The new architecture set to shape the world in 2024

The new architecture set to shape the world in 2024

The past year in architecture may be remembered for superlatives after India opened the world’s largest office building and Malaysia’s Merdeka 118 became the second tallest skyscraper ever constructed.

But 2023 was also a year that celebrated subtlety, with a thoughtfully designed Chinese boarding school named World Building of the Year and British architect David Chipperfield awarded the Pritzker Prize — the field’s equivalent to a Nobel — for a career dedicated to understated cultural institutions.

The year ahead will likely bring a similar mix of the bold and the beautiful. Here are 10 architectural projects set to shape the world in 2024:

Since his very first commission, designing a primary school for his Burkina Faso village in 2001, architect Francis Kéré has built his reputation on modest civic and community facilities. At 35,000 square meters (377,000 square feet), his plan for a new national assembly in neighboring Benin is a different prospect altogether.

The design was unveiled with relatively little fanfare in 2021, but the following year Kéré became the first African architect to claim the coveted Pritzker Prize. Now, the world will be watching closely to see how principles he has long championed — natural ventilation, ample shading and the use of local materials — are applied at grander scale.

Kéré’s Berlin-based firm says the building’s top-heavy appearance was inspired by the palaver tree, which traditionally served as a meeting place. A ground-floor assembly hall will accommodate Benin’s 109-seat legislature, while a public park around it offers “a sense of openness and transparency,” the firm’s project description added.

The tree-covered Bosco Verticale (or “Vertical Forest”) in Milan, Italy has become a symbol of green design since it opened almost a decade ago. But for architect Stefano Boeri, the eye-catching residential project was just the beginning.

With a manifesto committed to launching “a global campaign on urban forestry,” Boeri’s firm has since realized similar projects in Europe and beyond. The latest, in China’s former capital Nanjing, will feature around 800 trees and over 2,500 shrubs and trailing plants installed on carefully configured balconies.

Comprised of two towers — the larger of which stands 200 meters (656 feet) tall — the latest Vertical Forest will contain offices, a museum and a hotel with a top-floor swimming pool. Boeri’s firm has said the 27 native species bursting from the buildings’ facades will promote biodiversity and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by around 18 tons a year.