The AV/Arquitectura Viva project marks its fortieth birthday this year, and to celebrate this anniversary the first issue of 2025 returns to the theme of its maiden issue: collective housing. And if in 1985 it focused on the Berlin IBA, this time it presents experiments in different parts of Europe which show how the constant concern about the residential situation is now more pressing than ever. An essay by Abel Fernández Villegas calibrates the political, social, and ecological emergency that should not leave out the construction of homes, and this is followed by a selection of mass housing schemes carried out in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Spain.

The domestic theme is continued in the issue’s dossier, which looks at refurbishments as another way to tackle the residential crisis, a perhaps quicker path in comparison with the process of increasing the new-build housing stock. Six apartment renovations executed by young practices based in Madrid – Casa Antillón, Pedro Pitarch, NULA.STUDIO – and in Barcelona – h3o architects, MACH, Aramé Studio – are a testimony of the fertile testing ground that these kinds of commissions offer.

For its part, the Art and Culture section transcribes the talks that Marta Peris of Peris+Toral, Óscar Miguel Ares, and Alberto Veiga of Barozzi Veiga gave at the first encounter organized in collaboration with Fundación Arquia to assess the state of the profession in the heat of the publication of the AV Yearbook; an initiative launched in journalistic spirit that will annually gather leading players of each twelve-month period. To close, a letter from Kenneth Frampton praises the quality of Spanish architecture, with special mention for the residential part of it, nowadays a true benchmark on an international level.

Order Arquitectura Viva 271