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This is what I've got for you this week
The Blueprint
This week, we bring news from The Mies Van der Rohe Award 2026, legislative changes in Japan, a project restoration in Ethiopia, and competition results from Canada.
Mies Award 2026 and the era of incomplete architecture
The European Commission released the shortlist of seven finalists for the 2026 EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture. The jury selected projects like the Charleroi Palais des Expositions by AgwA and the Vapor Cortes industrial conversion by H ARQUITECTES. AgwA applied a strategy of radical subtraction to their project. They removed more material than they built to leave vast sections of the 1950s structure open to the air. The establishment is rewarding the intelligent editing and reduction of existing structures over polished new construction.
Japan unfreezes the Tokyo property market
A major legislative change goes into effect on April 1. The amended Act on Building Unit Ownership targets the aging danchi condominium stock across Japan. Rebuilding these structures previously required an 80 percent consensus. Unreachable owners automatically counted as a negative vote. The new law lowers the threshold to 75 percent for unsafe buildings and allows courts to exclude ghost owners from the vote count. This legal adjustment unlocks thousands of aging residential blocks for retrofit and reconstruction by clearing a massive administrative deadlock.
Saving African modernism in Ethiopia
Architectus won the WMF Knoll Modernism Prize on January 22 for their restoration of the UN Africa Hall in Ethiopia. This secures a major piece of post colonial heritage on the continent. The project restores the physical structure while bringing global recognition to the preservation of African modernism.
Deception in the snow at Winter Stations 2026
The annual Winter Stations competition launched today on the beaches of Toronto. The announcement confirms this year's winners. Will Cuthbert submitted a project called Embrace and Andrew Clark won with Specularia. The installations use the frozen landscape as a canvas for optical illusions and structural play around the theme of deception and reality. These projects prove that public space activation only needs to be provocative to work in harsh climates.
The Weekly Deep Dive
This week’s Deep Dive is a celebration of AgwA’s ingenious strategy of climatic subtraction to make the budget, but also elevate the architecture.
Design by Deficit: The Architecture of the Intermediate
If you look closely at the budget of a standard construction project, you will notice a structural imbalance. The foundation and structural framing account for roughly 27 percent of the total cost in residential construction. Interior finishes consume over 24 percent of the budget. The climate boundary accounts for over 21 percent. In commercial projects, this weighting is even steeper. Mechanical and heating systems alone consume 15 to 20 percent of a commercial budget.
When inflation squeezes a project, the standard industry reflex is to protect the floor plan at all costs. We keep the generic square footage exactly as the client requested, but we aggressively cheapen the materials.
This week, we look at a different way to negotiate a shrinking budget. We explore how reducing the thermal envelope defends your budget and creates better architecture.
The Studio
This week has been a fascinating week of research on adaptive reuse and strategic climate zoning. Generally, as sustainability and inflation move the spotlight towards renovation and revitalization, a sensitive approach to a sites context and history will become more relevant than it ever has been. What are your own reflections? You are welcome to write me an email at the address below and let me know!
-Johan