To Build Law: The CCA Documents HouseEurope!’s Campaign for Legal Change in European Architecture

During 2024, the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) launched a three-part documentary and exhibition series titled Groundwork, exploring alternative modes of practice in light of the current climate crisis. The process began with a series of studio visits in search of offices addressing substantial questions for contemporary architecture through practice, culminating in the selection of three projects: Xu Tiantian's "minimal intervention" museum on Meizhou Island, Carla Juaçaba's community pavilions in a coffee field in Minas Gerais, and bplus.xyz (b+)'s European Citizens' Initiative for a new legal framework to facilitate the renovation and transformation of existing buildings. The latter, HouseEurope!, was recently recognized as the winner of the seventh edition of the OBEL Award and was showcased at the international exhibition of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025.

Hong Kong's Queensway Reimagined: Sara Klomps on the Genesis and Ambition of The Henderson by Zaha Hadid Architects

Architectural landmarks often cluster together. In Tokyo, the iconic Omotesando is a well-known stretch where global "starchitects" built flagship luxury retail spaces in the 2000s. Hong Kong has a lesser-known but equally powerful architectural agglomeration along Queensway—though historically more corporate and less publicly engaging. Beginning in the 1980s, this corridor became home to a series of landmark buildings by some of the world's most prominent architects: Norman Foster's HSBC Headquarters, I.M. Pei's Bank of China Tower, Paul Rudolph's Lippo Centre, and the nearby Murray Building by Ron Phillips—now revitalized as a hotel by Foster + Partners. The area is further enriched later on by Heatherwick Studio's renovation of Pacific Place and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects' Asia Society Hong Kong Center.

Apricity Development Brand Headquarters / Soar Design Studio + Ray Architects

At this developer's headquarters, the factory steel frame outlines the layout, echoing with its founding origin of a brick kiln. Spaces are deconstructed and sequentially inserted. Diverting from the commercial setting, the design emphasizes "openness to the community" and shares its brand vision with the public, weaving a reinterpreted factory aesthetic and a Taiwan forest impression into the city.

Private lodging in Minato-ku / FujiwaraMuro Architects

This is a private lodging with a frontage of 5.2 m along a main street, with an effective internal width of 3.9 m. The client requested a space that evoked the atmosphere of traditional Japanese architecture. Based on the client's request, we envisioned a floating tea room-like lattice structure with shoji screens (traditional Japanese lattice-and-paper screens), which are visible from the outside, and a small garden path leading to the shoji box.

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