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© Archive Olgiati

In recent years, Albania has undergone a rapid and visible transformation, emerging as one of the most active urban environments in Southeast Europe. This growth is not only reflected in the expansion of its built fabric but also in the scale and ambition of new architectural interventions that seek to redefine the country's image. Across its territory, a series of large developments, cultural institutions, and infrastructural projects are being introduced as part of a broader effort to reposition Albania and its capital, Tirana, within regional and international networks.

A significant number of these interventions are being designed by internationally recognized architectural offices, whose presence has become a defining characteristic of the city's current phase of development. Rather than relying primarily on incremental or locally embedded processes, Tirana's transformation is increasingly shaped through externally authored visions that introduce new formal languages, typologies, and urban strategies. These projects often operate as singular objects or large-scale fragments, contributing to a landscape where the city is assembled through distinct and highly visible gestures.

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© Oscar Hernández

• architects: Natura Futura
• Location: Babahoyo, Ecuador
• Project Year: 2026
• Photography: Oscar Hernández
• Photography:
• Area: 180.0 m2

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© Edmund Sumner

• architects: Studio VDGA
• Location: Pune, India
• Project Year: 2025
• Photographs: Edmund Sumner
• Area: 4500.0 m2

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Dornbracht Madison fittings for Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa in Baden-Baden. Image Courtesy of Dornbracht

During renovation projects, replacement is often preferred over refurbishment. Used fixtures are removed, new products specified, timelines secured. Particularly in hospitality projects, where closures are costly and operations are tightly scheduled, installing new components appears to be the most reliable solution. It is faster, easier to coordinate, and aligns with established workflows. Refurbishment operates differently. It requires careful dismantling instead of disposal, evaluation instead of substitution, and trust in the quality of what is already there. It introduces complexity into a process designed for efficiency.

The recent renovation of Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa in Baden-Baden demonstrates that under the right circumstances, this additional effort can become a deliberate architectural strategy for similar projects, especially when the original materials were never intended to be temporary. 

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© Yumeng Zhu

• architects: People's Architecture Office
• Location: Shanghai, China
• Project Year: 2023
• Photographs: Yumeng Zhu
• Photographs: Courtesy of People's Architecture Office

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© Koichi Torimura

• architects: Takeshi Hirobe Architects
• Location: Karuizawa, Japan
• Project Year: 2022
• Photographs: Koichi Torimura
• Area: 205.0 m2

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© César Belio

• architects: DAFdf arquitectura Y urbanismo
• Ubicación: Valle de Bravo, México
• Año Proyecto: 2025
• Fotografías: César Belio
• Área: 425.0 m2

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The stone houses of Westchester’s early 20th-century neighborhoods carry a particular material candor – their masonry is pulled from the same geological bed as the landscape around them, their permanence a direct expression of the region’s character. Ravi Raj’s renovation of a Mount Airy house in Croton-on-Hudson treats that original fabric as the project’s main thesis, organizing every intervention around it while carefully reconciling past and present into a cohesive whole.

Local flagstone sourced to match the existing masonry extends and reinforces the base of the house, preserving its historic texture while subtly expanding its footprint. In contrast, white lap siding wraps the upper floors, introducing a lighter, more contemporary expression that distinguishes new from old without disrupting their dialogue. A 1980s addition that had previously fragmented the roofline was reworked entirely—its massing clarified through a new upper level, steeply pitched roof, and dormers that restore a sense of formal continuity while nodding to the region’s vernacular traditions.

Entry at the below-grade level establishes the interior palette immediately. A foyer and adjacent mudroom unfold in textured limestone flooring and wood-paneled walls, grounding the experience in materials that echo the surrounding terrain. From here, circulation rises toward the main level, where a sculptural staircase—Raj’s reinterpretation of a former spiral—acts as both connective tissue and spatial anchor. Its presence is less about movement alone and more about orientation, framing calibrated views of the stone boulders behind the house and reinforcing a continuous dialogue between interior and landscape.

