Architecture is evolving into a visionary medium for exploring our planet’s future. In an era of climate breakdown and planetary limits, speculative architects are blending imagination with pragmatism to reimagine how we build and live. Their work responds to crises – from carbon emissions to social inequity – with bold experiments in materials and systems. Traditional construction norms and certification standards are giving way to low-carbon materials, biomaterials like algae and mycelium, and design approaches that mimic ecosystems. These architects see buildings as living participants in their environment, proposing post-natural systems that clean the air, generate energy, or even grow themselves. Such speculative practices are grounded in real research and prototypes, yet retain a dream-like quality – spaces that tell stories about better futures.
This movement matters now because the stakes are high. As we face resource scarcity and climate collapse, speculative architecture offers a testing ground for solutions – whether at the scale of interiors or entire cities. Ideas once confined to sci-fi or academia are entering our homes and public spaces, from mushroom bricks to floating cities. Importantly, these visionaries influence not just exteriors but also interiors and everyday experiences: walls that breathe, roofs that host forests, and rooms that evolve over time. Their slow, thoughtful design approaches prioritise wellbeing and ecological harmony over flashy image. In doing so, they expand architecture’s role as a medium of foresight – a tangible form of design fiction that invites us to inhabit possible futures. Below, we celebrate 21 of the world’s leading speculative architects and designers who are pushing boundaries in sustainable, systems-level thinking. Each is actively crafting new narratives for architecture – grounded in practice but unafraid to ask “what if” as they shape the built environment of tomorrow.
Achim Menges – Professor and Director, ICD Stuttgart (Germany)
Achim Menges is a trailblazing architect-computational designer whose research is reshaping how we construct in the age of robotics and biomimicry. As director of the Institute for Computational Design and Construction at the University of Stuttgart, Menges orchestrates cross-disciplinary teams to develop robotically-fabricated pavilions inspired by natural forms.
Highlight Projects: Elytra Filament Pavilion (2016), ICD/ITKE Research Pavilions (2014–2015), BUGA Wood Pavilion (2019).
Awards: Menges’ pavilions have won multiple awards, including the ArchDaily Building of the Year 2017 (Small Scale).
What Tocco loves: Airy lattices that seem spun by some giant silkworm; wooden shells that curve like a leaf drying in the sun. Menges’ work is delicate yet futuristic, evoking nature’s own genius through computation – it feels like stepping inside a living organism.
Alejandro Aravena – Executive Director, Elemental (Chile)
Alejandro Aravena is a Chilean architect famed for marrying social conscience with innovative design. As the 2016 Pritzker Prize laureate, he has demonstrated how participatory architecture can tackle housing shortages and urban inequality.
Highlight Projects: Quinta Monroy Housing (2004), Siamese Towers (2005), Constitución Cultural Center (2019).
Awards: Aravena won the Pritzker Prize (2016) and the Silver Lion at the 2008 Venice Biennale.
What Tocco loves: Walls of raw concrete that cradle life’s improvisations – rebar left exposed, inviting families to clip on new rooms as they prosper. Aravena’s work has a quiet humanity: it may start spare and bare-boned, but it’s imbued with generosity, ready to blossom with the color and texture of the people who inhabit it.
Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal – Principals, Lacaton & Vassal (France)
Lacaton & Vassal are the 2021 Pritzker Prize-winning duo known for their mantra: “Never demolish, never remove – always add, transform, reuse.” They champion an economy of means approach using simple, affordable materials to create generous spaces.
Highlight Projects: Nantes Social Housing Transformation (2012), 53 Units, Grand Parc Bordeaux (2017), Palais de Tokyo Phase 2 (2012).
Awards: Pritzker Prize (2021), EU Mies Award (2019).
What Tocco loves: There’s nothing flashy – no sculptural bravado – in a Lacaton & Vassal building. Instead, you find clarity and kindness: a once-cramped flat now has a sunny conservatory full of plants; a drab tower now twinkles with glass and human activity.
