News: architect David Adjaye has topped a list of Britain's most influential black people, ahead of Olympic athlete Mo Farah, the shadow business secretary and the Archbishop of York. More »

MAYU Architects and de Architekten Cie designed eleven huge funnels to protect visitors from extreme weather conditions in the outdoor spaces of this cultural centre in Taiwan (+ slideshow). More »

French designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec have designed all the furniture for the remodelled Faculty of Humanities at Københavns Universitet in Copenhagen, which is due to reopen in January. More »

News: WXY Architecture are the third and final studio with plans for the future of New York's Grand Central Terminal and have suggested a 380-metre skyscraper and a network of elevated cycling paths (+ slideshow). More »

News: a tool that lets businesses measure and predict the financial outcomes of investing in design is being developed by a research team in Finland, whose project leader says designers should talk numbers rather than aesthetics to appeal to prospective clients. More »

SOM's proposal for a ring-shaped observation deck hovering over New York's Grand Central Terminal (above) leads this week's issue of Dezeen Mail, which also contains all the latest news, jobs, competitions and reader comments from Dezeen.

Read Dezeen Mail issue 124 | Subscribe to Dezeen Mail

Interieur 2012: Belgian designer Carl de Smet of Noumenon has developed high-tech foam furniture that can be squashed to 5% of its original size for easy transportation and then expanded "like popcorn" by heating it up (+ movie + interview). More »

Competition: Dezeen is giving readers the opportunity to win one of ten Pin World or Pin City wall maps by designers Emanuele Pizzolorusso and Alessandro Maffioletti for Palomar. More »

Hackney studio Levitt Bernstein has won a housing design competition with a proposal to turn disused parking garages into tiny pop-up homes. More »

World Architecture Festival 2012: architects Kristen Whittle and Ron Billard explain how meerkats, fish and open-plan offices for consultants helped provide better care for sick children at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, the winner in the health category at the World Architecture Festival. More »

Design Miami: artist and architect Vito Acconci is to receive the Designer of the Year award at Design Miami in December and has designed a playground (above) to be installed in the Miami Design District. See our recent interview with Acconci. More »

Product news: Hackney designer Paul Cocksedge has launched an invisible bookend to find out if people will buy an object for its function rather than its appearance. More »

News: Norwegian studio Snøhetta has won a competition to design a waterside opera house in Busan, South Korea. More »

News: work is about to start on a high-density, car-free "satellite city" for 80,000 people that will be built from scratch in a rural location close to Chengdu and later replicated in other parts of China. More »