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Cheonggyecheon stream in Seoul, Korea. Image © trabantos via Shutterstock

Observed annually on April 7, World Health Organization's World Health Day draws attention to global health priorities while situating them within broader environmental and societal contexts. Established following the first World Health Assembly in 1948 and observed since 1950, the day has evolved into a platform for addressing the shifting conditions that shape health, from local systems of care to planetary-scale challenges. The 2026 edition, held under the theme "Together for health. Stand with science," calls for renewed engagement with scientific knowledge as a basis for collective action. The year-long campaign emphasizes collaboration in protecting the health of people, animals, plants, and the planet, foregrounding the One Health approach as a framework for understanding their interdependence.

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© Charles Bouchaib

• architects: Ramdam Architectes
• architects: palast
• Location: 12-20 rue Gabrielle le Pan de Ligny, 44000 Nantes, France
• Project Year: 2025
• Photographs: Charles Bouchaib
• Photographs: Javier Callejas
• Area: 5247.0 m2

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Parc de la Villette, Paris, September 2012. Image © Marko Kudjerski via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY 2.0

Paris's 19th arrondissement Parc de la Villette is undergoing a major transformation, combining a newly opened urban farm with restored biodiversity as part of a strategy to adapt the 55.5-hectare park to climate change. Masterplanned by Bernard Tschumi in 1982 and opened to the public in 1987, the park stands as a landmark of European modernism in public space design, breaking from the traditional concept of the metropolitan park. With a 15,000-square-meter extension, this major green lung in northeast Paris is reimagining its lawns as a living laboratory for environmental education, where animals, plants, and humans coexist. The extensive renovation follows the addition of Tschumi's HyperTent in 2022, a hyperbolic paraboloid structure functioning as a new ticket booth on the podium of Folie L4, and marks the park's most significant transformation since its inauguration.

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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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