Anupama Kundoo – Founder, Anupama Kundoo Architects (India)
Anupama Kundoo is an Indian architect celebrated for her material experimentation and commitment to socio-economic sustainability. She builds with mud, bamboo, and ceramic, combining modern engineering with traditional craftsmanship.
Highlight Projects: Volontariat Homes for Homeless (2008), Full Fill Home (2016), Aqua Tower (2015).
Awards: RIBA Charles Jencks Award (2021), Building Sense Now Global Award (2019).
What Tocco loves: Sun-baked earth, in Kundoo’s hands, becomes high art. Think rust-red vaults and ochre domes that feel as if carved from the ground beneath them.
Arthur Mamou-Mani – Director, Mamou-Mani Architects (France/UK)
Arthur Mamou-Mani is a French architect and digital fabrication guru who creates parametric structures with a sustainable twist. His studio specializes in large-scale 3D printing and laser-cutting using bioplastics and renewable materials.
Highlight Projects: Galaxia (2018), Conifera (2019), Altostrata (2021).
Awards: RIBA Rising Star Award (2017), American Architecture Prize (Gold) (2016).
What Tocco loves: Whorls of wood and sugar-based plastics that catch the light in mesmerizing patterns. Mamou-Mani’s designs feel like modern monuments to nature’s geometries.
Bjarke Ingels – Founder & Creative Director, BIG (Denmark)
Bjarke Ingels is one of today’s most influential architects, celebrated for his bold futuristic designs and concept of “hedonistic sustainability.” He leads Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), blending eco-conscious architecture with playfulness.
Highlight Projects: CopenHill (2019), 8 House (2010), Oceanix City (2019 concept).
Awards: European Prize for Architecture (2010), Wallace Stevens Award (2017).
What Tocco loves: A power plant that hosts après-ski parties; a hulking steel factory that also grows wildflowers on its slopes. Ingels’ architecture radiates fun – every eco-feature doubles as entertainment.
Neri Oxman – Founder, The Mediated Matter Group (USA)
Neri Oxman is a pioneer of “material ecology” – combining biology, design, and computational fabrication to create buildings that grow. She is a professor at MIT Media Lab and founder of Mediated Matter.
Highlight Projects: Silk Pavilion (2013), Ocean Pavilion (Aguahoja), Glass I & II.
Awards: Vilcek Prize (2018), TED Fellow.
What Tocco loves: Petal-light structures grown from nature itself. Silk, glass, and chitin coalesce into forms that feel less designed than discovered, whispering of an architecture that lives and breathes alongside us.
Liam Young – Co-founder, Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today (Australia/UK)
Liam Young is an architect who creates films, visualizations, and immersive installations exploring future cities. He’s known for his speculative works that address the political, social, and ecological implications of emerging technologies.
Highlight Projects: Planet City (2020), Where the City Can’t See (2016), New City (2018).
Awards: BAFTA Nomination (for “Consumed” 2016), Royal Academy’s Exhibition (2022).
What Tocco loves: Liam Young’s worlds unfold like a dream you can walk around in. Neon megacities under perpetual dusk, or endless towers under pink skies – each scene pulses with life and caution.
Kate Orff – Founder, SCAPE Landscape Architecture (USA)
Kate Orff reimagines how cities interface with ecology, particularly marine environments. Her practice SCAPE uses nature-based solutions to address climate impacts like storm surges or water pollution.
Highlight Projects: Living Breakwaters (ongoing, Staten Island NY), Tangier Island Resilience (concept), Town Branch Park (underway, Lexington KY).
Awards: MacArthur Fellowship (2017), Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction (2020).
What Tocco loves: Orff designs with the tides. Imagine standing on a shoreline and seeing elegant rock formations teeming with oysters and marsh grasses – beautiful to the eye, yet quietly protecting your neighborhood from the next hurricane.
