Arquipeo Building of the Year 2026: A Flood-Ready São Paulo Office Wins the Record Awards

Arquipeo Building of the Year 2026 is not a tower. It is a five-storey office complex in a flood-prone industrial district of São Paulo, wrapped in perforated steel, lifted above the ground plane, and organised around courtyards and terraces instead of a sealed slab. On 4 November 2026, Architectural Record named it Building of the Year at the Record Awards ceremony in New York (Architectural Record). Information verified through 8 November 2026.

The project, by Brazilian practice Estúdio Gustavo Utrabo, won the Office & Workplace category first. Editors then singled it out above every other category winner for the top honour (Architectural Record).

Arquipeo Building of the Year 2026 starts with water, not with a facade

Arquipeo covers 751,730 square feet on a corner parcel in Vila Leopoldina, a flood-prone industrial neighbourhood (Architectural Record). The building is predominantly concrete, just five storeys tall, and spread wide rather than stacked high, on a 37-foot structural grid staggered to form interconnected pathways, courtyards and terraces (Architectural Record). Nearly 14 percent of its total floor area is outdoor space (Architectural Record).

Flooding shaped the section. The ground plane is elevated to mitigate flood risk, landscaped with green-tinted walkways and dense plantings of native species, while a subterranean stormwater-retention system can hold nearly 190,000 gallons (Architectural Record). Inside, the offices keep modest finishes, natural ventilation, tall ceilings, greenery and ample daylight (Architectural Record). A scrim of perforated steel shades the whole complex (Architectural Record).

Juror Florian Idenburg summed up the appeal in one sentence: “Arquipeo reinterprets the office through a refreshing blend of natural landscape, structural clarity, and spatial flexibility — generosity in a place that finds little” (Architectural Record). That is Sao Paulo climate-adaptive office design stated as a working method, not a slogan: accept the rain, shade the heat, ventilate the rooms, and give workers outdoor space instead of another sealed floor plate.

The client list hints at the scale of the bet. Record lists Brookfield and WPP as clients, with landscape by Raul Pereira Arquitetos Associados and environmental consulting by CA2 (Architectural Record).

The 2026 Record Awards winners stretch from Tbilisi to Taiwan

Arquipeo topped a genuinely scattered field. The 2026 Record Awards winners were chosen by a jury of editors and guests Florian Idenburg, Hana Kassem, Nat Oppenheimer and Miriam Peterson, showcased in the magazine’s November issue alongside 11 honorable mentions (Architectural Record). The awards, now in their second year, covered 19 categories including four new ones in this cycle (Architectural Record).

A few winners show the range. Adaptive Reuse went to Neri&Hu’s Telegraph Hotel in Tbilisi, Georgia, a Soviet-era brutalist post office turned luxury hotel (Architectural Record). Civic & Government went to Sanjay Puri Architects’ Nokha Village Community Center in India, and Infrastructure to KPF’s TCC Daka plant in Xiulin, Taiwan — a waste-to-energy facility combined with a conservation centre (Architectural Record). Restoration went to SOM’s Waldorf Astoria in New York, Tall Buildings to SOM’s Sany Irootech Headquarters in Guangzhou, and Performance Spaces to PCA-Stream’s Le Source Vive in Évian-les-Bains, France (Architectural Record).

Students were in the room too. The Unbuilt (Students) prize went to Joe Russell and Emma Sheffer for Theseus: A New Housing Typology, sited in Chelsea, Massachusetts (Architectural Record). Almost all the winning architects, from India, Italy, China, Chile and beyond, attended the 4 November ceremony to accept in person (Architectural Record).

Elizabeth Diller Architect of RECORD 2026, and a cover drawn by hand

The project prizes followed three individual distinctions announced the month before. Elizabeth Diller Architect of RECORD 2026 was the headline: the Diller Scofidio + Renfro cofounder received the magazine’s lifetime-achievement honour, the Architect of RECORD award (Architectural Record). Thomas Robinson of Portland’s Lever Architecture was named Innovator, and Jeffrey Huber of Brooks Scarpa Huber was named Rising Professional (Architectural Record).

Accepting, Diller reached back 45 years: “It’s 45 years since we’ve started our practice and everything has changed — and really nothing has changed in a way,” she said, adding that her studio still believes “public space needs advocacy as cities become more and more privatized” (Architectural Record). Editor in chief Josephine Minutillo described Diller as someone who has “always operated within and beyond architecture,” across multimedia, installation, performance, museums and urban interventions (Architectural Record).

The November issue pairs the awards with a special section on architectural drawing, and a detailed, colourful axonometric of Arquipeo by Utrabo’s studio sits on the cover (Architectural Record). Minutillo’s point lands neatly against the winning building: even as digital tools reshape drawing, “the hand of the architect is still very much present” (Architectural Record).

Analysis: award seasons usually reward height, gloss or novelty. This one rewarded drainage. Arquipeo’s retention tank, raised ground plane and shaded, ventilated floors are unglamorous decisions, and that is exactly why the choice matters — it tells younger practices that the most publishable office building of the year can be the one that deals honestly with its own street, its own weather and its own flood line.

Photo: Diego Torres Silvestre, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Sources

1. https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/18512-announcing-the-winners-of-the-2026-record-awards
2. https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/18526-records-2026-building-of-the-year-arquipeo-by-estudio-gustavo-utrabo
3. https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/18530-november-2026-editors-letter
4. https://www.architecturalrecord.com/articles/18534-the-2026-innovation-conference-and-record-awards-highlights-presidential-libraries-mass-timber-and-more