COBE Architects   Denmark   In the heart of the densely urbanized historic center of the Danish capital is this island with vegetation distributed in six gardens and a greenhouse representing different parts of the world. Located next to The Royal Danish Opera, in what used to

A Threshold   India   On land where fruit-bearing plants are grown, arches of different sizes and walls of brick peep through dense vegetation, looking like ruins of an abandoned construction. Outside Kaggalipura, a village some 40 kilometers south of Bangalore, the capit

Dorte Mandrup   United States   The itinerary proposed crosses the park, and the new range of community spaces complement its current activity. In the center of the composition, the main building of La Brea, which is elevated off the ground, concentrates the cultural programs…

Creus e Carrasco r v r arquitectos   Spain   With a built area of 25,843 square meters, this urban reconfiguration in Porto do Son, a town in the province of A Coruña, expresses a direct engagement with the sea and fishing activity, reviving the old port’s identity.

EFFEKT   Norway   Considered the father of modern skiing, Sondre Norheim turned into a full-fledged sport what up to the mid-19th century was little more than a traditional means of locomotion, and popularized the slalom – in the local dialect, a course along a smooth

Carles Enrich   Spain   The Rec Comtal is one of the most important hydraulic infrastructures of Barcelona, having suppled the city with water and irrigated the territory of the Besós agricultural basin from the 10th century to the mid-20th. Because of urban growth, a large

Napur Architect   Hungary   After a century and a half of moving around, the state-owned ethnographic collections finally have a permanent home next to the Városliget city park, under a huge passable roof.

Michèle & Miquel Da Vision   Taiwan   Under debate today as are the colonial experiences of other world powers, the Japanese occupation of Taiwan had nevertheless set out to be a ‘model’ domain, and here lies the seed of its modernization. Though aimed at the greater glory of the metropo

COBE Architects   Denmark   Imitating each one of the strata of an opera stage, the park is a composed landscape with a foreground, a middle ground, and a background. The plants and trees are placed so their natural heights create the scenic setting facing the harbor. Urban par

COBE Architects BRUT   Belgium   The plaza is designed as a series of concentric circles which, inspired by the European Parliament’s Hemicycle, continue in the surrounding paving. The iconic roof structure of the central pavilion reflects the square and the people below...  

Padilla Nicás arquitectos   Spain   Through a project carried out by Francisco José Padilla and Juan Manuel Nicás on the initiative of Fundación Juegaterapia, the roof of Gregorio Marañón Hospital’s maternity and neonatal building – a 2003 work of the architect Rafael Moneo, in collabo

Mario Cucinella Architects   Italy   The thorough refurbishment of a group of medieval houses included an underground extension and a terrace that provides a close-packed Tuscan town with a new public space. An interior route threads together the existing constructions and gives visual

OKRA   Netherlands   The reconstruction of this canal of Utrecht (Netherlands), carried out by OKRA, has won the 11th European Prize for Urban Public Space. Created by the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), the award has since the year 2000 biennially h

Co.Creation Architects   Bangladesh   The result of workshops in which members of the community were invited to rethink their public spaces, a series of operations restored the riverbanks as spots for encounters and enjoyment. In the manner of Indian ghats – ritual platforms beside the w

Pezo von Ellrichshausen   Australia   A building formed by 36 concrete columns set against the sky and a circular ramp that leads up to a viewing point help to give character to what is otherwise a dull suburban commercial area.

Taller Capital   Mexico   The Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) has selected Represo Colosio Park in Heroica Nogales (Mexico) by Taller Capital as the winner of the 2022 MCHAP Award for Emerging Practice, an honor given by the Illinois Institute of Technology (

Brendeland & Kristoffersen   Sweden   The history of many a city is tied up with that of its principal church. Lund Cathedral’s story begins with its construction in the 11th century – with the help of a troll, as the legend goes – and to it we owe what is the oldest primary school in al

Snøhetta   Australia   The project is the result of an international design competition to transform Harbourside into a new, iconic, and inviting destination at the heart of Sydney. The landmark site has a long, rich, and layered history, which provides a unique framework.

