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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsNew Atlas’s December 25, 2024, roundup selects ten notable architecture projects completed or nearing completion that year, from a printed-home community to a museum described as waterlogged. It is an editorial selection presented in no particular order—not a ranking, award, or industry-wide consensus. The projects are more revealing when compared by purpose, setting, and design idea than when treated as competitors.
What the 2024 selection includes
The range is unusually broad: cultural buildings, housing, a hotel, a mixed-use development, and a community of printed homes. The roundup names projects across China, Indonesia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Kazakhstan, and Taiwan. New Atlas described the projects as complete or close to completion at publication; that wording does not establish that every building is operating today.
The entries below follow the source’s unordered selection. Specifics for One Za’abeel, Sun Tower, Pan Pacific Orchard, and Tao Zhu Yin Yuan are supported by their architects’ or operator’s project descriptions. For the other entries, details are limited to what New Atlas reported in its roundup.
Cultural buildings shaped by place and experience
Sun Tower, Yantai, China
OPEN Architecture describes Sun Tower as an oceanfront public cultural facility. Its program includes an outdoor theater, digital exhibition spaces, a library, a cafe, a bar, and a semi-outdoor summit space. The architect says the design responds to the movement of the sun as well as the coastal setting. Rather than a single-purpose landmark, it is conceived as a collection of public and cultural uses tied to its site.
#1 Best Overall
Zaishui Art Museum, China
New Atlas included Zaishui Art Museum under the roundup’s waterlogged-museum framing and reported that water enters the building. That is a description in the publication’s account, not an independently verified engineering specification here. It is best understood as an example of architecture where the visitor’s encounter with water is central to the project’s identity, without assuming details about how the water system works.
Housing, from printed homes to planted towers
Wolf Ranch, Texas
Wolf Ranch is the roundup’s printed-home community, placing residential construction at a very different scale from its skyscrapers. Its inclusion broadens the list beyond individual landmark buildings to a housing development. The New Atlas selection identifies the project and its printed-home character; it does not provide independently corroborated construction specifications here.
Rank #2
Private Jet Villa, Bali
The Private Jet Villa brings a residential project in Bali into the selection. Its name sets it apart from the list’s urban apartment towers and larger developments, but the available project details do not establish further specifications or operating status. Its role in the roundup is a reminder that the year’s notable architecture was not limited to high-rise construction.
Tao Zhu Yin Yuan, Taipei
Vincent Callebaut Architectures describes Tao Zhu Yin Yuan as a residential tower concept built around a DNA double helix and suspended gardens. The idea gives the building a distinctive form and a planted residential identity. The architect’s page also contains older interview material, which should not be taken as evidence of current building performance or operating conditions.
Rank #3
Signal House, Philadelphia
New Atlas includes Signal House among its 2024 projects. The roundup situates it within a varied selection that includes residences and other urban building types, but the details available here do not support a more specific account of its design or construction. Its inclusion points to the geographic spread of the feature rather than to a comparable set of technical metrics.
One River North, Denver
One River North is another residential tower in the selection. New Atlas’s roundup identifies it as one of the notable projects of the year; the available corroboration does not establish further dimensions, landscape specifications, or current operating details. It is therefore useful to compare it with the other housing entries by type and location, not by unverified claims about performance.
Hotels and mixed-use landmarks
Pan Pacific Orchard, Singapore
WOHA describes Pan Pacific Orchard as a 23-storey, 350-room hotel organized into four landscape-inspired strata and three gardened sky terraces. The hotel operator names the four nature-inspired spaces Forest, Beach, Garden, and Cloud. Those descriptions make the project the roundup’s clearest hotel example, but they are not evidence of current room rates or availability.
One Za’abeel, Dubai
Nikken Sekkei lists One Za’abeel’s completion year as 2024. The development consists of two towers linked 100 meters above ground by THE LINK, a 230-meter-long horizontal structure. Nikken Sekkei gives heights of 305 meters for One Za’abeel Tower and 235 meters for One Za’abeel The Residence. Its stated mix includes offices, two hotels, residences, restaurants, bars, and commercial facilities, making it a mixed-use project rather than a tower devoted to a single program.
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A seismic-resistant printed house in Almaty
The roundup also names an unnamed seismic-resistant printed house in Almaty, Kazakhstan. New Atlas’s selection identifies both the printed construction approach and the seismic-resistance focus, but the details available here do not establish a particular engineering system, test result, or building specification. That distinction matters: a project’s stated design aim is not, by itself, proof of measured performance.
How to read this architecture roundup
These ten projects do not share one scale, use, climate, or measure of success. A public cultural facility, hotel, mixed-use complex, residential tower, and printed-home community answer different needs. The most useful comparison is therefore about what each project is for, how it responds to its setting, and what kind of experience or building program it proposes—not a claim that one is objectively the year’s best.
Quick Recap
- For independently supported project specifications: One Za’abeel, Sun Tower, and Pan Pacific Orchard have descriptions from their architects or operator.
- For a design concept: Tao Zhu Yin Yuan’s double-helix form and suspended gardens are described by its architect, but older interview material should not be read as current performance evidence.
- For less-established details: New Atlas is the source for the roundup’s inclusion and reported descriptions of the remaining projects; finer specifications are not established here.
- For completion status: the roundup’s original framing was projects completed or close to completion during 2024, not a present-day operational audit.
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