Curved thresholds carry this spatial logic through the plan, softening transitions and introducing a measured rhythm between rooms. The main level unfolds from the stair into a sequence of living spaces—a galley kitchen, great room, and primary suite—each tied together through this language of subtle curvature. In the great room, a gently sloped fireplace and an arched portal over built-in seating extend the motif, balancing formal restraint with moments of permeability that open outward to the wooded site beyond.

The primary suite holds the residence’s temporal layering within two adjacent rooms. In the bedroom, exposed original rafters—painted a deep green—retain the weight and memory of the earliest structure, paired with a restored fireplace clad in dark soapstone. The material’s matte density reinforces a sense of historical grounding. This is set in deliberate contrast to the adjoining bathroom, where marble hex tile and white lacquered wood wainscoting introduce brightness and refinement, articulating a quieter, more contemporary sensibility.

Beyond the interior, the project extends its architectural language into the landscape through a series of outdoor interventions. An elevated deck off the great room, anchored by a burnished metal firepit, and a bluestone patio off the kitchen with a built-in barbecue create multiple points of occupation, allowing the house to engage the site across seasons.

Throughout, a restrained palette of natural finishes—lacquered wood, honed marble, soft textiles, and custom built-ins—contributes to an atmosphere that feels both timeless and deliberate. A once-disparate structure becomes unified through material continuity, calibrated interventions, and a clear architectural narrative that bridges inheritance and inhabitation.

To see this and other projects by the studio, visit ravirajarchitect.com.

Photography courtesy of Sarah Elliott.

The most infinitesimal elements of our interiors are getting noticed these days. With nothing being left to chance in the outfit of our homes, workspaces, restaurants, stores, and shared civic environments, hardware is finally gaining the attention it deserves. These small—heavily used—components are central to our everyday lives; essential to the function of our kitchens, wardrobes, and the doors that separate these spaces but are ultimately taken for granted. Why shouldn’t our handles, knobs, and pulls be celebrated as a vital home design typology; treated with the same formal and aesthetic rigor as a chair.

A growing crop of boutique producers and design practices foraying into product development have begun to take hold of the application and push the limits of what can be considered functional; the extent of which the human hand can grab, lift, and tug a sculptural form. The possibilities seem endless and experimenting in this small format is less risky. But as with any fresh proposition, a degree of recognition remains critical for viability and wide-spread adoption. A handful of intrepid brands, a number of which hail from Australia, have picked up the mantle.

Take Lo & Co Interiors’ recent collaboration with celebrated Melbourne-based interiors practice Studio Tali Roth: a cleverly conceptualized collection harnessing the surprisingly conducive formal qualities of myriad traditional Italian pasta forms.

Hand-forged in pewter, oil-rubbed bronze, polished nickel, and polished brass, the aptly named Al Dente Collection turns star-shaped pastina into a knob; lasagna into a lateral handle; orecchiette into a thumb-print pull; and the olive—a complementary ingredient central to pasta—into yet another knob.

This ingenious yet playful, whimsical yet sophisticated offering stems from an unexpected adjacency—when too unlikely ideas or things are thrown together. What would happen if an inherently sculptural food like pasta were turned into a furnishing. It’s been done before but often with a gimmicky, far less resolute, outcome.

It makes particular sense in the context of the kitchen, where this collection could take on a semiotic quality, indicating where the foodstuff is stored. Move over Michael Graves and your whistling bird-topped 9093 Tea Kettle.

“For me, the kitchen has always been the most intimate space—where life happens, and memories simmer…and pasta is shared with family,” says studio principal Tali Roth. “I wanted to create whimsical accessories—sophisticated but not too serious. Sculptural pieces that echo the folds of handmade pasta, each offering its own personality.”

To stay in the know regarding Al Dente’s launch, visit loandcointeriors.com.

Photography courtesy of Liam West.