The Architect's Newspaper

A building that once served as a Ku Klux Klan “klavern” in Fort Worth, Texas, is being redesigned as a 35,000-square-foot arts and community center. Transform 1012 N. Main Street, the nonprofit organization behind the project, unveiled the design for its namesake site on the edge of the city’s historic Northside. The design team includes Germane Barnes of Studio Barnes and Dennis Chiessa of ch_studio, who have led the project since 2023.

On the evening of April 9, 1965, more than 47,000 fans filed into the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Lady Bird watched from a private box beside the giant animated scoreboard as the Astros took on the New York Yankees in an exhibition game. Governor John Connally threw the ceremonial first pitch. Mickey Mantle hit the building’s first home run.

The sixth-oldest architecture firm in the country, Shepley Bulfinch, celebrated 150 years of practice in 2024. The firm was founded in 1874 by Henry Hobson Richardson in Brookline, Massachusetts. Richardson subsequently completed Trinity Church on Boston’s Copley Square in 1877.

For 25 years, Surfacedesign has shaped sustainable and thoughtful parks and plans in California, including San Francisco’s Mission Bay Bayfront Park which reuses steel from the now-demolished Bay Bridge. Roderick Wyllie and James A. Lord lead the firm as founding partners. This year, Wyllie joins The Architect’s Newspaper’s Best of Design Awards as one of 12 jurors. Wyllie works across award-winning public landscapes, campuses, urban greenways, and gardens across the U.S. and internationally.

At 205 North Quay in Brisbane, Australia, REX and Australian firm Hassell delivered a facade design that prioritized phenomena over form. Copper-anodized aluminum ellipses and fins made of the same material provide an intriguing visual effect and highly efficient shading for the building’s transparent glazing, a departure from the tinted black glass typically used for towers. The simplicity of the facade system reduced fabrication and transportation costs, and allowed for quick assembly.

Behin Ha has completed three townhouses at the rear of 11 Beacon Avenue in Jersey City’s Heights neighborhood, behind a roughly 150-year-old restored house. The studio, led by Behrang Behin and Ann Ha, finished construction on the 5,000-square-foot lot in December 2025. Prior to the development, the property was occupied by a fire-damaged single-family house that had been divided over the years into two apartments.

A new 14,000-square-foot education building is rising on the Eisenhower Presidential Campus in Abilene, Kansas. The Eisenhower Presidential Campus was designed by James Canole and completed in the 1960s. The forthcoming Eisenhower Education Center is designed by Multistudio, a Kansas City firm that won AN’s 2025 Best Practice of the Year award in the Midwest category.

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The University of Chicago has selected Steven Holl Architects (SHA) to lead the renewal of Ida Noyes Hall, a 111-year-old building on the Midway Plaisance that has served as a women’s clubhouse, a dining hall, a movie theater, and a campus bar. SHA will oversee the modernization of the building’s infrastructure. Accessibility will be improved. New spaces for programs, events, and informal gathering will be added, all while maintaining the historic building’s architectural integrity.

WBGO, a historic jazz radio station based in Newark, will relocate to a new, $15 million space designed by Meridian Design Associates. WBGO’s homebase will be at ArtSide, a tower designed by SOM within the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), a $336 million project now underway.