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Metropolis Editors, Natural Habitat, sustainability, sustainable architecture

METROPOLIS Introduces Natural Habitat, a Sustainable Homes Video Series

The series debuts with a tour of a tranquil upstate New York retreat designed with Passive House principles.

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Aurora borealis in the night sky above a lit, circular wooden pavilion.
The Muscowpetung Powwow Arbor, designed by Oxbow Architecture, is a 13,725-square-foot space with large-span timber structure for the Muscowpetung Saulteaux First Nations community. Photo courtesy © LINDSAY REID COURTESY OXBOW ARCHITECTURE

October 14, 2026

Celebrating the Craft of Architecture

METROPOLIS’s July/August 2026 issue, produced in partnership with Architizer, spotlights 25 standout projects and practices from the 2026 A+Awards.

By: Avinash Rajagopal

THE JURORS FOR THIS YEAR’S Architizer A+Awards—the world’s largest awards program in architecture—noticed a shift: “This year felt like a welcome return to thoughtful, human-scaled architecture that puts place, craft, and environmental sensitivity first, instead of chasing spectacle,” says juror Ismail Seleit, head of applied AI at Gendo and a former associate at Foster + Partners.

That is exactly the kind of change that METROPOLIS and Architizer have come together to celebrate in the special issue that you hold in your hands. Our editorial teams joined forces to analyze the 117 Jury Winners of the 2026 A+Awards and select the 25 practices and projects highlighted in the following pages. We wanted to identify the best of the best architects, yes, but also to elevate the finest expressions of architectural craft: the ability to judiciously weave together people, place, material, and space. 

This pursuit of balance and sensitivity—rather than novelty, luxury, or aesthetic daring—resists the kind of milquetoast sameness that the starchitects of the past abhorred. In fact, no two projects in this issue share the same aesthetics, the same approach, or even similar motivations.

Metropolis magazine cover for July/August 2026, showcasing the innovative materials of the AYDC Public Art Center in Guiyang, China.
For the AYDC Public Art Center in Guiyang, Guizhou, China, Atelier Xi designed a “constellation of pavilions” inspired by the area’s caves and mountains. Photo by Zhang Chao

The use of wood in Perkins&Will’s Modular Timber Housing Project was intended to expand possibilities for British Columbia’s forestry industry and drive economic growth; in Oxbow Architecture’s Muscowpetung Powwow Arbour it enabled a lightweight response to the First Nations community’s very specific cultural needs. Sanjay Puri Architects’ Prestige University and Hardel Le Bihan Architects’ student housing for the Université Cheikh Anta Diop are both brick buildings for educational campuses, designed around climate control and passive ventilation—but they are completely different architectural expressions. A shared approach to program is not determinative, either: Projects can be as varied as Atelier XI’s AYDC Public Art Center and ZHA’s Xi’an International Football Centre but be set in historic contexts in China and seek to be similarly open-ended platforms for civic life.

We hope you will take great pleasure in the beauty of the work we have selected but also benefit from the insights of the world’s finest architects. 

Read every story from our 2026 July/August Issue:

Features

More from the July/August Issue

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