The Architectural Review

The W Awards issue is here! As the AR celebrates 10 years of co-organising the W Awards with the Architects’ Journal, we are delighted to present the winners and shortlisted architects of the 2025 edition. Winners Anne Lacaton, Suad Amiry and Designing Motherhood are given in-depth profiles, while the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture takes us from Colombia and Ecuador to South Africa and Saudi Arabia. Recent projects by four UK architects feature in the MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice shortlist. Read the full Editorial: https://lnkd.in/ey3ysTRa Pick up your copy: https://lnkd.in/ewjArizN AR March 2025 features projects by NIALL MCLAUGHLIN ARCHITECTS LTD, Al Borde Arquitectura, syn architects, Fundación ORGANIZMO, dMFK, The Maak, Lynch Architects, HAT Projects; and writing by Manon Mollard, Justinien Tribillon, Dr Kristina Rapacki, Ellie Duffy, Hélène Frichot, Nile Bridgeman, Joe Lloyd, Anna Livia Vørsel, Jehan Latief, Rahel Aima, Rómulo Moya Peralta

Last year, the wallpaper manufacturer Sanderson moved back into its CFA Voysey-designed offices in Chiswick after nearly a century. Voysey House, originally known as the White House, had seen a swathe of changes in use over the course of the 20th century, with accompanying architectural interventions. Now, dMFK have restored the office space, removing a glut of additions while retaining some features and adding a new roof terrace. ‘By renewing Voysey House, the architects have made its layers of history all the more conspicuous,’ writes Joe Lloyd. dMFK’s Mathilda Lewis, its project architect, is shortlisted for the MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice. Read the full building study in print or online: https://lnkd.in/erqsETQC

The AR Emerging awards super early bird deadline is this Friday 28 March. Submit your entry now to save 50% on your awards entry: https://lnkd.in/e6JM7ZPD Don’t have everything ready yet? No problem. You can submit your entry with basic information today and return later to finalise it with images and boards before the entry deadline on 27 June 2025. This way, you can secure your discount now while still having plenty of time to perfect your submission. #AREmergingawards

Will you be in Milan during the Salone del Mobile? Join us at Dropcity in Milan on Wednesday 9 April at 6pm to learn about the winning project of the AR Future Projects awards 2025: New Court, Girton College at the University of Cambridge, designed by Gort Scott. We will also be hearing about the two highly commended projects and presentations will be followed by networking drinks and canapés. This event is free to attend.

‘In 1970, the council in charge of the small coastal settlement of Jaywick Sands in Essex issued 770 compulsory purchase orders,’ writes Senior Editor Dr Kristina Rapacki: https://lnkd.in/eG28WT4H ‘The plan was to demolish the community’s largely self‑built homes and redevelop Jaywick in its entirety.’ But the residents fought back, making Jaywick one the last remaining plotlands – a type of unregulated settlement built in the Thames Estuary by workers from London’s East End. Into this setting, HAT Projects’ Sunspot offers new space for small business that has been sorely needed in Jaywick. ‘People were running businesses out of their kitchens,’ architect Rebecca Kalbfell told Rapacki. Now, Buddies Barbers, the Rainy Bakes bakery, dog groomers Spotty Dotty & Friends and many more call Sunspot their home, moving between units to meet their needs. Read more about Sunspot: https://lnkd.in/eG28WT4H

Spanning both research and design, Syn Architects document the layers of Saudi Arabia’s architectural heritage and breathe new life into historic sites. In Shamalat, a cultural centre formed from a pair of disused mud houses in the historic adobe town of Diriyah, Sara Alissa and Nojoud Alsudairi have overcome local approaches to restoration to design a project both ‘spare and humble yet acutely sensitive,’ as Rahel Aima writes. When the site was acquired, ‘permits to restore and extend a building did not exist’, Alissa tells Aima. ‘You would either completely demolish the existing and build anew, or carry out a meticulous restoration, faithful to the original, with no new elements.’ Instead, the pair’s mix of traditional adobe and white Riyadh limestone offers a striking, functional building designed to be used rather than museumified. ‘It’s a way to keep these buildings alive,’ Alsudairi says. Read more about Syn Architects: https://lnkd.in/ev-MWPga

‘Isolation undermines collective liberation.’ Last night, Natalie Kane showed us how disability-first perspectives help us reinvent the built environment, presenting some of the thinking behind the upcoming Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition Design and Disability.   This was the W Programme’s first lecture of 2025, held at Buckley Gray Yeoman’s Shoreditch Arts Club – to find out more about the programme and become a W Partner, visit: https://bit.ly/4iZPUv9 AtkinsRéalis HKS, Inc. Foster + Partners Henley Halebrown EPR Architects

We are pleased to announce that Rossana Hu, founding partner of Neri&Hu Design and Research Office and chair of the architecture department at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design, has joined the judging panel for 2025's AR New into Old awards. Tomorrow, 21 March, is the final entry deadline. Make sure you submit on time: https://bit.ly/4kzsWwl

With just over a week left to save 50% on your AR Emerging awards entry, now is the perfect time to get started: https://lnkd.in/gnnnBFN8 Need a hand with the submission process? We’ve got you covered. Our step-by-step entry guide walks you through everything–from uploading files to completing payment–so you can submit with confidence. Download your free entry guide: https://lnkd.in/gfYjveJE ⏰Super early bird ends: 28 March 2025 #AREmergingawards

Near Riebeek‑Kasteel, a town of farmworkers and manual labourers an hour outside Cape Town, a new suburb of self‑built zinc homes has developed. It is among these homes that the New Rest Valley Crèche, a primary school designed by architects The MAAK, is ‘a remarkable sight and a beacon of hope not just for the families it services, but for the community at large,’ writes Jehan Latief. With its clean lines, simple materiality and subtle detailing, the building serves around 90 children in three classrooms bordering a courtyard playground. ‘During the building process, The MAAK arranged a play day for children from the community, giving them the space to share the kinds of games they ordinarily play on the street. These games informed the shapes and patterns imprinted on the playground’s rubber floor, and send the crucial message that these children’s voices matter. As The MAAK co-founder Ashleigh Killa observes, “we are not the experts in play any more”. Killa favours an approach that is built on empathy, which she says can only truly be achieved by keeping quiet to make room for listening.’ Read more about the New Rest Valley Crèche and architects The MAAK online: https://lnkd.in/ecZWV8ef Or in the latest issue of The Architectural Review: https://lnkd.in/ewjArizN 📷 Kent Andreasen