9 January 2026
Ditch Windows, Keep DWG: Why BricsCAD on Linux Is a Smart Move for African Architects
For African architects, software choices are never just about features. They’re about power, continuity, and the real economics of practice: cashflow, hardware availability, bandwidth, training time, and the ability to keep producing when the “platform” shifts under your feet. In that context, BricsCAD deserves far more attention than it currently receives in many African studios—not […]
9 January 2026
The architect and the operating system: who owns the desk you work on? Towards archilinux…
Architects don’t just “use computers.” We inhabit them. Your workstation is your studio, your drawing board, your filing room, your reference library, your phone, your diary, your tender box, your QA system, and—quietly—your reputation. When an architect loses control of the work environment, the damage is never abstract: deadlines slip, drawings corrupt, deliverables become untraceable, […]
8 January 2026
Reviving Earth & Memory: Salima Naji’s Vernacular Vision Earns Global Acclaim
Perched high above the Atlantic coastline, the restored citadel of Agadir Oufella stands as a quiet testament to architect Salima Naji’s philosophy. Its earthen walls and timber reinforcements rise from the rubble of a 1960 earthquake, echoing centuries-old construction wisdom while meeting modern safety standards. In December 2025, this blend of past and present earned […]
6 January 2026
Open Buildings in Practice: A New Commons for the Built Environment in Africa
Google Research’s “Open Buildings” is an open, large-scale geospatial dataset that maps where buildings are (and what their footprints look like) across much of the Global South. Practically, it gives you machine-generated building outlines (polygons) and centroids (points) derived from satellite imagery, plus a confidence score per detection so you can choose how strict you […]
2 January 2026
The Global Housing Crisis: An Architectural Perspective on Solutions & Leadership
The housing crisis is one of the most pressing challenges of our time, exacerbated by rapid urbanization, population growth, increasing longevity, climate change, and socioeconomic inequalities. As of 2025, UN-Habitat estimates that approximately 2.8 billion people worldwide—about 40% of the global population—lack access to adequate housing, secure land tenure, or basic services like water and […]
2 January 2026
Ghana Through the Lens, Space Through the Archive: The Willis Bell Photographic Archive
Some websites are simply brochures: a neat front door, a few pages, and a polite invitation to click “Contact.” The Willis Bell Photographic Archive is the opposite. It is a working repository—part museum, part library, part research instrument—built to hold a nation’s visual memory across a decisive period and to make that memory searchable, teachable, […]
31 December 2025
Global Architectural Discourse 2025: Top Trends & Themes for 2026
Architecture at the midpoint of the 2020s stands at a crossroads of urgent challenges and creative renaissance. As we enter 2026, the field is marked by renewed experimentation, urgent environmental reflection, and an expanded global dialogue on the built environmentarchdaily.com. Architects worldwide are grappling with climate change imperatives, rapid technological advances, and evolving social expectations. […]
25 December 2025
2026: South Africa’s Next Stress Test and the Opportunity for a Comeback
South Africa heads into 2026 with that familiar mix of drama and possibility: the kind of year where the headlines can whiplash from “systems under strain” to “green shoots” in the same week. The country is still carrying heavy baggage — stubborn unemployment, uneven service delivery, a cost-of-living squeeze that bites harder in some neighbourhoods […]
23 December 2025
Gateways & Growth Corridors: The Cape Winelands Airport and Southern Farms Mega City
South Africa’s infrastructure story is often told through what is failing: overloaded airports, collapsing municipal systems, and the everyday grind of unreliable services. But two projects now moving through real-world milestones suggest a parallel story—one of big, deliberate attempts to build capacity where demand is already spilling over. In the Western Cape, the Cape Winelands […]
17 December 2025
Erased from the Plans: The Systematic Marginalisation of Architects in State Infrastructure
The South African Construction Action Plan (SACAP) – recently unveiled as a comprehensive framework to fix the country’s “half-built schools, ghost hospitals and ballooning project costs” (dailymaverick.co.za) – has notably downplayed the role of architects in public infrastructure delivery. This is puzzling, given that architects traditionally occupy a central position in the building process, orchestrating […]