Lu Wenyu-co-founder of Amateur Architecture Studio with Pritzker laureate Wang Shu-has shaped many of the practice's most emblematic works across China, including the Ningbo History Museum and the Xiangshan Campus of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Often working outside the spotlight, her leadership is unmistakable in the discipline of execution and the roles she has assumed: in 2003, together with Wang Shu, she established the Architecture Department at the China Academy of Art,
The $2,500 Vernacular Home sits in Para Dash, a bamboo village in Modonpur, Bangladesh, and it's basically a masterclass in working with what you've got. Built for a multigenerational family of four (parents, their son, and his wife), this isn't some stripped-down minimalist box. We're talking two bedrooms, a kitchen, toilet, two cow sheds, a future child's room, a weaving space, and even a roadside teahouse and shop. All for under $2,500. That includes materials and labor.
La Biennale di Venezia has announced that architects Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu will curate the 20th International Architecture Exhibition, opening in May 2027. Founders of Amateur Architecture Studio and leading voices in contemporary practice, the duo is known for an approach rooted in craftsmanship, material reuse, and deep engagement with place. Their appointment brings renewed attention to vernacular knowledge, construction cultures, and the social realities shaping architecture today.
This 18th-century vernacular farmhouse in Naxxar's historic core had been abandoned for over 50 years. Once a working farm and family dwelling, it had fallen into serious disrepair. Organised around a central courtyard and divided into three wings, the property retained significant heritage features, stone slab ceilings, timber beams, xulliel walls, arches, and a large mill room, but its fragmentation and poor condition made it unsuitable for modern family life.
Photographer Philip Butler turns his lens on a vanishing piece of Britain's built landscape in his book 226 Garages and Service Stations. The publication catalogues the nation's petrol age in 252 pages, capturing an architectural lineage that spans Mock-Tudor fantasies, streamlined moderne curves, and humble repair shops tucked into railway arches or converted chapels. Published in the spirit of Ed Ruscha's Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963), Butler's survey reveals how the evolution of motoring shaped the architectural vernacular of the 20th century.
With deep roots, sturdy trunks, and the ability to withstand extreme temperatures, date palms (Phoenix dactylifera) are among the species best adapted to the arid desert environment. It is no coincidence that in many local indigenous cultures they are known as the "tree of life," as their fruits, leaves, and trunks have provided food, shelter, and building materials for thousands of years. Without them, much of human settlement in desert regions would not have been possible.