Does architecture always have to start from scratch? | ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards 2026 🏆

Does architecture always have to start from scratch? Hi, I'm Kasaharu, editor and chief of Park Daily, and today we conclude our look at the winners of the 2026 Building of the Year Awards and explore why they stood out. Selected by public vote, these projects reflect not just what architecture looks like today, but what people believe it should be. In this final video, we focus on five winners that show transformation can be more powerful than demolition. In Nashville, the Norhof district converts a former meat packing plant into a vibrant mixeduse neighborhood without erasing its industrial past. Set within Alvaro Ciza's master plan in Portugal, the canning factory reintegrates an existing structure into the urban fabric, combining housing, commerce, and public space. Adaptive reuse unfolds at a much smaller scale in Vietnam. Hunga Hawabin Cafe reworks a typical townhouse into a layered social space using local materials in Denmark. Backfired observation home expands a historic villa with a lowcarbon timber addition to support vulnerable families at an infrastructural scale in Chile. The stadium of the Universat Catholica preserves 95% of its original framework while upgrading into a contemporary multi-purpose venue, proving that even large scale facilities can evolve responsibly.