During the past year, health care environments have struggled to cope with the various impacts of COVID-19 around the world. Health care facilities need to help strengthen resistance to pathogen threats and provide care for patients and health workers in the safest possible way. Architectural design strategies can play a significant role in infection prevention and control. The current study aims to examine the experiences of health workers with hospital spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic. Identifying the difficulties they face, the present study attempts to shed light on the role of the health care layout configuration in combating pandemics. The authors conducted observations at four hospitals and a series of online semi-structured interviews with 162 health care staff from March to May 2020. The study indicated that space configuration and the hospitalization of patients, layout and circulation of the environment, operation services such as indoor environment conditions, maintenance of health care system, and organizational support for health care staff were the most critical factors affecting infection control in health care environments. The initial zoning and separation of patients were the most effective methods of controlling infection. Hospitals with clustered plan layouts were found to be the most effective buildings for the zoning of COVID-19 patients during the pandemic and for infection control.

Relationships between people and their environments are continually reconstituted through public space. Culture and background are important influences on how people respond to their environments and, as populations become more diverse, it might be expected that public spaces respond to more diverse preferences. In New Zealand, despite its bi-cultural history, it is largely European preferences that have shaped public spaces. However, with immigration and travel, the country is rapidly becoming multicultural, with Pasifika people and Asians making up larger proportions of the population alongside those who identify as Māori and European. If public spaces are to respond to these changing demographics, there is little empiric evidence to inform urban designers and public space managers. This article discusses the methods used to examine streets as one of the most relevant types of public space in New Zealand. The methodology was deployed in two distinct stages, the first of which made use of ethnographic fieldwork and provided data on specific public spaces and their usage through a range of case studies. The second stage utilised online surveys to probe people’s preferences for a series of visualisations of street environments. Most research on public space design has to date been focussed on one or the other of these methods (field research or visual preference surveys). The combination of methods used in this research enables a deeper understanding of which public space attributes foster lingering and social activities among people from different cultural backgrounds. This methodology is feasible and comprehensive, clearly identifying the important relationships between design, use and preference in multicultural societies. The findings will be of interest to other researchers, urban practitioners and city officials.

Residential gardens are critical to urban water conservation, yet limited public awareness and sustainability education constrain the adoption of xeriscaping, particularly in arid regions such as Iran. We investigated the uptake of nine common water-saving practices among 182 households and examined the psychological, environmental, and educational factors that shape behavior. Timed watering and lawn avoidance were common, whereas practices requiring greater technical knowledge, such as mulching and graywater reuse, remained limited. Familiarity with drought-tolerant plants strongly predicted adoption ( r = .557, p < .001), while a lack of planning knowledge posed a barrier. Open-ended responses emphasized the need for practical guidance, demonstration projects, and stronger institutional support. By linking adoption patterns to knowledge gaps, the study underscores the importance of informal and non-formal sustainability education in translating awareness into practice. Findings inform curriculum development, extension programs, and environmental outreach, framing xeriscaping not only as a technical adaptation to water stress but also as a pedagogical opportunity to advance environmental literacy.

Urban designers and city planners are increasingly interested in how streets can support social activities. Street-based social activities are influenced by relationships between the street’s physical characteristics, the business activities that take place there and how these two factors are managed over time. As New Zealand’s population becomes more diverse, a key challenge is to design and manage public spaces so that people from different socio-cultural backgrounds can enjoy spending time there. The ethnic retail phenomenon is considered one of the most recognisable symbols of multiculturalism. In many cases, the identity of an ethnic neighbourhood has developed around a specific mix of retailing activities. Despite this, very little work has been done to identify the characteristics of shops and businesses along streets that can help stimulate social intercourse. This paper explores how commercial business agglomerations can support efforts to make streets more culturally diverse. Through observations of activity along streets and interviews with people from three ethnically diverse communities in New Zealand, it was revealed that the extent to which streets become the public domain of different ethnic groups is dependent on the retail activities on offer. We conclude with reflections about the importance of municipal intervention and management for multicultural planning practice in streets.