The proposed mixed-use tower at 175 Third Street is the fifth building planned across four sites within the Gowanus Wharf development in Brooklyn, New York. With views toward Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, the 1,080,000 sq ft proposal includes affordable housing, retail and artist spaces, fitness areas, social and entertainment spaces, culminating in a rooftop with lounging zones and an outdoor pool. The project also envisions a 28,000-sq-ft public waterfront esplanade designed by Field Operations, intended to contribute to the ecological rehabilitation of the Gowanus Canal, continuing the broader transformation of this industrial neighborhood. Other project collaborators include dencityworks | architecture, AKRF, bucharest.studio, DeSimone, Ettinger Engineering Associates, Fried Frank, Hatfield Group, Impact Environmental, and Jenkins and Huntington.
Following an international competition, Polish American architect Daniel Libeskind's firm, Studio Libeskind, in collaboration with La Compagnie de Phalsbourg, has been selected to design the flagship building for the Léon Blum district, adjacent to the future Line 15 station of the Grand Paris Express. The competition featured eight teams, including Snøhetta, Valode et Pistre, Stefano Boeri, Sou Fujimoto, and Jean-Paul Viguier. The winning project is a mixed-use building of over 20,000m², featuring a green wall and incorporating bio-sourced materials. The project is part of a broader urban development strategy for Issy-les-Moulineaux, an extra-wall area of Paris currently undergoing significant transformation.
Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), in collaboration with Holger Meyer Architekten, has won the competition for the new Midstad project in Frankfurt. Led by Joost Moolhuijzen and Erik Volz, the design reimagines the future of European city centers as resourceful and multifunctional. The project involves a 35,000 m² rehabilitation of an existing department store on the Zeil in Frankfurt's city center, integrating a six-story mass timber extension and a mixed-use, community-driven program. The project involves reconstruction during ongoing operation, partial demolition, and the expansion of the existing department store.
Nature Within Vacation Home - Section. Image Courtesy of Unformed Design
The change of the calendar year marked the culmination of several processes in the world of renowned architecture firms. Between December 2024 and February 2025, Gensler unveiled a rendering of a Manhattan redevelopment project, Foster + Partners released renderings of a new hotel and luxury residences in Brazil, and Herzog & de Meuron announced the completion date for the new Memphis Art Museum. International competitions revealed their results, highlighting the winning project of the young firm Unformed Design, as well as the collaboration between the Portuguese Fala Atelier and the Swiss Continentale on an educational architecture project. These projects showcase the broad scope of architectural design, from the detailing of a high-end project's relationship with nature to the urban renewal potential of a programmatic conversion project.
Swiss architect Valerio Olgiati has unveiled plans for Rruga Adem Jashari, a mixed-use development in Tirana, Albania, that seeks to blend urban living with the surrounding natural landscape. Positioned at the boundary between the city grid and an adjacent park, the project features three distinctive red concrete towers and a central white ziggurat. Combining residential, hospitality, and retail spaces, the development aims to create a seamless connection between the built environment and nature.
In recent weeks, a series of significant architectural developments have been unveiled, highlighting the work of diverse architecture studios across the globe. These projects, announced between late September 2024 and early 2025, focus on transformative masterplans, housing solutions, and public spaces. Prominent firms such as Foster + Partners, ACPV ARCHITECTS Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel, and fjcstudio are at the forefront of these initiatives. In Dubai, Foster + Partners revealed the Regent Residences, a pair of residential waterfront towers. Meanwhile, ACPV ARCHITECTS announced three projects in Taichung, Taiwan, combining Italian design with Eastern philosophies to create green, community-focused urban spaces. In Sydney, fjcstudio's masterplan for Midtown aims to reshape the city's urban core with two 80-storey mixed-use towers, enhancing connectivity and public engagement. These projects demonstrate the diverse scales and contexts in which architects continue to innovate, shaping cities and communities worldwide.
General Motors and Bedrock have unveiled a bold $1.6 billion proposal to reimagine Detroit's iconic Renaissance Center and 27 surrounding acres along the Detroit riverfront. The plan aims to transform the 1970s landmark into a dynamic mixed-use complex focused on housing, offices, and entertainment while preserving the essence of Detroit's skyline. The redevelopment includes the demolition of two 39-story towers in the five-skyscraper complex, freeing up valuable riverfront space for redevelopment while preserving the city's skyline.
