RIBA Journal magazine: | Design in the making

Gulf towers serve as urban emblems

Towers should be the built embodiment of Gulf cities' ambitions and values, both on the skyline and at street level, writes Kourosh Salehi, whose practice is designing the DIFC Living high-rise scheme in Dubai

11 July 2025

Learning from Horizon: relating global trends to the future of practice

How will global environmental, economic, population and technological shifts affect future practice?

What architects can learn from Scotland’s contemporary rural houses

A new wave of ultra-modern, architect-designed homes is being built in Scotland’s most remote locations

In association with Nullifire

The environmentally friendly, spray-applied mortar for passive fire protection

Gypsum-based product provides highest level of protection for projects

Three extraordinary heritage kitchen revamps serve up a design feast

A trio of London townhouses from very different eras demanded equally divergent kitchen renovations

A mosque for her: Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Al-Mujadilah Center and Mosque in Doha

Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s women's mosque in Doha is a dazzling, surprising and generous structure

In association with Maxlight

A glazing solution so beautiful you only see the view

Open and shut case: sliding door specification creates a unique sense of place at Hope Villa

BanfieldWood creates floating extension to a Brighton family home

Room for all Stages is a cantilevered extension protruding from the back of a 1950s semi

Black Females in Architecture: ‘creating something tangible from conversations we started’

Black Females in Architecture aims to push for meaningful change: a sector that values multiple cultures, perspectives and lived experiences

In association with Graff Designs

Tapping into water works wonders for wellbeing

Power of a shower: turn a bathroom into the cornerstone of a home’s emotional architecture

In association with Duration Windows

All the good looks of steel without the price tag

Cost-effective, A-rated aluminium alternative offers slender design and easy installation

James Soane and Christopher Ash: postcard from Sri Lanka

Project Orange's directors experience the good and bad sides of the city of Galle

Irish island holiday home embraces its windswept setting

Pasparakis Friel Architects has built a holiday home on a small island off Ireland's west coast

What Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands’ planning victory could mean for London’s housing

Alex Lifschutz on his practice's successful planning appeal for a build-to-rent scheme in West Ealing

In association with Crittall

The all-new science of steel window making

Lean, clean, precise: five manufacturing advancements are allowing architects to achieve increasingly intricate fenestration solutions

Nic Clear and Hyun Jun Park’s ghostly renders transport viewers through space and time

Academic duo win Eye Line 2025 Practitioner category with ethereal images extracted from point cloud data

In association with Pure Vista

Maximise views with a minimalist balustrade

Frameless, robust glass and spigot design preserves sight lines while ensuring user safety

Max Cooper-Clark conducts a stirring, emotive study of a toxic Pennine landscape

Royal College of Art student wins Eye Line 2025 with his beautiful, disturbing work on the village of Nenthead

A landmark home on the wild north Cornish coast is stealthily remodelled

A truly unusual house sited atop an isolated rock is reconfigured to better relate to its context