A formerly abandoned 1970s highway in South Korea’s capital city now hosts 24,000 plants as the Seoullo Skygarden, an elevated public park open to all citizens 24 hours a day. That’s a big deal in a city where so much architecture and infrastructure tends to be corporate-sponsored, with special perks for paying customers of companies like Hyundai. Mayor Park Won-soon, a former human rights and anti-corruption activist, wanted to balance all those logos with public spaces that are more accessible to all.

Dutch architecture firm MVRDV was tasked with designing the park back in 2015, and in just two years, they’ve created a successful public space revitalizing and connecting public spaces near the main railway station that were previously fragmented by roads and rail tracks. Its base, a 1970 motorway flyover, sat empty for a long time after being deemed unsafe for its original purpose.

The Skygarden is packed with 645 potted trees and around 228 species and sub-species of plants, adding a significant amount of greenery to a highly paved area of the city – not to mention encouraging foot traffic, recreation, interaction and physical activity. The route is set up to create a network of hotels, shops, gardens and other attractions, enlivening the center of the city. It’s not just a walkway – it’s an educational experience.

“The linear park was designed as a collection of small gardens, each one with its very own composition, perfume, color and identity,” says MVRDV. “The landscape will change according to the seasons: the bright colors of leaves in autumn of the Aceraceae family (maples), the blossom of cherry trees and rhododendron in spring, the evergreen conifer trees ink inter and shrubs and trees bearing fruit in summer.”

“In the future, the overpass will evolve with new plants and new activators so as to become an ‘urban nursery,’ rearing trees for the surrounding districts. Additional structures of stairs, lifts and escalators as well as new ‘satellite’ gardens can connect to the Skygarden, sprouting like branches from the existing structural piers. These extensions can inspire further additions to the area’s greenery and public spaces, and will connect the Skygarden to its surroundings both physicallyl and visually through plant species related to each of the neighborhoods.”

An abandoned, dark and dilapidated tobacco factory is ‘activated’ as a public meeting place to talk about revitalizing unused spaces through a cheerfully haphazard application of vivid, acid-toned paint. Puerto Rican artist Sofia Maldonado created ‘Kalaña’ (Images by Monica Felix) as part of the series ‘Cromática: Caguas a Color,’ a collaboration with six other artists exploring the intersection of art, community and abandoned architecture.

You can take in the cavernous space while it’s empty and appreciate it for all its wild neon drips, sprays and strokes, taking in how much this simple application of paint has transformed the feel of the space, making it exponentially more welcoming. But Maldonado doesn’t consider the work complete until it’s buzzing with people, serving its ultimate purpose.

“My work is mainly inspired by colors and also by the Caribbean way of living; just experiencing light and color,” she says. “The project itself is not just painting an abandoned building. It’s also the idea of having an agenda. It’s a different format of how a public art piece can also become a creative and educational hub.”

Now, a circular bike ramp encourages playful interaction with the space, and there’s a small stage for speeches and performances. The space will host workshops, lectures, music, presentations and other events.

“This project was very challenging, but I think it’s exactly what I needed in order to create a new sort of dialogue that could place my work in a different context…” says Maldonado. “It allows me to bring my work into a bigger dimension and also to start a dialogue with the community and open a door for people to have a different perspective and intends to bring new meaning to what painting is, what public art could be, and also how can you integrate a community that surrounds it.”

Currently a concrete wasteland along most of its urban length, the Los Angeles River is set to get a dramatic billion-dollar makeover with the backing of the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps has revealed support for the most comprehensive plan, which transforms two segments of the river stretching 11 miles in length into green space for humans and natural habitats for wildlife.

Curbed LA has interactive sliding before-and-after images of various parts of the river, showing what they look like now and how much they’ll change after the rehabilitation. Among the planned changes are restoring wetlands that have been lost to urban expansion.

The LA River acted as a flood control channel until January 1st of this year, getting a new use as a navigable waterway, meaning the county has to make it accessible to the public. New public events along the river have already begun, like bike-in movie nights.

Aside from the obvious positives for residents of Los Angeles, the $1 billion transformation is expected to bring in over $5 million over the next 10 to 15 years alone, and generate tens of thousands of jobs.

Brazil is no stranger to paint-based urban interventions, of  whichRio de Janeiro is frequently the focus, but the scope and scale of this project in particular truly boggles the brain.

The Favela Painting Project founded by Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn of Haas&Hahn (via DesignBoom) has turned an entire neighborhood into a dynamic spectrum of color, coating walls from ground to sky with a rainbow of bright paints.

The project “aims at turning public urban spaces in communities facing social difficulties into monumental works of art. the art of favela painting is not about cosmetically ‘camouflaging’ an area, but rather rejuvenating deprived areas of a city and creating a positive social effect on the general district at hand. it is a means of imagination and rethinking, redesigning and rebranding a community at whole.”

About the artists: “Jeroen Koolhaas studied graphic design at the Design Academy in Eindhoven and has been working as a freelance audio-visual designer and illustrator for the New Yorker magazine since graduation. Dre Urhah has worked as a journalist, copywriter, and art-director and has set up successful companies specializing in different fields, from event management to television production.”