OODA has just revealed its design for a new mixed-use urban development in central Tirana, Albania. Located in the central district of Tirana on Myslym Street, the Ndarja building, represents a new approach to mixed-use urban development, incorporating residential, hospitality, office, and commercial functions within a single structure. The building comprises two distinct sections positioned along their narrow sides, creating a central square that serves as a gathering spot, contrasting the busy surroundings.
The consortium led by the French architecture firm Coldefy, in partnership with Albanian studio Atelier 4, Sempervirens, and Italian firm AEI Progetti, has just won the international competition to design Albania's new Public Administration Cluster in Tirana. This 31,000-square-meter project will bring together over 20 government institutions under one roof, aiming to improve administrative efficiency while fostering greater public accessibility and engagement.
Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) has announced an expansive project to redevelop and refurbish the Foster + Partners designed 8 Canada Square building, also known as HSBC Tower, in Canary Wharf, London. Following an international competition, the remodeling plans include removing large parts of the 42-story building to introduce terraces and additional functions. According to Canary Wharf Group and the Qatar Investment Authority, this represents the largest transformation of an office tower into a sustainable mixed-use building. The project is set to begin in 2027, after the expiry of the HSBC lease.
Büro Ole Scheeren’s latest project, Scenic City Towers, is currently under construction in the Shenzhen Bay Super Headquarters Base in China. This design for JD.com's new offices seeks to emphasize “in-between” spaces that blend the social fabric of urban life with nature, proposing a new model for working. Situated in Shenzhen’s Nanshan district, a booming business and financial area, the headquarters will join a community of global corporations around it.
Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) has announced the International High-Rise Award 2024/25. Selected from more than 1,000 new high-rises worldwide dating from the past two years, the nominated projects are located in 13 counties from 5 continents. In autumn, the five finalists will be announced, followed by the winner announcement scheduled for November 12, 2024. The main objective of the award is to highlight good practices in the ongoing trend of mixed-use high-rises.
With the increase in the construction of high-rises, special features such as the introduction of greenery in the design, unusual shapes, or the construction of clusters of towers, have become the new normal. DAM’s research this year also shows a growing eco-awareness, as the focus in high-rise construction is increasingly on the use of existing buildings. While the majority of tall buildings continue to be erected in China, followed by the USA, Australia, and Singapore have emerged as new hubs of high-rise architecture.
RSHP’s design proposal for the Bromley-By-Bow Gasworks regeneration project has just been approved by the London Borough of Newham’s Strategic Development Committee. The 23-acre site dates back to the 1870s, housing the largest collection of Victorian gasholders worldwide, making the project one of the largest regeneration proposals in the Lower Lea Valley in London. After three years of design development, the scheme reimagines the gas holders into a mixed-use development offering new high-quality residential architecture.
Celebrating groundbreaking projects that showcase sustainable construction practices, this year’s winners of the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction 2023 highlight innovative approaches across various scales, forms, geographies, and forms. The Gold Prize for North America was awarded to Partisans Architects and Well-Grounded Real Estate with their high-tech, low-cost modular housing solution for urban living in Toronto. In a video interview for ArchDaily, Jonathan Diamond from Well-Grounded Real Estate discusses the development of the winning project and the forces that shaped it.
Skyscrapers are iconic symbols of modern urbanization and technological advancements all over North America. These structures are a sign of economic prosperity, urban density, and the capabilities of humanity’s ambition. In major cities across the continent, they shape the skyline and give identity to these metropolises. Cities like New York City, Toronto, and Florida utilize these cutting-edge designs to showcase power beyond their physical stature.
In general, skyscrapers are characterized by their remarkable height and pioneering engineering capabilities. They use advanced materials such as steel, glass, and concrete and serve as multifunctional spaces, ranging from housing to hotels and offices. Architects all around the world continually push the boundaries of architectural creativity, design, sustainability, and functionality while crafting these buildings. The structures allow architects to maximize land use in new ways, tackling densely populated urban areas.
3XN GXN has revealed its design for Mahler 1, a 15-storey mixed-use office building. The structure, developed in collaboration with Victory Group, Icon Real Estate, and Erik Dhont Landscape Architects, features a hybrid-timber construction system that creates a stepped volume, breaking down the building’s mass. At the street level, the development offers a wide variety of public amenities, striving to become an active hub for both residents and office workers. The project is expected to begin construction in the first half of 2025 and conclude in late 2027.
