Lighthouse Editorial

Architecture, urbanism and the lives behind buildings — slow-read essays, every Thursday.
Issue 47

The quiet violence of the parking minimum

How a single planning rule shaped sixty years of North-American urbanism — and why three small cities are finally walking it back.

Posted by Anneli Soosaar on May 22, 2026

Issue 46

A modest case for the timber midrise

Cross-laminated timber is finally legal up to ten storeys in seven European countries. We visit four buildings to see whether it works in practice.

Posted by Marko Ilves on May 15, 2026

Issue 45

What Helsinki got right about the harbour

The story of Jätkäsaari, Hernesaari and the slow transformation of working ports into mixed-use districts that residents actually like.

Posted by Lotta Hyvärinen on May 8, 2026

Issue 44

The honest case against the 15-minute city

A planner who spent six years implementing the model in Lyon explains why the catchphrase ages worse than the underlying idea.

Posted by Aurélien Roche on May 1, 2026

Issue 43

Reading rooms after the pandemic

Public libraries quietly reinvented themselves between 2021 and 2025. Six librarians on what they kept, what they buried, and what surprised them.

Posted by Reet Vahtra on April 24, 2026

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