Shigeru Ban – Founder, Shigeru Ban Architects (Japan)
Shigeru Ban is an architect known for his innovative use of lightweight materials like paper tubes and cardboard in architecture. He’s equally famous for his humanitarian work providing shelters after disasters.
Highlight Projects: Paper Log House (1995), Cardboard Cathedral (2013, Christchurch), Centre Pompidou-Metz (2010).
Awards: Pritzker Prize (2014), Aga Khan Award (2007).
What Tocco loves: Ban’s works prove that simplicity can be sublime. A humble paper tube, usually tossed aside, becomes in his hands a cathedral’s pillar or a cozy house’s wall – it almost invites you to reach out and touch its smooth surface.
Thomas Heatherwick – Founder, Heatherwick Studio (UK)
Thomas Heatherwick is a designer who blends architecture, product design, and public art to create emotional, tactile spaces. His works often incorporate greenery and encourage human interaction.
Highlight Projects: UK “Seed” Pavilion (2010), Little Island (2021), Zeitz MOCAA (2017).
Awards: Lubetkin Prize (2017), Tokyo Design Award (2020).
What Tocco loves: There’s a magic-lantern quality to Heatherwick’s creations. A random hillside sprouts a bouquet of 100 silk-fabric funnels (UK Pavilion); a dull pier transforms into a floating Eden (Little Island).
Francis Kéré – Founder, Kéré Architecture (Burkina Faso/Germany)
Francis Kéré combines African traditions with modern technology to create socially responsible architecture. His sustainable designs promote community-driven processes and use local materials.
Highlight Projects: Gando Primary School (2001), Burkina Faso National Assembly (concept, 2014), Serpentine Pavilion (2017).
Awards: Pritzker Prize (2022), Global Award for Sustainable Architecture (2009).
What Tocco loves: Kéré’s buildings often have a graceful, skeletal beauty – like the veins of a giant lily pad or the ribcage of a whale – not copied but rhyming with nature’s forms.
Michael Pawlyn – Director, Exploration Architecture (UK)
Michael Pawlyn advocates for biomimicry in architecture, drawing inspiration from nature’s systems to design sustainable, self-sufficient structures.
Highlight Projects: Sahara Forest Project (ongoing), Biomimetic Office (concept), Mountain Data Centre (concept).
Awards: Buckminster Fuller Challenge Runner-up (2016), Holcim Awards (2019).
What Tocco loves: Pawlyn’s designs often have a graceful, skeletal beauty – like the veins of a giant lily pad or the ribcage of a whale – not copied but rhyming with nature’s forms.
Michael Reynolds – Founder, Earthship Biotecture (USA)
Michael Reynolds pioneered the Earthship movement, creating self-sufficient homes made from recycled materials and designed for off-grid living.
Highlight Projects: Earthship Global Model (ongoing), Earthship Village Ecologies (2015), Disaster Relief Structures (global).
Awards: Aga Khan Award (2004), Holcim Awards (2007).
What Tocco loves: Homes that look like desert sandcastles, speckled with glass-bottle jewels. Reynolds’ Earthships are self-contained worlds of sustainability.
Rachel Armstrong – Professor of Regenerative Architecture (UK/Belgium)
Rachel Armstrong is a pioneer of living architecture, developing buildings that behave like organisms. Her work integrates protocells into architecture, allowing structures to adapt and heal.
Highlight Projects: Living Architecture (LIAR), Future Venice, Hylozoic Ground.
Awards: United Nations Climate Expert (2021), Royal Flemish Academy Appointment (2023).
What Tocco loves: Buildings that gurgle and grow like living creatures. Armstrong’s visions feel alive – walls that could sweat, heal, or even speak.
Stefano Boeri – Founder, Stefano Boeri Architetti (Italy)
Stefano Boeri’s designs integrate nature and urban life, best known for his vertical forests that clean air and provide habitat.
