Mountain Shelters / Filipe Pina

The Mountain Shelters are part of the “The Vagar Country House” development project in Belmonte, Portugal. The challenge was to create an object that would evoke the imagery of traditional Shepherds’ Shelters, taking advantage of the natural and untamed qualities of the land, which spans nearly 250 hectares.

Rural Futures: The Projects and Installations That Reimagined the Countryside in 2025

For several years now, the countryside has ceased to function merely as a picturesque counterpoint to the city and has instead become an active laboratory for new relationships between territory, landscape, and people. Here, environmental urgency meets collective memory; ancestral techniques converse with architectural experimentation; and local communities act as curators of their own territory. Contemporary rurality emerges less as a geography and more as a culture—inscribed in ways of life that care for the environment.

Pujiang Platform / MVRDV

MVRDV has completed construction on the Pujiang Platform, a viewpoint comprising an arched, earth-covered timber pavilion perched among the hills to the south of Chengdu. The project serves as both a visitor destination and an event space that takes advantage of the spectacular natural beauty of central China. Designed to blend into nature while also standing out as a beacon when seen from the plains below, the structure of earth-covered timber arches takes a telescopic shape, drawing visitors to the expansive viewing window and balcony that projects out over the slope.

In the Blink of an Eye: 60 Light Installations Illuminate a Citywide Gallery for Noor Riyadh 2025

Noor Riyadh 2025 brought large-scale light installations to public sites across the Saudi Arabian capital, temporarily transforming transit hubs, historic districts, and significant landmarks into illuminated urban environments. From November 20 to December 6, 2025, Riyadh became a citywide gallery of light, motion, and shifting perception. The festival's fifth edition featured 60 artworks by 59 artists from 24 countries, including more than 35 new commissions, responding to the theme "In the Blink of an Eye." Through light as both medium and concept, the installations reinterpreted the capital's rapidly evolving architectural landscape and reflected how perception shifts in spaces shaped by heritage and ambitious urban development.

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