TIME’s Person of the Year 2025

“Architects of AI”: TIME’s Person of the Year points to the people behind a global transformation

Author

Yagmur Baydır
December 12, 2025

Dear PA reader,

TIME’s naming of the “Architects of AI” as its 2025 Person of the Year underscores how designers, engineers, and tech leaders have shaped artificial intelligence into a force that now permeates culture, economy, and everyday life. The AIA Gold Medal 2026 awarded to Shigeru Ban celebrates a career rooted in material innovation and humanitarian architecture.

A retrospective on the world’s most expensive construction mistakes reminds us that ambition and error often travel hand in hand, with lessons etched into the built environment as surely as the structures themselves. In Iran, the Ernan Boutique Hotel by Kalbod Studio breathes new life into a historic castle, showing how adaptive reuse can merge heritage and contemporary design with striking results.

Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Abu Dhabi enters its final construction phase, marking a major architectural milestone for the region. And Snøhetta, together with A49 Architects, has unveiled Cloud 11 in Bangkok, a mixed-use urban development featuring Thailand’s largest elevated lawn and a landscape-driven design.

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