ArchDaily has unveiled the winners of its fifth annual Next Practices Awards, recognizing 20 groundbreaking architectural practices from around the world that are redefining the future of architecture through creativity, innovation, and social responsibility. The winners were announced during an exclusive event at the inaugural Copenhagen Architecture Biennale, held at the CAFx Headquarters in the city's Meatpacking District.
Launched in 2020, the ArchDaily Next Practices Awards spotlight forward-thinking architecture professionals who are expanding the discipline's role in addressing today's most pressing challenges. Over four previous editions, the program has recognized 85 practices from 32 countries, fostering a global conversation about architecture's evolving role in society. The initiative provides a platform for emerging firms that push the boundaries of traditional architectural practice.
This year's edition marks a significant evolution for the program, now officially titled the ArchDaily Next Practices Awards. The selection process was enhanced with the introduction of an external jury for the first time, complementing rigorous internal evaluation by ArchDaily editors. The international editorial network nominated standout practices weekly throughout the year, creating a diverse longlist that underwent careful review and voting before presentation to the external jury.
The distinguished external jury consisted of notable figures in architecture and design: Josephine Michau, Founder and Director of the Copenhagen Architecture Festival; Gabriela Carrillo, Founder of Taller Gabriela Carrillo; Lucia Pedrana, Co-Director at the European Cultural Centre; Vinu Daniel, Founder of Wallmakers and 2020 Next Practices winner; and Eloisa Ramos and Moreno Castellano, Founders of RamosCastellano Arquitectos.
The 20 winning practices represent a broad spectrum of geographies, disciplines, and methodologies, each contributing unique perspectives to contemporary architectural discourse. Despite their variety in scale, form, and context, they share common values that redefine architecture's purpose: diversity, responsibility, community engagement, sustainability, and meaningful dialogue. Their work demonstrates that the future of architecture lies in care—for context, community, memory, and ecology.
Among the winners is Japan's 1110 Office for Architecture, founded in 2017 by Hiroto Kawaguchi in Osaka. The practice explores architecture as a platform for everyday life through sensitive renovation, material restraint, and contextual integration. Notable projects include A 101 Years House, Dog Villa, Terraced House, and TCT Gallery, which exemplify the office's approach of uncovering value in existing structures while extending landscapes into architecture.
From Romania, Ambulance for Monuments (Ambulanța pentru monumente) addresses the urgent decline of the country's built heritage through a nationwide initiative combining emergency interventions with hands-on training and community engagement. Established by Asociația Monumentum in 2016, this network of ten regional NGOs has enabled over 115 restorations of churches, fortresses, bridges, and manor houses.
Brazil's Arquivo, based in Salvador and founded by architects Fernanda Veiga, Pedro Alban, and Natalia Lessa, focuses on making reclaimed building materials central to Brazilian architecture. The practice has diverted more than 300 tons of materials from landfills while promoting circularity and sustaining endangered craft traditions. Their Casarão 28 project integrated over one hundred salvaged elements from thirty demolition sites into an eighteenth-century ruin renovation.
Lebanon and UK-based CatalyticAction, founded in 2014 by architects Joana Dabaj and Riccardo Conti, uses participatory approaches to empower vulnerable communities in co-creating inclusive environments. With 52 built projects and 27 research initiatives, the organization has engaged nearly 4,000 participants across Lebanon, Italy, Jordan, Iraq, and the UK. Their early Ibtasem Playground project in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, built with Syrian refugee families, established their co-design methodology.
Other notable winners include Civil Architecture from Bahrain and Kuwait, which reimagines the civic role of design; Germany's Daryan Knoblauch, operating at the intersection of architecture, performance, and technology; Syria's Deir ez-Zor Heritage Library, preserving architectural memory in a war-devastated city; and Scotland-Nigeria's Dele Adeyemo, exploring how racial capitalism has shaped urban space while celebrating Black social life practices.
Mexico's Estudio Ome, founded by Hortense Blanchard and Susana Rojas Saviñón, combines botany, archaeology, and agroecology in landscape architecture projects. France's Géométral develops narrative architectures where fiction, context, and material expression converge. Egypt's Hand Over pioneers sustainable earth construction, while Japan's IGArchitects explores minimal yet generous architecture through structure, proportion, and light.
Additional winners include Brazil's Juliana Ayako, exploring architecture as a situated temporal act; Kazakhstan's NAAW (New Almaty Architects Workshop), blending cultural memory with contemporary life; India's PK_iNCEPTiON, rooted in context and social responsibility; Argentina's Región Austral, addressing climate change and equity; India's SEALAB, creating architecture through community dialogue and local craft; Australia's SSdH, focusing on thoughtful adaptive reuse; Togo and Germany's Studio NEiDA, exploring architecture as cultural infrastructure; and South Korea's Yong Ju Lee Architecture, merging computational design with ecological cycles.
The winning practices demonstrate recurring themes: contextual sensitivity, sustainable material use, co-creation with communities, experimental and interdisciplinary approaches, memory and heritage preservation, social responsibility, and human-scale interventions. Together, these strategies confront pressing global challenges with originality, critical insight, and solution-oriented design, pointing toward a more meaningful and resilient future for architecture.
