Dezeen Wire: Swedish furniture retailer IKEA is to build an eco-housing development next to London's Olympic park in Stratford. A spokesman for IKEA has claimed that the 1,200 home scheme featuring its own water power plant, school, health surgery and nursery will be "the newest and most interesting development in the whole area" - London Evening Standard
A Jewish purification ritual takes place in the pools of this Mexico City bathhouse. More about Mikve Rajel by Pascal Arquitectos
Dezeen Wire: Design Matters, an online design talk show and podcast has won the People’s Design Award, voted for by the public and organised by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. More about Online podcast wins public vote for 2011 People's Design Award
This week on Dezeen we featured a couple of intriguing aviation stories: our readers were amused and bemused by a transportation concept resembling a floating inflatable cloud, while Foster + Partners completed the world's first commercial spaceport in the New Mexico desert. More about This week on Dezeen
Dezeen Wire: architectural researchers Arch-Vision have published a report demonstrating that demand for sustainable building materials across Europe is increasing. More about Survey of European architects shows demand for sustainable materials is growing
A grid of timber louvres screens the end facades of this Japanese house by architects AE5 Partners. More about House M by AE5 partners
A solo show of work by artists Studio Job opened at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands this week. More about Studio Job & the Groninger Museum
Dezeen Wire: a tower on the site of the United Nations' campus in New York by Pritzker Prize winning architect Fumihiko Maki that has been on hold since 2004 has been given the green light to continue development - The New York Observer
Maki's proposal for a long, narrow 35-storey tower on the same site as buildings by Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier was stalled by political arguments between the U.N. and the City of New York. The design will now need to undergo alterations ahead of a planning application and is due to break ground in 2013.
More about Pritzker Prize winner's plan for U.N. development back on track
Dezeen Wire: architecture critic Jay Merrick lauds the forthcoming exhibition Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-35 at the Royal Academy in London and explains how the bold, fragmented imagery of this period has influenced contemporary architects from Zaha Hadid to Rem Koolhaas - The Independent
Merrick delves into the historical circumstances that informed the revolutionary approach to creativity of artists and architects such as El Lissitzky, Alexandr Rodchenko and Vladimir Tatlin, stating that "in a world awash with 'iconic' architecture, nothing comes even close to radiating the raw potency of this truly revolutionary form."
More about New exhibition of Soviet art and architecture "deserves to be stampeded"- The Independent
In this interview filmed at Mint Gallery in London, Japanese designer Oki Sato of Nendo talks about Growing Vases, an installation of hand-blown glass lights with the blower's pipe still attached. More about Oki Sato on Nendo's Growing Vases
This Barcelona cafe looks more like a warehouse, with everything from sofas to fridges housed within tall shelving units. More about Fastvinic by Alfons Tost