When perusing this previous yr’s headlines, Trump’s identify and insurance policies appear to, properly, trump nearly all the things. Whereas it seems like lots has modified in these final 12 months, lots stayed the identical or a minimum of instilled a 2016–2020-era déjà vu: local weather change stays a urgent problem, the Structure Billings Index is steadily in decline, and inflation continues to rise amid a slew of latest tariffs.
This yr architects once more scratched their heads on the identify of the Pritzker Prize winner, the AIA fared okay after a tumultuous 2024, the Expo 2025 in Osaka and Biennale Architettura in Venice got here and went. Trying forward, it’s truthful to say we must always know to anticipate the sudden.
Keep tuned over the following two weeks as we share the highest controversies AN reported on this yr, the preservation campaigns that acquired readers heated, the panorama tasks that prompted us to the touch grass, and a lot extra.
Hero Village, a pipe dream plan that reimagines Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Area
A trending story this yr that had Reddit buzzing was a proposal to reimagine a former airfield in Marine Park, Brooklyn as a neighborhood for NYPD and FDNY officers, and EMTs. Dubbed Hero Village, the idea was thought up by Noah Martz, a Brooklyn Regulation College scholar that taught himself how one can use Google SketchUp.
Martz clearly did his homework; his analysis pointed to the town’s rising affordability disaster and the truth that many New York Metropolis first responders don’t reside right here. Martz’s Hero Village has plans to deal with flooding within the flood-prone space. It additionally proposes a transit system that hyperlinks up with present subway strains, in addition to 20,000 residential items in conventional wanting masonry buildings.
Liu Jiakun awarded the 2025 Pritzker Structure Prize
In early March the Pritzker Structure Prize was awarded to Liu Jiakun, one other laureate with a scant Wikipedia presence, however however an in depth portfolio of outstanding tasks. The architect relies in Chengdu, China, the place he runs his observe Jiakun Architects, based in 1999.
Jiakun’s agency works throughout a variety of typologies from small-scale exhibition designs, to huge institutional buildings and masterplans for cities. The jury lauded his strategy that oscillates between “utopia versus on a regular basis existence, historical past versus modernity, and collectivism versus individuality.”
Carol Wedge was named the following EVP/CEO of the AIA
In 2024, tales about troubles with AIA management topped AN’s controversies roundup. This yr issues cooled down on the HQ for probably the most half. In March, the skilled group introduced its seek for a brand new EVP/CEO, after Lakisha Woods stepped down from the position in February. It took a number of months for Carol Wedge to be named the AIA EVP/CEO.
Wedge comes with a protracted CV of expertise and management; for 17 years she has served because the CEO of structure agency Shepley Bulfinch. AIA acknowledged her expertise in 2020, awarding her the Edward C. Kemper Award. Wedge has beforehand labored with the AIA too; she performed a pivotal position in founding the AIA Ladies’s Management Summit and has held roles in AIA’s Board of Administrators.
Tariffs on constructing and furnishings merchandise elevated prices nationally
Tariffs had been prime of thoughts for a lot of producers and builders this yr. Earlier than Trump was elected and later inaugurated the expectation that People and U.S. corporations ought to anticipate to dig deeper of their pockets for purchases was just about a given. (ICYMI, AN spoke to constructing product producers about what they anticipate and what they’ve noticed concerning materials sourcing and delivery.) Prices rose all year long with metal and aluminum tariffs rising to 50 % in June. In September, the administration focused imported kitchen cupboards and loo vanities and imported upholstered furnishings.
ICE raids made headlines and detention facilities had been constructed to imprison
Photos of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers, the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS), and Nationwide Guard occupying streets in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere are a number of the most jarring of the yr. Political beliefs apart, President Trump’s immigration insurance policies are among the many strictest the nation has ever seen. In 2025, heartbreaking tales of households separated over immigration standing flooded information headlines and social media.
AN lined one wherein the co-owner of New Frameworks, a cooperative targeted on constructing sustainable properties, was detained. Tales comparable to this one prompted panorama structure agency TERREMOTO to publish an inventory of tips for job websites on what to do ought to ICE raid. The Architectural League of New York and Employee’s Justice Mission later launched an RFP looking for concepts for sharing data to maintain staff protected on job websites. A detention heart, rapidly erected in Florida’s Everglades, dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, was among the many amenities throughout the nation designed to detain.
The White Home issued an govt order mandating classical and conventional architectural design for federal buildings
A mandate that federal buildings all be designed in line with ideas of classical structure circulated throughout Trump’s first administration. The developer-in-chief made this an inauguration day precedence in January initially of his second time period. Amid a flurry of first-day govt orders was one which requested the GSA, and different authorities, to submit suggestions—an motion he would later forgo on different building-related issues—on mandating a singular type to establish civic and federal buildings as such.
In August, an govt order, Making Federal Structure Stunning Once more, dictated that “all federal courthouses and company headquarters,” “all federal public buildings within the Nationwide Capital Area,” and “all different federal public buildings that price or are anticipated to price greater than $50 million in 2025 {dollars} to design” are topic to the common design choice.
The Expo 2025 Osaka wowed with its pavilions and Sou Fujimoto–designed Grand Ring
Expo 2025 opened in Osaka, Japan, in April. The almost year-long exhibition mixed structure with nationwide satisfaction and customs. Huge-name architects had been behind lots of the pavilion designs realized on the exhibition. Trahan Architects represented the U.S., delivering a boxy, flag-forward design that recollects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s unbuilt (ironic) proposal for the US Pavilion at Expo ’92 in Spain.
Huge information out of the Expo was Sou Fujimoto’s massive ring that encircled all the affair. Edward Dimendberg visited the round wooden construction for AN and questioned its afterlife. Within the following weeks reviews from Japan mentioned some Japanese cedar and cypress and Scots pine might be reused for a memorial park with extra materials repurposed to construct housing in an earthquake-stricken area. Fujimoto just lately advised Dezeen, he heard 70 % of his construction will probably be burned into chips.
JKMM received the fee to design Helsinki’s New Museum of Structure and Design and Carson Chan was appointed its Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs
A contest launched in 2024 to design Helsinki’s New Museum of Structure and Design garnered worldwide consideration and expertise. When submissions closed over 600 entries had been judged and lower all the way down to a shortlist of 5, designers names had been saved nameless. In September, it was introduced JKMM, an area observe, was awarded the fee. The agency’s proposal often called Kumma, proposes an inverted pyramid, with monumental triangle apertures that repeat all through the facade. Even the structure of the gallery and exhibition areas are triangular.
The museum received’t open to the general public till 2030, however a curatorial imaginative and prescient is already underway because of a latest appointment that named Carson Chan the Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs on the new Museum of Structure and Design.
Trump’s “Huge Stunning Invoice” prioritized nationwide protection and tax cuts over local weather, housing, schooling, and social applications
If on the lookout for one thing guilty for the funding cuts introduced and felt this yr—renewable vitality applications, housing applications, and transportation tasks , simply to listing a number of—ship grievances towards Trump’s “Huge Stunning Invoice” which prioritizes nationwide protection and tax cuts over local weather, housing, schooling, and social applications. The invoice, fittingly signed into legislation on July 4, 2025, slashed funding for education schemes and clear vitality credit in addition to housing alternatives together with these for low-income people and halted infrastructure tasks of their tracks—all to avoid wasting a fairly penny, or two.
(Oh, and farewell to the penny.)
