This Week in Architecture: Affordable Ibiza Housing, Doha’s Richter Pavilion, and Biennial Highlights

Architecture this week feels a bit like a conversation about what buildings can give us – and what they demand in return. Think of public squares that invite participation, apartments that stay affordable, and museums that turn a painting into a three‑dimensional experience.

In Ibiza, Stefano Boeri Architetti just won a competition for Sa Casa, a cluster of about 190 below‑market‑rate rental units spread over four compact volumes. The design leans on prefabricated cross‑laminated timber, mixes flexible floor plans with shared courtyards, and even sprinkles native plants and solar panels across the roof. It’s a modest attempt to make island living more inclusive, and yes, the project still has a few kinks to iron out before construction starts.

Half a continent away, Dutch firm MAD is unveiling plans for Danshuis, a 9,500‑square‑meter dance hub slated for 2030 in Rotterdam. The team will transform a 1923 Art Deco warehouse into 14 studios, performance halls, exhibition zones and communal lounges, all hugging the River Maas. It’s a classic case of adaptive reuse – old brick meets new movement – and it hints at how cultural programs can revitalize historic shells.

Meanwhile, two biennials are turning a critical eye toward architecture’s hidden price tags. Tallinn’s Architecture Biennale 2026, under the theme “How Much?”, digs into the true cost of building – labor, material extraction, maintenance, and the long‑term social footprint. The main exhibition lives in the abandoned Linnahall, a building whose future is still up in the air, making the questions feel almost tangible.

South America isn’t far behind. Buenos Aires’ International Architecture Biennial celebrates its 40th year with the theme “HABITAR” (to inhabit). With around a hundred firms, fifteen exhibitions and fifty talks, the event maps out the myriad ways people and architecture intersect. Highlights include a talk by 2026 Pritzker laureate Smiljan Radić, who explores how subtle material choices can shape daily life.

On the cultural front, Qatar Museums has announced a permanent, site‑specific structure for the Museum of Islamic Art’s park: the Doha Pavilion designed by painter Gerhard Richter in partnership with Selldorf Architects. The hexagonal shell will showcase three massive “Strip” paintings, two floor‑to‑ceiling mirrors, and a central “Strip Tower”, all wrapped in digitally generated patterns that echo Richter’s 2011 “Patterns” book. It opens on 20 November 2026, just in time for the inaugural Rubaiya Qatar quadrennial.

London’s design scene is also buzzing. SOM marks 40 years of its London office with “Change: 40 Years of SOM London”, an exhibition at Marylebone Hall during the London Design Festival. One standout installation is a wall of roughly 2,000 reclaimed wooden bricks – old scaffolding re‑imagined – assembled by volunteers guided only by VR headsets. The piece questions how construction could become more democratic and less dependent on specialized labor.

Finally, a quiet but impressive win: noAarchitecten’s restoration and extension of Het Steen in Antwerp scooped the Grand Prix of the 2026 Erich Mendelsohn Award. The project delicately replaces a 1950s addition with a new brick volume that fades from dark to light, echoing the historic masonry. Today the site hosts a visitor centre, exhibition spaces, a roof terrace and even a viewpoint tower that looks out over the Scheldt.

All these stories share a thread – architecture is increasingly about negotiation: balancing cost with value, heritage with innovation, and private need with public good. As designers keep pushing boundaries, the built environment becomes less a static object and more a living dialogue.