A considered review of spatial practice, material honesty, and the built environment across five continents.
A concrete reading room cantilevered over the Limmat, the Rhine Pavilion treats its residents to shifting water reflections through precisely placed oculi. Each opening frames a different view of the river's surface.
The structural expression is unapologetic — board-marked concrete left raw, steel lintels exposed, no applied finishes. The building ages by accumulating patina, not by deteriorating.
Read Full StudyHow do you build a market that serves 10,000 daily visitors without sacrificing intimacy? The Tennoji Community Market answers with a hyperarticulated plan — 23 discrete volumes around a central timber hall, each scaled for a particular commerce type.
The roof is a single folded plane of anodized aluminium, dyed black to avoid glare in Osaka's harsh summer light. Rainwater is collected at the folds and directed to an underground cistern that irrigates the surrounding park.
Discrete volumes
Daily visitors
Hectare site
The project redefines high-rise living by wrapping residential floors in a living facade that filters air, reduces solar gain by 40%, and produces 12 tonnes of food annually for the building's residents.
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Board-marked concrete, Zurich, 2024
Every pour is a document. Board-marked concrete preserves the grain pattern of its timber formwork — a fingerprint of the construction process, visible forever in the finished surface.
Five cities shaping the future of urban design — from parametric infrastructure to community-led regeneration.
Parametric Urbanism & Micro-Housing
How Tokyo's ultra-dense zoning created a laboratory for experimental residential towers.
View →Carbon-Neutral Districts
The Nordhavn district achieves carbon neutrality through integrated energy infrastructure.
View →Community-Led Regeneration
Grassroots urbanism transforms abandoned plots into vibrant civic spaces.
View →Earthen Construction Revival
New rammed-earth techniques scale traditional building knowledge to institutional architecture.
View →Post-Industrial Waterfront
The transformation of docklands into a mixed-use creative quarter.
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Current Issue
Tokyo: Building
in the Gap
Our cover story examines how Japan's largest city reconciles hyper-density with traditional spatial philosophy.
ARKU was founded on a simple premise: that the built environment deserves the same critical rigour as literature, cinema, or music. Every building is a proposition about how we should live — and every proposition deserves serious, honest assessment.
We visit every project we publish. We measure, photograph, and draw. We interview the architects, the builders, and the people who use the spaces every day. Then we write — not press releases, but considered criticism that treats architecture as the civic art it is.
Published quarterly from Zurich, Berlin, and Tokyo. Independent since 2019.
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