NEW YORK—With the economy shot and architecture’s next wave of big-ticket projects stalling out, the best of 2008 might be the best we’ll see in a while. But that’s okay, because in the midst of all the egomaniacal money-dumps in Beijing and Dubai, the year saw a number of actually good buildings. Not just monuments to wealth and power, these projects think larger than themselves, putting architecture to use — whether to tell a story, save the planet, or just give someone a roof overhead.