The year ends and the lists begin. In the coming days, people will see compilations of the most streamed songs on Spotify, celebrities who left the year, and the winners of this year’s draws.
In a year that felt unusual enough to host the World Cup in December, architecture also needs to take stock and share. This piece does not simply recap events or highlight departing architects and rising stars. It lays out how architecture has faced a growing climate of uncertainty and ongoing economic worries, while still defining its role in the near future and the challenges the planet will confront in the next five years.
Among the year’s bright spots, Spanish architecture continues to resonate internationally, delivering consistent energy and creativity. The reception of the Munch Museum in Oslo stands out as a landmark project of the last decade, designed by the Madrid office led by Juan Herreros. It is also worth noting that Emilio Tuñón received the 2022 National Prize for Architecture, a recognition that celebrates a long career of high-quality buildings and, in many ways, mirrors the influence of Luis Moreno Mansilla. Yet awards in times of housing pressure remain striking, especially when they frequently favor projects with limited public housing, a point that invites reflection on new housing models in a country with notable architectural talent.
Over the past year architecture has shown a duality, evident in recent projects and two school visits that illustrate different responses to policy and context.
On one side, the Office of Political Innovation, led by architect Andrés Jaque, opened the College of Reggio in a prestigious district of the capital. The building presents a catalog of geometries, systems, and rhythmic forms. It does not shy away from a dialogue with its surroundings, yet it raises questions about how the initial strategies translate into practice. The dean of Columbia GSAPP has described the project as aiming to move beyond a sustainability paradigm, seeking to weave ecology with environmental impact, collaborations with nonhumans, material mobilization, collective governance, and pedagogies. However, the visualization of how these aims are realized remains underexplained, inviting a longer maturation process as students engage with reclaimed water, rooftop gardens, and a greenhouse that climbs to the upper floors. The aim is for the school to become a living system that reveals its own ecosystems to its occupants.
The project aims to become a multiverse where environmental layers are legible and experienced. Classrooms and workspaces model a new learning paradigm. In its self-representing state, the building reads as a series of climates and ecosystems, yet for now it lacks spaces that connect occupants with nature in a broad sense. This raises questions about its capacity to function as a cohesive community for students and teachers alike.
In contrast, Valencian designers Carmel Gradolí and Arturo Sanz crafted the Imagine Montessori School in Paterna, with the second phase completed this year. The entrance is carved into the mountain pass, with a pine forest path guiding visitors to the school through the trees. The building reads like a living organism, with interior spaces that breathe and expand or contract to suit needs. Classrooms are spread to give students free access according to their interests, and every space offers direct views of the valley and the surrounding forest. For teachers, the absence of traditional desks and blackboards emphasizes a direct sensory link with nature, embodied by a large, outward-facing agora that completes one front wall of the building.
The project also emphasizes the use of locally sourced materials, such as terracotta and wood, to minimize ecological impact. The design deliberately erases conventional architectural traces on the ground, with facades camouflaged by ivy and vegetation stretching like a green blanket. This approach invites curious viewers to examine the building from above, as seen on maps and satellite imagery.
There are no dedicated sports fields here. Instead, the school aims to build spaces of relationship, enjoyment, and learning, with playgrounds that feel like natural environments where children interact with their surroundings. It may sound idealistic, but the architects insist that the school itself is its first teaching tool, a sentiment articulated by Arturo Sanz when he said the building is the school’s initial didactic material.
Both projects reveal a shared trend in contemporary architecture: making facilities visible so students understand how comfort, well-being, and social welfare are interconnected. An exchange of energy takes place through everyday elements like water and air. Ducts, pipes, and cables become part of the building’s visible organism, a trend reflected in works that abandon heavy climbers, false ceilings, and cladding that hides the core systems. The result is a naked, authentic aesthetic where functional infrastructure becomes part of the design language.
In the current economic and climatic reality, where cutting-edge sustainable solutions are often limited to high-budget projects funded by large firms or public bodies, there is value in recognizing how Spanish architects pursue low-budget, resourceful applications. The aim is to reduce ecological footprints through practical systems and thoughtful material choices.
In sum, the 2022 anomaly marks a pause, followed by a deliberate pivot. As architecture has done before, it embodies resistance and begins steering toward a different path. The move leverages cost and material reductions to forge a new aesthetic born of necessity. A hopeful wish for 2023, echoed by Andrés Jaque, is to see more thoughtful ideas and fewer superfluous materials.