This week on Dezeen, the John Morden Centre in London by UK studio Mae Architects was revealed as the winner of the 2023 Stirling Prize.
The building is a daycare centre for a retirement community with a cross-laminated timber structure and red brick facade, which the Stirling Prize jury described as “a place of joy and inspiration”.
However, not overly enthused by the six shortlisted Stirling projects, architecture critic Catherine Slessor wrote an opinion piece on what the “dutifully dull” selection says about the architecture prize.
Also in architecture news, the Saudi development of Neom unveiled its latest region that consists of a trio of “luxury high-end boutique hotels”.
Designed by three different architects, the hotel trio includes a stepped hotel climbing up the cliffside, a mirror-clad hotel, and a geometric hotel designed to appear like formations rising from the rocky landscape.
In other architecture news, we reported that Zaha Hadid Architect’s King Abdullah Financial District Metro Station neared completion in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The station forms part of the King Abdullah Financial District, which along with Neom, are two of the 14 giga projects currently being developed in the country.
This week we also created a simply guide to 15 minute cities – an urbanism theory that has gained wide attention this year.
We explained what they are, who invented the concept and why they have become so controversial.
This week was also 100th anniversary of Disney. To mark the occasion we rounded up 12 of the most interesting buildings – from fairytale castles to postmodern hotels – created by the corporation.
We also looked at the giant novelty structures at Disney’s Pop Century Resort hotel, which was photographed by Arnau Rovira Vidal.
Popular projects this week included a home in the Hamptons turned into a “villain’s hideout”, a “dreamy” treetop resort in Bali and a one-legged “treehouse” in Estonian pine forest.
This week’s lookbooks highlighted bold showers that add a pop of colour to the bathroom and interiors where chequerboard flooring adds a sense of nostalgia.
This week on Dezeen
This week on Dezeen is our regular roundup of the week’s top news stories. Subscribe to our newsletters to be sure you don’t miss anything.
Dezeen editor Tom Ravenscroft created a simple guide explaining the 15-minute city concept