<p>Stimuli-responsive materials have been widely developed through material-based strategies focused on molecular design and compositional optimization. While effective at enhancing intrinsic responsiveness, such approaches often encounter fundamental limitations in response speed, stability, scalability, and multifunctionality at the system level. A growing body of recent work reflects a paradigm shift toward architected stimuli-responsive hybrid systems, in which responsiveness is deliberately programmed through structural design alongside material chemistry. By reorganizing recent advances, including structure-driven principles, spatial segmentation, interfacial engineering, functional integration, and temporal programming, we identify these as major approaches for thermally, electrically, mechanically, and chemically responsive systems. Through the collection of experimental articles and literature reviews presented in this Special Issue, responsiveness is reframed as a designable, system-level output that emerges from the integration of material properties and structural architectures. Future opportunities are further outlined in terms of structural scalability, lifecycle-aware programming, and application-driven technologies, positioning architected stimuli-responsive systems as fundamental platforms for many intelligent devices.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>