Catherine Slessor

MVRDV’s proposed Rotterdam ROCKS! is a €240m waterfront visitor attraction built as a stack of artificial rocks containing a hotel, conference centre, food court, viewing deck and sustainability-focused Elysium experience. The project, backed by entrepreneur Don Ritzen and his nonprofit Shift, is intended to promote green and circular living, but the critique argues that constructing a huge new landmark contradicts the principle that the greenest building is one that already exists. The design is mocked for its Flintstones-like appearance, commercialised environmentalism and resemblance to MVRDV’s troubled Marble Arch Mound; its proposed waterfall has already been removed. With Rotterdam highly exposed to flooding and climate change, the project is portrayed as an extravagant and potentially self-defeating architectural misfire.

Hull Maritime Museum has reopened after a £20.4m redevelopment that doubled its public space and increased the number of displayed objects by 50%. Highlights include a walk-in North Atlantic right whale skeleton, scrimshaw carvings, ship models, migration exhibits and a striking monkey-fish chimera presented as a mermaid. The restoration repaired the Grade II* former dock offices, removed an intrusive ramp, reinstated more sympathetic colours and revitalised the ornate Court Room. Alongside exhibits on whaling, fishing, trade, migration and campaigner Lillian Bilocca, the project forms part of a wider Hull waterfront regeneration scheme involving Queen’s Gardens and the Arctic Corsair trawler. The museum is presented as both a compelling account of the city’s maritime past and a potential catalyst for civic renewal.

The Glasgow School of Art says a faithful reconstruction of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s fire-damaged building would cost £265m—far beyond its means—and is proceeding with stabilisation while considering an uncertain long-term future. Architects, politicians and former staff argue that the landmark requires joint Scottish and UK government backing as a national project. Critics warn that facade retention or “curated decay” would destroy the integrity of Mackintosh’s total work of art, while the building’s history of two fires, restoration failures and institutional wrangling has made a full revival increasingly difficult without a wealthy patron.

Renzo Piano’s Paddington Square is portrayed as the conspicuous and most ambitious outlier on the 2026 Stirling Prize shortlist, combining a crystalline 18-storey office block with a significantly improved public realm around Paddington station. The other five projects are largely brick-built schemes in and around Cambridge and southern England, including housing, college additions and a theatre transformation. Although the projects are individually strong, the shortlist is criticized for stylistic sameness, an overrepresentation of Oxbridge colleges and a lack of buildings from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, northern England or western England. Several omitted projects are presented as more varied alternatives that could have stimulated a broader public discussion about contemporary architecture.

A review of V&A Dundee’s exhibition on Kathryn Findlay examines the Scottish architect’s influential partnership with Japanese architect Eisaku Ushida. Their work fused Celtic and Japanese design traditions with natural forms, fractal geometry and chaos theory, producing expressive projects such as Tokyo’s Soft and Hairy House and Truss Wall House. The exhibition draws on the Royal Scottish Academy’s extensive archive through drawings, models, photographs and slides, while also tracing Findlay’s later solo work, including projects in Britain, Qatar and the ArcelorMittal Orbit. The review celebrates Findlay’s originality and technical skill, reflects on her premature death in 2014, and argues that the exhibition’s modest gallery space fails to match the significance of her career.

London’s Olympia exhibition centre has undergone a nearly decade-long, £1.3bn redevelopment led by Heatherwick Studio and SPPARC. The project preserves and restores historic Victorian and interwar buildings while adding offices, hotels, restaurants, a conference centre, gym, music venue, theatre, public walkways and a secondary school. The transformation aims to open the formerly insular exhibition complex to the wider public, though the new architecture’s heavily pleated, theatrical style is described as hectic and the public spaces as not yet fully animated. Olympia remains focused on spectacle while repositioning itself as a mixed-use destination and city within a city.

Peter Ahrends, who died aged 93, was a founding partner of the influential architectural practice Ahrends, Burton and Koralek. ABK became known for socially oriented, individually conceived modernist buildings including Trinity College Dublin’s Berkeley Library, Oxford college projects, the British embassy in Moscow and facilities on the Isle of Wight and at Hooke Park. The practice suffered a major reputational and commercial setback after its proposed National Gallery extension was condemned as a “monstrous carbuncle” by the then Prince of Wales and ultimately abandoned. Born in Berlin and raised in South Africa, Ahrends became an outspoken opponent of apartheid, chaired UK Architects Against Apartheid, taught architecture and served on the Design Council. He is survived by his daughters Jacqui and Jane, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and partner Marlene Rolfe.

Mexico City-based Lanza Atelier, founded by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, has designed the Serpentine Pavilion as a gently undulating crinkle-crankle wall made from rust-coloured Surrey brick. The form is structurally stable, economical in materials and capable of creating shelter and warmth, while its curves reference the Serpentine pond, surrounding tree canopies and local brick architecture. A glass roof and fixed louvres provide shade, and the mortar-free, reinforced construction allows the pavilion to be dismantled with minimal waste. The design reframes the wall as a space that attracts and gathers people rather than dividing them, and marks the first use of brick in the pavilion’s 25-year history.

Nigel Dunnett, the influential landscape designer, horticulturist and educator, has died from cancer aged 63. His naturalistic and ecological planting schemes transformed prominent sites including the Tower of London moat, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Buckingham Palace and Sheffield’s Grey to Green project, while his community gardens and rooftop landscapes demonstrated how urban spaces could support biodiversity and public wellbeing. A professor at the University of Sheffield and prolific author, Dunnett also helped train generations of landscape professionals and advocated for gardening as both an ecological practice and an art form. He is survived by his wife, Marta Herrero, and two children.

A review of Criminal: An Untold Story of Homelessness, Resistance and Survival at London’s Museum of Homelessness, an alfresco exhibition examining 400 years of laws, media narratives and institutions that have criminalised homeless and nomadic communities. Through installations, infographics and archival material, the show links historical persecution of Romany and Traveller people to modern enforcement against rough sleeping and unauthorised encampments. The exhibition is praised for combining a tranquil setting with powerful political critique and for highlighting community-led alternatives to law enforcement, amid record levels of homelessness in London.

Oxford University’s £185m Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities brings together seven faculties, academic institutes, a library, museums, galleries and major performance spaces. Designed by Hopkins Architects, the four-storey Oxford-stone building is praised for its dramatic Great Hall, extensive cultural facilities and Passivhaus energy performance, but criticized as externally bland and overly restrained. Funded by billionaire Blackstone founder Stephen Schwarzman, a prominent Trump ally, the centre also raises questions about the influence and reputational ambitions of wealthy donors in cultural and academic institutions. Its strong early public and student use suggests it may become a significant cultural venue for Oxford.