In the race to make cities and metropolises resilient places toward the challenges we will face due to climate change, there are many projects that are configuring new starting points for thinking about public space and the intersection with what's personal or private.

In a world increasingly marked by climate change, resource scarcity and population growth, architecture must be able to adapt, regenerate and interact with its surroundings. In this scenario, designers are deploying increasingly innovative solutions that integrate advanced technologies, natural materials and circular building practices to minimize environmental impact.

Among the intervention contexts capable of making the urban fabric a more sustainable place from an ecological as well as a social point of view, we observe projects with a great heterogeneity in scale, going from infrastructural works such as solar parks and highway lines, to the more detailed and intimate scale of gardens.  

We selected from the articles published in 2024 the projects from Europe to Asia that most interestingly address contemporary challenges.  

Bilgin Architects was responsible for the design of the new control center for one of the largest solar parks in all of Europe, located on the Karapinar Plains in Turkey. Here, a 20-square-kilometer area — which has become unsuitable for agriculture but has significant energy potential due to the desert climate — was designated as an energy specialization area. Read also

The Powerhouse Company studio has won the competition to design in Amsterdam the Havenstraat district, a well-known suburban area of the Dutch capital. Located in a place at the moment mostly defined by disused industrial remains, historic streetcars and informal greenery, the area will now be reshaped as a “creative district”, offering – according to the call for proposals – space for experimentation, opening up to local businesses, creatives and makers to refine its character. Read also

Landscape firm FLO Landscape Design has completed in collaboration with Zaha Hadid Architects the transformation of a public plaza in Dongcheng District, China. The renovated public area – at the foot of a commercial complex spanning 300,000 m² across four buildings – now offers a range of functions to the public, suggesting possibilities for future use. Read also

The project has received a total of $16 million in funding. +Pool is a cross-shaped pool that will filter pollutants from the surrounding water without the use of chemicals, offering New Yorkers the opportunity to swim publicly. Following the stated timeline, the team hopes to complete the project as a free and accessible public pool by next year. Read also

The city of Cremona, an hour's train ride south-west of Milan, in the Po valley, is working to build a high level of public attention around its ambitious urban regeneration programme Giovani in centro (Youth at the cntre); a public meeting for instance, titled Pensare la città (Thinking the city) has been held last March to call together planners, administrators, scholars, journalists and technicians, and the architects involved in the projects that will help define the face of future Cremona. Read also

Architecture firm Cutwork has developed a low-cost housing module that could help with the growing demand for affordable housing around the world. Called ReHome, the design can also be easily reconfigured to house twice as many people during a crisis. Read also

La Hoya is a gorge located on the edge of the historic district of Alméria — a Spanish city located in the autonomous community of Andalusia —between the hills of the Alcazaba and San Cristóbal. Landscape studio KAUH has developed a delicate landscape restoration project for the area, where environmental regeneration and spatial reinterpretation intertwine to define this proposal, which aims to rediscover a place that is already strongly characterized by the natural and anthropogenic boundaries that surround it. Read also

Mexican architecture firm Centro de Colaboración Arquitectónica has created a wooden pavilion for Casa Wabi. Located just outside Puerto Escondido, Mexico, The Orchid Pavilion is a simple wooden structure that serves as a canopy for a walkway embedded in the pink-colored ground, with benches along the sides and gravel in the spaces between the slabs. Read also