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1 week ago | 
architectural-review.com | Kristina Rapacki
The Swiss Federal Railways’ repair works in Zürich are being lightly transformed for new commercial usesWorkers at the Swiss Federal Railways’ (SBB) central repair works in Zürich used to climb the roof of its halls and practise handstands. It was as good a place as any to do gymnastics: out in the open air, with a view to the Käferberg rising across from a tangle of railway tracks and the river Limmat.
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3 weeks ago | 
architectural-review.com | Kristina Rapacki
Recycled and reused construction materials turn Urko Sánchez Architects’ Waldorf campus in Nairobi into a teaching aidWhen designers at Urko Sánchez Architects received a commission to design a campus in Nairobi’s leafy Karen neighbourhood, the brief from the client, the Nairobi Waldorf School Trust, was direct and concise: design a school deep in the woods without harming the trees, while preserving the old, British colonial‑style structures that would house some classes and other amenities.
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3 weeks ago | 
architectural-review.com | Kristina Rapacki
Cross‑border collaboration to supply recycled building materials to Ukraine counters the exploitative forces of the global marketIn March 2025, around a hundred people gathered in a courtyard in Kalush, in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in western Ukraine, to initiate the conversion of the dilapidated building in front of them into a dormitory for displaced people.
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1 month ago | 
architectural-review.com | Kristina Rapacki
Recent attempts to ‘reinvent’ the hospital are not as innovative as their architects would like you to believeIn December 2024, Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) unveiled plans for Jawaher Boston Medical District in Sharjah in the UAE – a series of rectangular pavilions under a canopy of photovoltaic cells described by Piano as ‘a new model for the hospital of the future’. Three years earlier, in 2021, OMA and Buro Happold presented their designs for the Al Daayan Health District in Qatar.
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1 month ago | 
architectural-review.com | Kristina Rapacki
Undercutting and regulatory neglect make construction the deadliest job in the UKNeil Hayes was a talented footballer, described by those who knew him as a sharp wit, someone who could tear up a dance floor. Last summer, Hayes became a statistic, one of dozens of UK construction workers who die on the job every year, when he was crushed by a hydraulic machine while preparing the ground for Allies and Morrison’s latest smooth‑skinned enclave for the branded gentry.
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1 month ago | 
architectural-review.com | Kristina Rapacki
The work of the UK’s first female chartered building surveyor prioritised the wellbeing of some of the poorest people in the country‘Everyone wants to build, nobody wants to do maintenance,’ wrote the author Kurt Vonnegut. Irene Barclay (1894–1989), Britain’s first female chartered building surveyor and secretary of the St Pancras Housing Association, however, wanted to do – and did – both.
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2 months ago | 
architectural-review.com | Manon Mollard |Eleanor Beaumont |Kristina Rapacki
Herzog & de Meuron | Baas Arquitectura | Casa Solo Arquitectos | Nord Architects | 3RW Arkitekter | Witherford Watson Mann | Clancy Moore | Irene Barclay | Ecomimesis Soluções Ecológicas | Adamo FaidenFor most of us, life begins in a hospital and is likely to end in a medical facility too. We visit hospitals during our lives – if not for a broken arm or surgery, then for an unwell loved one. Although healthcare is a universal need, access is deeply unequal.
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2 months ago | 
architectural-review.com | Ellie Duffy |Kristina Rapacki
Lynch Architects’ renovation and extension of Westminster Coroner’s Court reintroduces death in the city while paying particular attention to the needs of the bereavedRachel Elliott of Lynch Architects is shortlisted for the MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice 2024. Find out more about the W Awards hereWestern culture does not seem to be growing any less squeamish about death.
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2 months ago | 
architectural-review.com | Kristina Rapacki |Reuben Brown
HAT Projects’ community and industrial centre in Jaywick Sands offers vendors and small businesses much-needed room for growthRebecca Kalbfell of HAT Projects is shortlisted for the MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice 2024. Find out more about the W Awards hereIn 1970, the council in charge of the small coastal settlement of Jaywick Sands in Essex issued 770 compulsory purchase orders.
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Mar 3, 2025 | 
architectural-review.com | Manon Mollard |Eleanor Beaumont |Kristina Rapacki
Suad Amiry | Anne Lacaton | HAT Projects | Níall McLaughlin Architects | dMFK Architects | Lynch Architects | Designing Motherhood | The MAAK | Organizmo | Syn | Al BordeEarlier this year, Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum was announced as the designer of the next Serpentine Pavilion. Zaha Hadid might have designed the first London pavilion in 2000, but she was followed by many men; it took another 18 years for the next sole female architect to be commissioned.
