This time last year architects Planning Korea designed a futuristic media bridge that resembled a string of bubbles, while the Dutch Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo won the best project at the Dutch Design Awards 2010, despite one of our readers commenting that "the Netherlands is represented here like a crazy playground!" More about One Year Ago...
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
Guest artists will be invited to live and work inside this shard-like timber hut. More about Artist Retreat by 0 to 1
Following our recent feature about projects that intentionally look as though the builders haven’t left yet, here’s a restaurant in Mexico City with lumps of plaster and holes on its ceiling. More about Cantina de Comida Mexicana by Taller Tiliche
Check out the latest issue of Dezeen Mail for all the best stories and comments from Dezeen, including two unusual transport options: float around at random on an inflatable cloud or jet off from the world's first space tourism port. There's also an update from Dezeen Wire, the latest movies on Dezeen Screen and all our new competitions and jobs. Take a look at it here.
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More about Dezeen Mail #84
Dezeen Wire: architects including Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Foster + Partners and Snøhetta have submitted plans to a controversial competition that proposes the transformation of a Victorian public gardens in Aberdeen, Scotland.
Models of the six shortlisted entries were unveiled at a public exhibition yesterday but Andrew MacGregor, secretary of the protest group Friends of Union Terrace Gardens, condemned the designs as an “absolute abomination” and said there would be rolling public protests by supporters who want to keep the gardens as they are - The Scotsman
More about Outrage at gardens for Aberdeen by Snøhetta, Foster + Partners and Diller Scofidio + Renfro
London designers Studiolav have declared the pencil redundant and redesigned it for life in a pencil-pot graveyard. More about Design is Dead Pencil by Studiolav
Dezeen Wire: the Design Museum has announced that the building at Butler's Wharf in London, which has been its home since 1989, is up for sale. More about Design Museum building for sale
British designer Tom Price talks about his Meltdown series of furniture while he melts a big ball of nylon rope into a chair in this movie from the Tales of the Hunt interview series made by Brussels gallerist Victor Hunt. More about Tales of the Hunt: Tom Price
Paris studio 1024 Architecture have completed a cafe made from scaffolding and shipping containers on an island on the Seine in Paris. More about Les Grandes Tables de L'île by 1024 Architecture