Architizer's 14th A+Awards judging is live! Subscribe to our Awards Newsletter for updates on Public Voting and the big winner reveal later this spring.
Matryoshka dolls, or Russian dolls if we are being less formal, follow a very predictable routine where you open one and find another inside, then open that one and find yet another, continuing until you reach the smallest piece, which is slightly anticlimactic but still oddly satisfying.
It sounds like a children’s toy, but the spatial idea behind it holds up remarkably well. In the context of this collection, architecture does not copy this literally, meaning you do not walk into a building to find a perfect miniature of the same building waiting inside. You can, however, walk in and discover something unexpected, like a second structure, a room that feels like its own contained world, or a volume that sits clearly within another while maintaining its own identity.
From historic shells filled with new structures to interiors that contain entire landscapes of their own, this collection shows how architects work inward, using layers to organize space and create buildings that reveal themselves gradually as you move through them.
Perth Museum
By Mecanoo, Perth, United Kingdom
Jury Winner, Museums, 13th Annual A+Awards
Set within Perth’s former City Hall, a 1914 Edwardian landmark, this project begins with a familiar problem: a grand shell that no longer fits how the city uses it. Instead of clearing it out or freezing it in time, Mecanoo worked inward. A new layer was inserted, carefully positioned within the existing structure, allowing the original hall to remain legible while taking on a new role.
At the center sits a timber volume, almost like a room placed inside a room, built to house key artifacts, including the Stone of Destiny. Around it, balconies and walkways trace the perimeter, turning the historic shell into a backdrop.
The Pyramid of Tirana
By MVRDV, Tirana, Albania
In the center of Tirana, the former museum to Enver Hoxha arrives with heavy symbolism and a concrete shell to match. But rather than stripping it back or turning it into a relic, MVRDV treats it like a container. The structure is opened, climbed and filled.
Inside, a stack of colorful boxes holds classrooms, studios, and cafés. They sit within the vast interior like smaller buildings placed inside a larger one, each with its own purpose and scale. Outside, steps run up the sloped sides, pulling people across and over the structure.
Design of kiosks and observation decks in Wuhan Tianhe Airport T2—Towards a light architecture
By UAO Design, Wuhan, China
Located within the existing halls of Tianhe Airport, this project starts with a tight constraint: add new spaces without touching what’s already there. Instead of rebuilding, AVOLTA inserts a series of lightweight pavilions, assembled quickly from modular steel frames and translucent panels. The structures sit within the terminal like independent pieces, clear in form and easy to place.
Each pavilion carries its own color, drawn from Wuhan’s local identity, and shifts in tone as light passes through it. Seating, viewing platforms and small enclosures are wrapped into these compact volumes.
Wet Beast
By Studioninedots, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Between the concrete arches of Westbeat, a typical workspace could have settled into rows of desks and polite meeting rooms. Instead, three oversized objects interrupt the routine. Beast, Jungle, and Town Hall arrive as their own environments, each with a different scale and mood. One invites climbing and wandering, another turns circulation into seating, and the third offers a quieter corner behind curtains. They sit somewhere between furniture and architecture, refusing to fully belong to either.
Ombú
By Foster + Partners, Madrid, Spain
Jury Winner, Sustainable Commercial Building, 11th Annual A+Awards
Once a power station from 1905, this structure had been sitting empty for years, its heavy brick envelope intact but underused. Rather than replace it, Foster + Partners inserted a new timber framework inside, light enough to sit within the existing structure without competing with it. The original walls and steel trusses remain visible, holding their ground around the new intervention.
Workspaces, circulation, and services are all contained within this inner layer, leaving a clear gap between old and new.
LVWA BOOKSTORE
By Studio Yuda, Shanghai, China
Unlike a typical bookstore, this one has a mountain at its center.
Rising 13 meters under an existing skylight, the structure turns a flat interior into something you move through vertically. Steps, shelves, and platforms are carved into its surface, allowing visitors to climb, pause, and read along the way. Around it, smaller “hills” repeat the idea at a more intimate scale, shaping seating, display, and circulation.
The concept links reading with movement. Moving through the space becomes part of the experience, as visitors shift between levels, viewpoints, and moments of pause.
Architizer's 14th A+Awards judging is live! Subscribe to our Awards Newsletter for updates on Public Voting and the big winner reveal later this spring.
