UN-Habitat: 3.4 Billion Lack Adequate Housing as Berlin Gets Timber-Hybrid Presidential Office

Up to 3.4 billion people lack adequate housing, according to UN-Habitat's World Cities Report 2026 — a figure that framed this week's biggest architecture stories. The agency announced five recipients of its 2026 Scroll of Honour Award, selected from 101 nominations across Brazil, Myanmar, Pakistan, Tunisia, and the United Kingdom.

The honorees include a housing organization supporting communities hit by conflict and displacement, an Indigenous village in Brazil, a public housing agency in Pakistan, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan. Tunisian researcher Abdelmalek Ghannem also made the list for developing building materials from local and mining residues.

The timing wasn't accidental. The International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction fell on October 13 under the theme "Resilience Starts at Home" — just days after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Panama, damaging buildings and prompting nationwide evacuations.

How are architects reusing what already exists?

In Houston, construction has begun on the Frank Liu Jr. Academy for Music and Arts (FLAMA), designed by OMA under partner Jason Long, with RDLR Architects as architect of record and SWA Group on landscape. The project converts a 1930s J. A. Folger & Co. coffee plant into a 6,050-square-meter, tuition-free public charter school serving pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. The design keeps the historic industrial façade, wraps classrooms along the perimeter, adds circular skylights over gathering areas, and includes a double-height cafetorium. Opening is scheduled for August 2027 as part of Houston's broader waterfront transformation.

In Berlin, sauerbruch hutton completed an 18,700-square-meter Office Building for Federal Authorities at the Spreebogen — the temporary seat of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier since July 2026, while Schloss Bellevue undergoes refurbishment. Two timber-hybrid buildings pair prefabricated timber office modules with reinforced concrete cores and plinths. The façade layers coloured railings over fluted glazed ceramic elements. Built with circular construction principles, the complex can house another federal authority after the presidential stint ends.

Benthem Crouwel Architects and Nieuwe Architecten finalized their design for the Interfaculty Learning Centre at the University of Groningen's Zernike Campus, converting a 1960s building into shared space for three faculties. The redesign tucks building services into the characteristic horizontal façade bands, freeing interior space and adding solar shading, while new timber and biobased additions join preserved natural stone flooring. Dismantling began in September 2026; completion is expected for the 2028–2029 academic year.

Henning Larsen unveiled Mill Green in Perth, Australia, for GDI Property Group — a phased adaptive reuse of three office buildings at 197 St Georges Terrace, 5 Mill Street, and 1 Mill Street on Whadjuk Noongar Country near the Swan River. Paths and laneways will link the buildings through a central landscaped area, with climate-responsive canopies and terraces.

What's new in cultural architecture?

Frank Gehry's expansion of the Colburn School in Los Angeles opens September 25, 2027, with Terri and Jerry Kohl Hall, a 1,000-seat concert hall. The 100,000-square-foot addition houses the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute and more than triples the school's dance space. Interlocking opaque and transparent volumes wear a metallic pink coating; inside, an in-the-round configuration surrounds performers with audiences, under adjustable suspended acoustic elements.

In Turin, Utopian Hours 2026 runs October 16–17, organized by the nonprofit Stratosferica for the second chapter of its tenth-anniversary edition. Archigram co-founder Peter Cook leads a masterclass on imagination and city-making, alongside an exhibition of his and Archigram's works never before shown in Italy. Wim Walschap of Herzog & de Meuron, urban strategist Zahra Ebrahim, and author Carolyn Steel also participate.

Together the week's projects point one direction: the discipline's center of gravity is shifting from new builds toward housing access, resilience, and getting more life out of existing structures.