Highlight Projects: Bosco Verticale (2014), Forest City Masterplan (2019), Trudo Vertical Forest (2021).
Awards: International Highrise Award (2014), Grand Prix National d’Architecture (2008).
What Tocco loves: Towers draped in emerald foliage, balconies overflowing with bird-song and lavender. Boeri’s architecture feels like hope afloat – an optimistic, human-centric answer to sinking cities and rising seas.
Vo Trong Nghia – Co-founder, VTN Architects (Vietnam)
Vo Trong Nghia is a Vietnamese architect known for integrating bamboo and tropical greenery into contemporary design, advocating for greener, more self-sufficient cities.
Highlight Projects: Green Ladder (2016), Binh House (2016), Vedana Restaurant (2020).
Awards: Prince Claus Award (2016), Asian Sustainable Architecture Award (2007).
What Tocco loves: Stepping into a Vo Trong Nghia space is like being cradled in nature. Sunlight filters through bamboo slats, and every breeze carries the scent of leaves and water.
Simón Vélez – Independent Architect (Colombia)
Simón Vélez has elevated bamboo to the realm of high architecture, creating large-span structures with its natural strength and flexibility.
Highlight Projects: Zócalo Nomadic Museum (1999), Crosswaters Ecolodge (2006), Church of Miracles (2011).
Awards: Principal Prince Claus Award (2009), Aga Khan Award (2007).
What Tocco loves: Cathedrals of bamboo that soar against blue tropical skies. Vélez’s structures feel alive – the bamboo stalks arch and bend as if still growing.
Claudia Pasquero – Co-founder, ecoLogicStudio (Italy/UK)
Claudia Pasquero is an architect whose work integrates algae, microorganisms, and slime molds into architectural design. Her studio, ecoLogicStudio, explores how biology and digital fabrication can form living urban systems.
Highlight Projects: Photo.Synth.Etica (2018), Hortus XL Astaxanthin.g (2021), CyberGardens (2015).
Awards: STARTS Prize 2021 (EU), Tallin Architecture Biennale Installation Award (2017).
What Tocco loves: Pasquero’s creations feel like peering into a sci-fi petri dish at city scale: bubbling green algal tubes, iridescent facades that sweat oxygen. They stimulate the senses – the faint smell of moss, the glow of bioluminescence.
David Benjamin – Founder, The Living (USA)
David Benjamin is an architect who blends biology and digital fabrication to create cutting-edge, sustainable designs. His work includes pioneering buildings that grow from organic matter and are highly responsive to environmental changes.
Highlight Projects: Hy-Fi (2014), Living Light (2012), Amphibious Architecture (2009).
Awards: Young Architects Program (MoMA PS1), Holcim Awards.
What Tocco loves: Petal-light structures grown from nature itself. Benjamin grows buildings like baker’s yeast rising in dough.
Francis Kéré – Founder, Kéré Architecture (Burkina Faso/Germany)
Francis Kéré combines African traditions with modern technology to create socially responsible architecture. His sustainable designs promote community-driven processes and use local materials.
Highlight Projects: Gando Primary School (2001), Burkina Faso National Assembly (concept, 2014), Serpentine Pavilion (2017).
Awards: Pritzker Prize (2022), Global Award for Sustainable Architecture (2009).
What Tocco loves: Kéré’s buildings often have a graceful, skeletal beauty – like the veins of a giant lily pad or the ribcage of a whale – not copied but rhyming with nature’s forms.
Join the League.
What’s driving material decisions behind the scenes? Beyond the showrooms and strategy decks, Tocco believes the future is being shaped by those who touch the materials themselves—and those who dare to rethink them.
That’s why we created UNBOX: the world’s first portable material library for these pioneers. It’s our tactile research tool disguised as a product—a curated selection of next-gen materials from the world’s most promising innovators, packed into a portable format for designers, educators, and creators.
Check out UNBOX project here.
