Commercial Buildings
Design and architecture of retail, hospitality, and commercial spaces that serve public and community functions.
Serenity Market: A Thu Thiem Market That Builds the Pause Into the Shopping Trip
Gardens, shaded gaps and a jacaranda grove turn a Vietnamese street market into a place where overstimulated shoppers can stop and recover.
Peel Back Market: A Strip of Ground Lifted Off Thu Thiem to Shade a Street Market
A peeled swath of vegetated earth shelters a lawn while timber stalls stacked like towers turn the other half of the site into a dense urban market.
Stronger in the Middle: A Thu Thiem Street Market That Borrows Its Structure From the Mangrove
A radial market for Ho Chi Minh City puts its sturdiest stalls at the core and lets lighter pallet platforms fray outward like a mangrove edge.
Studio Locomotive Builds a Khao Lak Restaurant Around a Wall of Salvaged Tin-Miner Roof Tiles
In Phang Nga, Thailand, Waankarn pairs board-formed concrete halls with breathing timber louvers and an archive of Takua Pa's tin-mining past.
23 SUL Digs Down and Opens Up a São Paulo House Instead of Stacking a Second Story on Top
In São Paulo, 23 SUL exposes timber trusses, strips old brick and excavates a meter into the ground to grow a one-story house without adding a floor.
Track Sail Market: Vietnam's Maritime Trade Rigged Into Stalls, Canopies and Seats
Hulls, masts and sails organize 104 stalls, a shaded hall and an open square into a market where trading and gathering share one deck.
MTT Wraps a Damyang Café Around a Garden Lawn with a Chain of Low, Slate-Roofed Pavilions
In Damyang, South Korea, a 2,317 m² café bends its low glazed wings around a planted lawn, letting the garden, not the building, take center stage.
Matter of Something Fits a Matcha Tea Garden into a 33 m² Former Garage in South Jakarta
In Jakarta's Panglima Polim, Jun Matcha Club compresses a gravel tea path, glazed tile counter and timber ceiling into a single narrow room.
CnB Sustainable Market: A Timber Frame That Turns Shopping into Reducing, Reusing and Recycling
An open grid of timber modules, trellised cores and workshop rooms recasts the public market as a place to repair, swap and grow, not just to buy.
INS Studio Wraps a Maros Coffee Shop in Terracotta Lattice to Frame the Hills Beyond Makassar
In Maros, on the edge of Makassar, Common Days Cafe stacks three floors behind a breathing terracotta screen that swaps street views for hills and light.
ARCHITECTS OFFICE Packs a Cobalt Blue Art Bookstore into 40 Square Meters of a São Paulo Shopping Mall
In São Paulo's MorumbiShopping, a triangular 40 m² concept store wraps art books in monochrome blue shelving under one tensioned skylight.
Tetriscape: Stacking a Whole Community Around One Earthen Courtyard
A multi-storey earth building in India that folds homes, hall and restaurant into one shared void instead of splitting them into separate blocks.
Gardens Above Accra: Pocket Parks Carved into Earth-Block Towers
A ground-floor market, switchback stairs and planted voids turn a cluster of residential towers into a public retreat lifted above the city.
SHED: A Folded Canopy That Turns a Roadside Fuel Stop into One Continuous Roof
Winner of Overhaul 2020, this service station drapes a single faceted roof over pumps, shop and café, pinning its sharp corners into the lawn.
Agostinho Apartments: Rammed Earth Pushed to Ten Storeys of Luxury Living in Accra
A bent rammed earth block wraps a resort-style pool courtyard and argues that earth can build high, build dense and build for the top of the market.
Lines of the Land: A Fish Market Sheltered Beneath an Arching Greenway Bridge
An arching vegetated bridge spans an urban fish market in Vietnam, folding terraced field geometry into stalls, seating and lantern-lit lawns.
The market as a place to gather: a fish market that leaves its lot to meet the water
A shortlisted Street City Vietnam proposal spreads a folded solar roof over an open single-level grid and lets the market spill onto a stepped waterfront.
Divide 13 - Manos: A Craft Market Built to Bridge Two Lima Neighbourhoods Split by Wealth
Folding stalls, a sunken stage and shaded decks try to turn handmade goods into common ground between Las Casuarinas and Pamplona Alta.
