Nepal, May 13 -- Traditional reed bridges in the Nepal Himalaya are similar to those in the Andes, showing how people on opposite sides of the planet living in similar circumstances come up with the same building solutions.

Does this uncanny resemblance stem from people serendipitously designing similar structures because of similar topography, or is it because the indigenous people of the Americas originally migrated from High Asia during the last Ice Age?

Visitors can gauge for themselves at the Materia Awards Mountain Architecture Exhibition (MaMa '26) that brings the Andes and the Himalaya into one shared architectural dialogue through nature-based materials.

"And if you look at this project in Quito, it could be in Dhulikhel, no?...