land. He started his research with demographic, geographical, and climatic data on the land and people in 1963. The construction started in 1964 but was never completed due to the Six-Day War of 1967 and changes in regulations regarding earthen buildings. By then, the administration building, several housing units, the museum and social centre’s outer shell, and the market, which would be the project’s heart, had been built. This project’s constructed parts, drawings, and documentation are critical examples of sustainable architecture for passive cooling and vernacular architecture and are valuable for the sustainability discourse, depending on the context. 

The Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre was designed to celebrate the vernacular Kanak culture, the indigenous culture of New Caledonia. The complex comprises ten distinct cylindrical structures, reminiscent of traditional Kanak huts, arranged in a spiralling layout across a tropical landscape. The centre houses exhibition spaces, conference rooms, theatres, and workshops, providing a platform for showcasing Kanak art, history, and cultural practices. It also includes outdoor amphitheatres and performance spaces for cultural events and celebrations. 

The architectural language of the centre was inspired by the material culture of the Kanaks and informed by advances in sustainable construction technologies. 

Pirkkala church hosts the worship and clubhouse spaces of the Pirkkala Parish. Using natural light as the main means of creating a sacred and immersive atmosphere, the building creates DELIGHT for the local people. The church is built in close connection to its surrounding ENVIRONMENT, as the architecture competition winning entry of Käpy and Simo Paavilainen was named after the nearby creek Pyhäjoki (Sacred River). 

Rwanda’s new national cricket stadium’s motto is “sports for all.” The stadium has a symbolic significance as a step towards achieving the country’s goal of moving from an agriculture-based economy to development with a local workforce. The stadium located at Kigali welcomes citizens of all ages to play cricket and improve and gain sports and life skills. The project aims to build self-confidence, create new local labour-intensive construction jobs, use local materials, and lower carbon. Thus, most of the materials in the stadium project were sourced locally. Rwanda Cricket Stadium is vital to diversifying the country’s economy, strengthening social cohesion, and promoting the sports for reconciliation after the 1994 Rwandan genocide. 

Located in Kasungu, Malawi, the Maternity Waiting Village aims to improve the conditions of mothers before, during, and after giving birth. Most importantly, the design aims to prevent evitable causes of maternal death by providing solutions, that promote HEALTH AND WELLBEING. Most of Malawi’s population lives in rural areas, affecting their ability to access professional care during childbirth. Local public authorities have decided to act by building 130 maternity waiting facilities across the country in places close to healthcare centres. The facility should be able to accommodate expectant mothers and their relatives, starting from the 36th week of pregnancy until delivery. The previous prototype for the facility failed in multiple aspects, so the initiative partnered with MASS Design Group. MASS collaborated with public authorities, researchers at the University of North Carolina, doctors, nurses, and expectant mothers in Malawi to design a holistic prototype that can be used as a model for other maternity waiting villages. 

Paimio was designed as a tuberculosis sanatorium in the homonymous Finnish town of Paimio. It combined the principles of healing architecture of the late 19th and early 20th century with the novel ideas of the modernist movement and with Alvar and Aino Aalto’s (then unusual) sensitivity to users’ lived experiences. 

Wall House is situated outside the city limits of Auroville, in Auromodele, an area designated for research and experimentation. It is situated 10 kms north of the town of Puducherry and 5 kilometers from the coast, in South India. The Auroville community was established to tackle a multitude of environmental and social problems that the area was facing, including water scarcity, soil erosion, social inequality, and inadequate social infrastructure. 

The Wall house was designed to be Anupama Kundoo’s private residence in Auroville. Its spatial program serves two major objectives. On the one hand, the building effectively and economically serves the everyday needs of the dwellers. On the other, it has the potential to be easily expanded making room for guests. In this project, the architect redefines the very meaning of private-residence design challenging permanence and testing various spatial and technological innovations to be used in future designs. 

The City of Melbourne posed an ecologically focused design brief for the proposal of Council House 2, often referred to as CH2 or CH2. The project’s goal was to set a sustainable example for Melbourne’s future development projects, as the city had its sights set on carbon neutrality by 2020. It adheres to the then newly launched Green Star rating system, a list of criteria developed by the Australian Green Building Council (GBC), which incorporates aspects from LEED and BREEAM. The project uses biomimicry to perform passively where possible, employing the building’s thermal mass to keep cool, and a reactive façade which helps in shading the interiors. 

'No footprint house' is a toolbox for building low-emission, affordable, and prefabricated houses. It has been realised in several iterations and used as prototypes for improving the toolbox. Here, we are going to discuss the overall development of the toolbox and the first, most well-known prototype in Ojochal. 

With a spiralling landscaped ramp and an array of bioclimatic strategies, the Solaris office building works as an extension of Singapore’s One-North Park, where it is located. According to Singapore’s sustainable building benchmark, Solaris has received the highest rating (platinum). 

The Seirensho Art Museum is located on Inujima island at the Seto Inland Sea in Japan and works with the sun, the wind and the found industrial ruins and byproducts (all what Sambuichi calls “moving materials”), to salvage the post-industrial site of a copper refinery and create a visitor experience guided by the natural elements.

The Enterprise centre is a university building that aims to encourage new sustainable businesses coming out of its academic research programme; the building itself is a suitable reflection of the values and ambitions of the university and the activities of The Enterprise centre.

The concept of 2226 is to provide a building with a comfortable range of interior temperatures (22oC to 26oC) without any heating, air conditioning or mechanical ventilation. The temperature range is guaranteed by a combination of thermal mass and natural ventilation, using the heat emitted from the bodies of the users and the office devices as energy sources. The concept has been applied to buildings in different locations and has since become a standalone research and development program within the Baumschlager Eberle practice, but here the focus is on the first example building of the series, built in Lustenau.

The project is an extension of a 1950s office tower in Berlin with a twofold goal: to reconnect the isolated tower with the (current and historical) city fabric and to become a prototype of exemplary energy performance for office buildings. The new connection to context is achieved through a heterogenous composition of volumes that take cues both from the baroque layer of the city (plinth) and from the late modernist layer (slab). The energy performance concept is based on a double skin concept and an aerodynamic ventilation fin at the top of the slab.

The C10 Tower was originally built in the 1960s. In 2008 Staab Architekten undertook the refurbishment and renovation of the building, with a focus on building performance.

The Makoko floating school was a prototype floating structure in the Makoko community, which is largely built on the water of the lagoon of Lagos. In its short lifespan it became a symbol of the community, an internationally praised work of architecture but also an example of how architecture can fail to deliver what promised.

The Inverted House, designed by a group of students from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) as the winning entry to the LIXIL International University Architectural Competition, embodies the theme of “House for Enjoying the Harsh Cold.” This experimental guest house in Hokkaido challenges traditional notions of domestic space by minimising heated interiors and embracing the cold winter environment as an integral part of the living experience.

Frederiksbjerg School in Aarhus, Denmark, aligns with the principles outlined in the 2013 Danish school reform. The school supports dynamic learning through movement and sensory exploration while emphasising openness and community spirit. The school has become a central hub for local children and youth. This deliberate design fosters individual and community wellbeing and nurtures a strong sense of togetherness among students.