Herzog & de Meuron

We are excited to be shortlisted for the Bays West International Design Competition, and to have the opportunity to work on this historic waterfront site in Sydney together with Silvester Fuller, Michel Desvigne, and Buro Happold.

“Bays West is one of the most ambitious and exciting urban renewal projects anywhere in the world. The project will be based on so many values we all share and wish to be the foundation for how we — as a society — will live in cities in the future. H&dM will contribute with all its experience and design skills to transform Bays West into a model for such urban renewal.” - Jacques Herzog

This competition is a continuation of our work on public spaces in Australia. In our project for Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station, for instance, we explored how to work with existing infrastructure to create a new civic destination. Our proposal built on the specific linear nature of the railway tracks to provide access across the entire site, connecting the waterfront and the city while creating new opportunities for public use.

Our entry for the Sydney Modern Project sought to unite a highly complex site of interlocking buildings under a new roof, creating a major new public center. The roof was conceived as an elevated landscape, housing all exhibition areas and punctuated by creative and social hubs for education and entertainment.

Site photo: NSW Government

The exhibition 'Herzog & de Meuron: In Focus' at M+, Museum of Visual Culture celebrates the museum’s fifth anniversary and marks the second phase of a significant donation to the M+ Collections by Herzog & de Meuron. It builds on a first gift to M+ in 2023 — a section model of the National Stadium in Beijing. This second phase expands the M+ Collection with the transfer of more than two hundred process materials from the Kabinett, including models, drawings, material samples, and prototypes, documenting ten key projects in China from 2002 to 2021.

Since the early 2000s, Herzog & de Meuron has maintained a deep and sustained engagement with China’s rapid growth and urban transformation, contributing to landmark cultural and civic projects including museums, academic institutions, sports stadiums, and city master plans.

The exhibition is open to the public in the M+ Focus Gallery from 12 September 2026 to 10 January 2027.

Photo: Wilson Lam, © M+, Hong Kong

The Ford Student Center at Amherst College transforms and extends the former Merrill Science Center into a new center for campus life. Rather than replacing the existing building, the design retains and repurposes its concrete structure at the lower two levels. Two new floors in mass timber, made from black spruce, complete the building above. This approach reduces material waste and retains the embodied carbon of the existing structure, while establishing a new architectural expression that responds to the scale and landscape of the campus.

Situated between the historic upper quad and the lower greenway, the building connects different parts of the campus through a vertical and horizontal network of shared spaces. Students enter at the greenway on the ground floor and from the quad on the third floor. An internal passage links these entrances and connects the building’s dining, social, cultural, and recreational spaces.

The new program includes Betty’s Kitchen, the main dining space, alongside the Alumni Pub, Stanley’s Café, student organization rooms, cultural resource centers, flexible event spaces, a radio station, music practice rooms, a theater, movement and interfaith spaces, lounges, and terraces. Large windows and outdoor spaces frame views towards the surrounding landscape and the Holyoke Range.

The project was realised in close collaboration with Sasaki as executive architect.

More at hdm.com/530.

Photo: Iwan Baan

Our project for the TITLIS Tower, a transformation of an obsolete 1980’s mountain antenna tower, has been awarded the Swiss Steel Design Award (Prix Acier) 2026.

The prize recognizes outstanding uses of steel in architecture and construction, honoring projects in Switzerland and Swiss-designed work internationally. At the award ceremony at Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, Stephan Weber and Volker Jacob accepted the prize on behalf of Herzog & de Meuron, together with the client, Kevin Rahner of Schnetzer Puskas Ingenieure, and representatives of the project team.

Situated on the Titlis Glacier at 3,000 metres above sea level, the tower extends the existing steel structure with two column-free horizontal volumes and four circulation towers, creating public access to a panorama platform, restaurant and boutique. TITLIS Tower forms part of the wider renewal of visitor infrastructure on Mount Titlis. The Peak Station, the final element of the development, is scheduled to open in 2029.