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Architecture school and academia highlights of 2024

2024-12-28T08:00:00-05:00

As part of Archinect's 2024 Year in Review series, we're recalling some of the highlights of our academic coverage from architecture schools across the country and beyond. This year, we published important conversations with academic leaders about AI application in education, architecture’s role in climate change, and schools' impact on local communities.

Leading Voices at Architecture and Design Schools

(L-R): SCI-Arc Program Chairs Kristy Balliet, Marcelyn Gow, Elena Manferdini, David Ruy

AI, Climate, and Advice for the Next Generation: Watch Our Roundtable with SCI-Arc Program Chairs

Archinect hosted an insightful roundtable with four program chairs from SCI-Arc, diving into architecture’s most pressing questions. The discussion tackled AI’s impact on the profession, architecture’s role in climate change, overlooked issues, and advice for the next generation. The conversation offers valuable perspectives on education, practice, and the future of the field. Explore the thought-prov...

Archinect's fun & pop culture news of 2024

2024-12-26T21:06:00-05:00

If we've learned anything from the way the last few years have played out, we all need a break sometimes from the ongoing issues and uncertainty that seem to continually grow. At Archinect, we're lucky to have been supplied some reprieve in the form of fun and singular news stories that excited us throughout the year.

As you usher in 2025, check out this selection of our favorite pieces that gave us glee this year.

Screengrab: Stephen Ong / YouTube

An animated high-rise reminisces about its life in the city in "The Secret Diary of a High Rise"

This charming animated short film titled The Secret Diary of a High Rise by Stephen Ong blew us away through its creative depiction of the life of a high-rise building. Narrated by the building itself, we follow as it reminisces about its life in the city, including an early romantic love affair with another high-rise and the growth and transformation it experiences as years pass.

Image: MPavilion/Piccolina Gelateria

Art performance at Tadao And...

In memoriam — those we lost in 2024

2024-12-25T08:00:00-05:00

Each year, the passing of an architect offers a moment to reflect on their legacy, revisiting the impact of their work while capturing the essence of their career through the perspectives of colleagues and peers, alongside a record of their achievements.

In reviewing their impact, we (too) often can't resist the push to distill these lives into broad categories—icons, innovators, or pioneers—yet the true depth of their contributions can never be fully captured in simple terms or short paragraphs. Architecture, just as the people who shape it, is an ever-evolving and complex discipline, often too expansive to be contained by a single narrative.

Once again, we honor their legacies, remembering not just their most visible works, but the enduring impact they had on the world of design education and the world beyond. What follows is a recap in tribute to some of the influential architects, landscape architects, theorists, planners, and the other leading figures and familiar faces we sai...

In 2024, Archinect took an in-depth look at architectural licensure

2024-12-24T10:06:00-05:00

One of Archinect’s most significant editorial undertakings of 2024 was our Archinect In Depth: Licensure series. Across four months, we spoke with key organizations, researchers, leaders, and commentators related to licensure, in addition to eliciting views from our community.

Our journey took us across the history of licensure, the current pathway to licensure, state and national laws, barriers, opportunities, visions for the future, and comparisons with other countries. As we explored the topic, meanwhile, the licensure landscape continued to evolve in 2024 as the U.S. sought to reform the process and competencies held within the licensure system, while also updating its reciprocal agreements with other nations.

Explore further insights on Archinect's leading coverage of architectural licensure in 2024 below.

Our in-depth exploration of licensure

Image credit: Archinect

In May, we began a conversation about architectural licensure

Our Archinect In-Depth: Licensure series began wit...

Architecture's biggest project completions and openings of 2024

2024-12-23T20:48:00-05:00

In 2024, plenty of remarkable projects worldwide reached completion. From headline-making new housing and hotel designs in Denver to scale-pushing cultural centers in China to redevelopments of modern classics in San Francisco, here are some of our highlights from Archinect's news coverage this year.

MAD Architects

One River North by MAD Architects. Photo: Vic Ryan.

MAD was on a roll this year, pitching new designs and opening completed projects left and right. The studio kicked off the year with their massive overhaul of the Jiaxing Train Station in China (dubbed the "train station in the forest"), followed by the curvy ZGC International Innovation Center in Beijing, and a "flying saucer-shaped" installation for the Guangdong Nanhai Land Art Festival in Yanqiao Village. Outside of China, MAD dominated headlines and comments sections in October with the anticipated opening of their "cracked-open" One River North scheme in Denver, the Ephemeral Bubble installation for the Echigo-Tsuma...

Standout sports architecture and stadiums in 2024

2024-12-22T11:24:00-05:00

In 2024, there was no shortage of exciting news in the world of sports architecture and design. Developments in this space included the completion of long-awaited projects, groundbreakings, and renovations. Other notable stories featured first-of-its-kind and record-breaking projects that could signal what the future of sports architecture could look like.

Greener approaches to stadium design, along with a prioritization to integrate mixed-use schemes that, aside from sports, include public space, greater accessibility offerings, and even housing were common across projects this year.

As part of Archinect's 2024 Year In Review, take a look at some of the best sports architecture and stadium projects in our news this year.

Previously on Archinect: New photos of Populous' modular Cricket World Cup stadium ahead of June games

Populous designs modular Cricket World Cup stadium on Long Island

In January, Populous released designs for a modular, 34,000-seat cricket stadium for the Men's T2...

Tales from a toxic superculture: A closer look at the defining architecture controversies of 2024

2024-12-21T08:00:00-05:00

If there is a lesson to be taken from this year, it is that small evils lead to ever-bigger ones. The wrong behaviors and motivations get rewarded until the process capitalizes into a singular upending spectacle. That reality is just as resurgent in professional spheres and does appear likely to retain its dominance over other civic ones. Unethical practices, the influence (good or bad) of politics and public opinion, removal of history, and a culture of dishonesty coursed, as ever, through the domain of architecture in 2024. Inside its ranks, questions as to why the cycle itself is so prevalent continue to go unsettled.

Here, instead, is an impartial breakdown of the year’s most controversial news headlines in architecture. What can be taken from it is a testimony to the ways moral disintegration is both reflected and can be defeated in our built environment. We’ll start with the biggest stories and slowly narrow into a spotlight on the global salients within more limited constrain...

2024 showcased the potential of 3D printing in architecture

2024-12-20T08:00:00-05:00

The architecture world witnessed a transformative year in 2024, with 3D printing continuing to broaden the possibilities of design and construction. From high-profile collaborations between architecture firms and technology companies to groundbreaking projects that span continents—and even reach beyond Earth—this year marked a surge in innovation across construction sites and research labs alike.

This year, Archinect’s editorial included exclusive insights from BIG’s Bjarke Ingels and ICON’s Melodie Yashar, digging deeper into a collaboration spanning 3D printing materials, hardware, software, and business models. Elsewhere, we saw notable projects such as North America’s first 3D-printed three-story home and the world’s tallest 3D-printed tower in Switzerland, and innovative research led by institutions including MIT, Princeton, ETH Zurich, and IAAC, dwelling on topics as diverse as fish scales to liquid metal.

To further explore these trends, we have set out the key developments a...