Snøhetta   United States   On average, 330,000 people move through Times Square every day. Understanding the magnitude of these crowds and patterns of movement was fundamental to creating a new life for one of the most iconic public spaces in the world. The reconstruction radi

Buzzo Spinelli Architecture Antoine Dufour   France   If stones could talk, those of the Citadel of Bastia could be chroniclers of the city, given that the Corsican commune arose in the wing of this Genoese bastiglia atop a promontory and eventually took its name. Witnesses of thriving trade in periods

Archikubik   France   Located in the heart of Ivry-sur-Sine, in France’s Val-de-Marne department, this operation is an example of urban regeneration of the kind that induces walking, keeps things near, and makes public space and greenery an opportunity for social cohesion

María Fandiño   Spain   The Galician architect María Fandino’s intervention at the Explanada del Horizonte of Portocelo reconditioned a degraded zone of El Rosal, a municipality in the province of Pontevedra. Between the sierra of Groba and the Atlantic Ocean, this part o

MAD Architects   China   The idea of nature in the east – connected to the cultivation of the spirit – gives rise to the concept of city committed to the emotional well-being of its dwellers. True to this premise, the Beijing-based studio of Ma Yansong proposes a sports park

Pier Paolo Tamburelli   In Bramante’s light, the architect and erstwhile editor of ‘San Rocco’ magazine reflects on the prospects today of a public art that embodies a shared, common experience.

Patrick Templeton   The spectacle is capital to such a degree of accumulation that it becomes an image. (Guy Debord) As designer Thomas Heatherwick’s second privately commissioned folly opened in New York City in the summer of 2021, his first closed. The city’s newest g

Eduardo Mangada   Como buen ciudadano, atento a la convocatoria del alcalde de Madrid, acudí a contemplar la renovada plaza de España. Con ojo atento exigible a un arquitecto, la recorrí en diagonal, desde la esquina de Bailén-Ferraz hasta la de Princesa-Gran Vía. Vi

estudioHerreros   According to the dictionary, an infrastructure is the set of elements, facilities, or ser-vices required for an organization to operate efficiently. The act of delving beyond the architectural concept of infrastructure as something having to do with

Richard Ingersoll   Although climate-change-denier recently assumed power in the USA, all knowledgeable sources agree that the planet has entered a new geological phase, defined by Paul Crutzen as the ‘Anthropocene.’ After two centuries of intense human-produced gases r

José María Ezquiaga   During times when urban planning often seems bound to arbitrary actions and scandals, it is common to uphold collective interests as a key icon upon which to base the recovery of a lost legitimacy. Certainly traditional planning has rested, over the

Lys Villalba   Thousands of plastic containers, hundreds of used tires or dozens of pallets are garbage, aren't they? The fact is that not everything that is discarded has to have ceased to have a use, although it may seem that way. Questioning the possibilities of

Manuel Delgado   A veces se antoja que los espacios urbanos que los arquitectos y urbanistas proyectan no están concebidos para que en ellos se desarrolle la sociabilidad humana, como si la simplicidad del esquema producido sobre el papel o en la maqueta no estuviera

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Cities are not made of buildings, but of people. Their construction material is not steel or concrete, glass or brick; it is the plural lives of those who dwell in them, their needs and demands, their desires and their dreams. However, that social ch

Belinda Tato   José Luis Vallejo   El uso democrático de las herramientas digitales permite generar un concepto flexible de espacio público basado en la participación espontánea de los ciudadanos.

José Miguel Iribas   Existe una generalizada convención según la cual la ciudad viene conformada básicamente por los equipamientos y los espacios públicos, una concepción morfologista que remite de forma irrecusable a la arquitectura como la más decisiva (diríase que cas

Ricardo Aroca   Para empezar una precisión semántica: observo, con pesar, que llaman chirimbolos a los enormes artefactos que han invadido Madrid bajo la égida del alcalde Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón. Protesto con la autoridad que me da el haber bautizado a los chirimbol

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Instead of pursuing urban planning understood as little more than real-estate development, towns should care more for the civility of their public spaces.

Maria Claudia Clemente Francesco Isidori   Zúrich  2023  
Park Books   - 468 Pages 

Ana Morcillo Pallarés   Production, Revitalization, Commodification