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Another Architizer collection about arches? Groundbreaking.
But in defense of the arch, it is one of those elements that never really disappears. From ancient infrastructure to contemporary museums, they keep resurfacing because they work; structurally, spatially, symbolically. Some of their many roles include carrying weight, marking thresholds, framing views, and signaling gathering. And those are all roles that stand the test of time.
So yes, it’s another arc(h)ticle. But the projects gathered here show how the arch shifts alongside changing design priorities, responding to new environmental demands and taking on different roles as architecture continues to evolve.
Passive House
By Mareines Arquitetura, São Paulo, Brazil
Designed during the pandemic, Passive House reflects a desire to live with fewer layers between daily life and the land. The project starts with a simple move: a triangular-walled garden inspired by cloisters. Three built arms hold this open space in place, creating a protected center that sets the tone for the rest of the house.
The arches show up in the sweeping brick roof. Its pronounced curve gives the house a grounded presence, almost as if it rose from the soil already shaped that way. Beyond its sculptural quality, the vaulted roof collects rainwater and channels it toward the pool. Inside, the arc softens transitions across the open plan, guiding light and air while keeping walls to a minimum.
Sun Tower
By OPEN Architecture, Yantai, China
At first glance, Sun Tower looks like a cone facing the sea. In section, it reveals its true character: one vast arch cut through the mass and tilted toward the horizon. Designed by OPEN Architecture, the project turns this singular gesture into structure, space, and symbol at once.
The arch forms a cavernous void that holds the outdoor theater and frames the ocean beyond. Galleries, a library, and public routes occupy the thickened edges of this curve, moving along its inner surface. At the summit, the open-air Phenomena Space draws sunlight through a circular opening, marking the passing hours. In a fast-growing industrial zone, the tower acts like a contemporary lighthouse, using one monumental arch to root cultural life in the rhythms of nature.
The ET-302 Memorial
By Alebel Desta Consulting Architects and Engineers, Gimbichu, Ethiopia
Popular Choice Winner, Religious Buildings & Memorials, 13th Architizer A+Awards
ET-302 Memorial Park transforms a site of tragedy into a carefully structured landscape of remembrance. The project follows the final six minutes and forty-four seconds of the flight, guiding visitors along a primary path toward the exact crash location.
The central monument rises as four inclined concrete forms, their geometry reading almost like fractured arches emerging from the earth. Each structure represents a continent touched by the loss, descending in height as if marking a final trajectory. The arched voids carved into these masses create sheltered spaces for reflection, echoing Ethiopia’s rock-hewn heritage while framing sky and landscape. Here, the arch is not decorative. It acts as a spatial threshold between absence and presence, shaping a collective space for grief, memory, and healing.
Plaza Mirador
By Fernanda Canales, Naco, Mexico
Plaza Mirador turns a stretch of highway edge into a civic threshold for Naco. What was once a space for cars is recast as a raised public ground with a covered market, a forum, and a lookout tower that signals arrival. The project slows traffic and gives the town a defined center, right beside the baseball field.
The arch is the project’s organizing device. Barrel vaults span the market hall, creating deep shade and a clear rhythm along the street. A tall arched frame marks the tower, drawing people upward through a spiral stair toward views of the Sierra de San José and across the border to Bisbee. From above, the arch becomes a viewing instrument, reframing a divided landscape as one continuous horizon.
Hengqin Culture and Art Complex
By Yunchao Xu Atelier Apeiron, Xiangzhou, Zhuhai, China
Jury Winner, Gallery & Exhibition Spaces, 13th Architizer A+Awards
Wedged between residential towers and an open park, the Hengqin Culture and Art Complex rethinks what a large civic building can be. Rather than packing nine programs into a dense object, the project carves out a vast public void at ground level. Three monumental arch “caves” shape this space, creating a covered urban room that stays open to the city.
The arches follow inverted catenary curves, giving them a structural logic and a quiet sense of gravity. Coated in wood and bamboo, they frame views of the park by day and glow like lanterns at night. Each vaulted hall carries a different mood, from a vertical library landscape to a performance venue and a porous exhibition chamber. Above, terraces and roof gardens continue the curve, letting the arch extend into the skyline.
Cocoon, Pre-primary Extension, Bloomingdale International School
By andblack design studio, Vijayawada, India
Popular Choice Winner, Architecture +Small Spaces, 13th Annual A+Awards
In a region where schools often follow a familiar box-and-corridor formula, the Cocoon extension at Bloomingdale International proposes something far more spatially curious. The pre-primary wing sits beside the existing campus, connected by a sunken courtyard that rises gently toward a building shaped like a soft green hill.
Here, the arch appears stretched and relaxed into a continuous undulating roof. Its sweeping curve forms a protective shell over fluid classrooms, eliminating the rigid geometry children are usually asked to inhabit. Inside, the exposed structure traces the arc overhead, while skylights puncture the surface and wash the interiors with shifting light. The result feels less like a building placed on the site and more like a landscape lifted to shelter early learning.
Moldova’s Hobbit Houses: A New Vision of Sustainable Retreats
By LH47 ARCH, Pănăseşti, Moldova
Half-buried in the ground with grass growing overhead, these small lakeside cabins rise like gentle bumps in the terrain rather than typical rental units.
The arch appears as a compact dome carved into the earth. Its curved profile distributes loads efficiently and reinforces the sense of being sheltered within the landscape. Thick straw bale walls finished in clay plaster follow this arc, creating interiors that feel rounded and protective. Large glazed openings cut through the curve to frame the water, balancing enclosure with openness. The result is an architecture that leans on rural knowledge while giving the arch a quiet, contemporary role.
Exeter College Cohen Quad, Oxford
By Alison Brooks Architects, Oxford, United Kingdom
At first glance, Cohen Quad feels familiar to Oxford: courtyards, stone, and cloisters. Look closer, and the geometry begins to shift. Instead of a rigid square, the plan bends into an S-shape, carving two landscaped courts and threading them together with a continuous cloistered route.
Along the stone base, a sequence of contemporary cloister arches frames the gardens and sets up a steady rhythm for daily movement. These openings reinterpret the collegiate arcade, stretching it into a spatial promenade of stairs and garden walks. Above, student rooms sit within a curved stainless steel envelope, while a sweeping roof arc creates loft spaces and marks the skyline. Here, the arch is less about nostalgia and more about continuity, carrying Oxford’s language forward without freezing it in time.
Golden Beach Hotel
By 314 architecture studio, Paros, Greece
Popular Choice Winner, Unbuilt Hospitality, 13th Architizer A+Awards
Conceived as a sculptural retreat on Paros, this proposal imagines the hotel as an extension of the island’s topography. Long white walls curve across the site like softened dunes, forming a continuous landscape rather than a collection of separate volumes.
Arched openings are carved into these sweeping forms, framing sea views and drawing daylight into guest rooms and shared spaces. The arches read as voids shaped by wind and time, giving depth to the façades and casting pronounced shadows under the Cycladic sun. The design looks to the simplicity of local ruins and circular geometries, reinterpreting them through a more fluid, contemporary lens. Terraces and openings are positioned to capture sunrise and sunset, suggesting a stay defined as much by light and horizon as by enclosure.
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