Waru Waru agricultural field. Image via World Monuments Fund
The United Nations' International Mother Earth Day, observed annually on April 22, aims to "promote harmony with nature and the Earth." In light of the urgency posed by climate change, it seeks to raise awareness of the challenges of preserving all forms of life supported by the planet. It is a call to the global community to safeguard biodiversity while striving to balance economic, social, and ecological systems. Crimes against biodiversity include large-scale practices such as deforestation, land-use change, intensified agriculture, livestock production, and illegal wildlife trade, all considered by the UN to be accelerating factors in the destruction of the planet.
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.
Trees are often the first things to vanish when construction starts. Clearing a site has long been one of architecture's most immediate acts, removing what already exists to make room for something new. When vegetation is preserved, it is typically treated as a secondary layer, added back as landscape rather than shaping the project itself.
However, some projects begin elsewhere. Instead of starting from a blank site, they work with what is already there. Trees remain in place, not as elements to frame, but as conditions that influence how space is organized, how light enters, and how architecture takes form.
Viewpoints are structures designed for observing the landscape from elevated positions. Set within natural settings or urban environments, they act as devices that organize the gaze and establish a direct relationship between the body and the territory. At this threshold between observer and landscape, viewpoints can take on a wide range of configurations, from subtle gestures to monumental structures, always responding to their specific context. Regardless of scale, they are — to some extent — attempts to domesticate vastness: precise framings that make legible what, without mediation, might otherwise appear as excess.
Spaces of retreat continue to offer fertile ground for unbuilt exploration, revealing how architecture can support rest, reflection, and immersion in nature amid shifting environmental and cultural conditions. In this Unbuilt edition, submitted by the ArchDaily community, the selected projects assemble a diverse range of proposals that reconsider hospitality through the lens of refuge. These works position accommodation not as spectacle or excess, but as spatial frameworks shaped by landscape, climate, material restraint, and shared experience.
Across distinct geographies, from Southeast Asian hillsides and Indonesian coastlines to African wilderness, Alpine terrain, Middle Eastern landscapes, and North American forests, the proposals demonstrate varied architectural responses to sensitive sites. They include elevated structures that hover lightly above steep ground, temporary lodge systems embedded in remote ecologies, reconstructed mountain shelters grounded in memory and reuse, courtyard-centered communal stays shaped by lifestyle cultures, contemplative desert retreats, and inclusive woodland camps designed for accessibility and environmental balance.
In the first days after birth, the bee remains inside the nest, cleaning cells and being fed by other workers. Over time, it begins organizing pollen stores, regulating the hive's temperature, and guarding the entrance. Only in the final weeks of its life does it leave the shelter to fly. It is in the moment of flight that its trajectory begins to intersect with architecture and the city. In search of nectar, it moves across a territory shaped not only by its spatial memory and the availability of flowers, but by the way we construct the built environment. Each movement becomes a negotiation with urban space: impermeable surfaces that disrupt natural cycles, air currents intensified between buildings, vegetation-free voids, scattered green fragments between lots, and technical rooftops.
Architecture is increasingly asked to do less, not more. In environments shaped by constant movement, noise, and expectation, spaces that allow people to stay, pause, and be present have become both rarer and more necessary. Many public and semi-public places are designed to keep people moving, consuming, or reacting, leaving little room for lingering, observation, or simply being without a reason.
In response, a growing body of work is shifting attention away from activation and toward presence. Rather than asking users to interact or participate, these spaces create conditions that support staying. Comfort, continuity, and openness allow people to remain without pressure or obligation, making presence a spatial quality rather than an activity.
Noted architect Thomas Kligerman celebrates the magic of summer, exploring the seaside setting and design of secluded cottages facing the Atlantic along the Rhode Island coast
Detail of the Garifuna Kiosk Network. Image Courtesy of 24 Grados Arquitectura
How can architecture restore relevance to forgotten places? What dialogues can emerge when buildings and landscapes are treated not as blank slates, but as layers of memory, identity, and potential? For the Honduran architecture firm 24 Grados, these questions shape an approach rooted in adaptation, reuse, and contextual design. Their projects range from the restoration of old Spanish plazas and cultural centers to interventions in natural parks and coastal villages in Honduras. Each one is grounded in the belief that design can reweave relationships between people, place, and heritage.
In 2025, the architectural field has been marked by a dense calendar of exhibitions, a measured slowdown in construction across multiple regions, and a period of reflection that scrutinizes the impact of intelligence (artificial and natural)—both on professional practice and workplace culture, as well as its use as a pedagogical tool. Over this calendar year, ArchDaily has published more than 30 interviews in a range of formats—Q&As, in-person conversations, video features, and more. These exchanges have engaged themes of sustainability and nature, housing and urban development, AI and intelligence, adaptive reuse and public life, and have closely followed major exhibition platforms including the Venice Biennale, Expo 2025 Osaka, Milan Design Week, Concéntrico, and others.
Jurong Lake Gardens is one of Singapore's newest national gardens, a 90-hectare urban oasis for the community. Elevate’s PondGard EPDM membrane was used to waterproof the pond. Image Courtesy of Holcim
The future of urban planning and architecture is promising if the world, collectively, looks beyond the concept of mere sustainability and instead embraces a nature-positive approach. As global population growth drives rapid urbanization—requiring humanity to build the equivalent of a city the size of Madrid every week for decades to come—the construction sector faces a defining challenge: how to build durable, energy-efficient, and resilient urban environments in harmony with natural ecosystems.
For over 125 years, Tarkett has been manufacturing linoleum flooring based on its original 1898 formulation. Trusted by architects worldwide, this natural floor covering is a benchmark in sustainability, durability, and timeless design. Today, Tarkett Linoleum is not only known for its heritage but also for its innovative application in modern architecture — particularly in the education sector. Learn more about the impact of Lino Materiale by Tarkett on today's spaces.
Tourism in Portugal began to develop in the late 1950s, initially centered on key destinations such as the Algarve coast, Lisbon, and the religious hub of Fátima. This focus made tourism largely a coastal activity. However, rapid growth and overburdened infrastructure in these areas led to saturation and a crisis in the sector. To address this, efforts were made to promote alternative destinations, appealing to a new wave of tourists looking for more sustainable, authentic, and locally immersive experiences.
Across geographies and generations, architects are rethinking the idea of home, balancing personal expression, contextual sensitivity, and material clarity. These contemporary residential proposals, submitted by the ArchDaily community, reveal how the house continues to evolve as both an architectural statement and an intimate landscape for living. From the sculptural and futuristic to the grounded and vernacular, they explore how built form balances between identity, environment, and lifestyle in an increasingly complex world.
What is the link between architecture and pastry? What design strategies are applied in the contemporary interiors of bakeries and pastry shops? While architecture can serve as inspiration for the design of forms and configurations of edible elements, it also contributes the techniques of descriptive drawing, architectural composition, and staged planning to the culinary language. Focusing their thinking on people and their needs, both disciplines strive for precision, with interior design being a broad field where the use of figures, colors, materials, and various equipment can be explored to enhance user experiences.
