Our annual A-Zdvent calendar is back! In the days leading up to Christmas we'll be highlighting an architect for each letter of the alphabet. To start off with, A is for Adjaye. His projects include the Dirty House in east London (pictured) the Moscow School of Management and two libraries in Washington DC.
More about Dezeen's A-Zdvent calendar: David Adjaye
Angular zinc-clad volumes fold around a central courtyard and stretch out towards ocean views at this house designed by Australian architect John Wardle on the scenic Great Ocean Road in Victoria (+ movie). More about John Wardle's Fairhaven Beach House stretches out towards the ocean
Following the row over whether Zaha Hadid's World Cup stadium looks like a vagina, here's a roundup of yonic architecture from the Dezeen archives. As one commenter wrote: "There are enough phallic buildings in the world; maybe it's time for some vaginal ones". More about After Zaha's "vagina" stadium, here are six more examples of yonic architecture
Movie: in our final exclusive interview from Inside Festival, Emre Açar of Alatas Architecture & Consulting explains how the Turkish studio converted a dark, narrow nineteenth-century house in Istanbul into a light office space. More about Wooden Istanbul house converted into a new office for Turkish tinned tuna company
Following the completion of Dutch studio OMA's De Rotterdam building and our exclusive interviews with Rem Koolhaas, here is a selection of OMA projects that we have featured on Dezeen including a glazed cube for a Tokyo store, a proposed bridge with a pedestrian boulevard in France and the CCTV building in China. See our new OMA Pinterest board »
More about New Pinterest board: architecture by OMA
Plants could be genetically engineered to produce textiles at the same time as food, according to this synthetic biology project by designer and researcher Carole Collet. More about Genetically engineered crops could grow lace amongst their roots
The central staircase inside this office in Mexico City by architecture studio Goko is made up of different sections, including some that look like they are upside down. More about Staircase with upside-down sections at an office in Mexico
This week we returned to hyper-realistic visualisations with a top CGI artist claiming "no-one has realised" that most homeware catalogue images are renderings and we showed stunning pictures of a cafe that's yet to be built in Ukraine. Read on for more architecture and design news from the past seven days, plus our Dezeen Music Project track of the week. More about This week on Dezeen
These hyper-realistic renderings by designer Michael Samoriz depict a cafe proposed for Ukraine with wooden beams criss-crossing over its ceiling. More about Hyper-realistic renderings of a proposed cafe in Ukraine
News: double-ended teaspoons commissioned as part of the recent renovation of Tate Britain's cafe have been so popular with visitors to the London gallery that they've been taking them home. More about Double-ended teaspoons by Nicole Wermers stolen from Tate Britain cafe
This week's job of the week on Dezeen Jobs is a position working with French designer Philippe Starck (pictured) as a senior architect. Visit the ad for full details or browse other architecture and design opportunities on Dezeen Jobs.
More about Job of the week: senior architect at Philippe Starck
Dezeen and MINI World Tour: in our next movie from Eindhoven, Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi of Formafantasma show us their experiments with unusual materials including fish skin, cow bladders, animal blood and even lava. Update: this interview is featured in Dezeen Book of Interviews, which is on sale now for £12. More about Eindhoven design studio Formafantasma is "experimenting with lava"
The entire facade of this house in the Japanese town of Ōiso by Atelier HAKO Architects is clad in fibre-reinforced cement boards and punctuated by a series of scattered windows (+ slideshow). More about House in Ōiso with walls covered in roofing material by Atelier HAKO Architects
Architect Zaha Hadid has created a set of rings from lattices of gold filigree for Swiss jewellery brand Caspita. More about Zaha Hadid creates latticed gold jewellery for Caspita
The new Museum Luthers Sterbehaus by Stuttgart architects Von M is a grey-brick extension to the house where Martin Luther died - but it turns out the Christian reformer "actually died in another building around the corner" (+ slideshow + photos by Zooey Braun). More about Martin Luther "death house" museum by Von M built at wrong address
San Francisco studio Fuseproject has created a concept for a wearable device to allow people in the developing world to test themselves for symptoms of chronic illnesses such as malaria without having to visit a doctor (+ slideshow). More about Wearable device could detect disease "when the nearest doctor is days away"
Our exclusive interview with Rem Koolhaas about his firm OMA's giant De Rotterdam complex features in Dezeen Mail issue 180, which also includes the latest news, jobs, competitions and reader comments from Dezeen.
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More about Dezeen Mail #180
Opinion: Sam Jacob argues that as climate change pushes the reality of winter further from the idealised version that appears in Christmas decorations, they begin to represent "a hangover of a vanishing idea remade through other technologies." More about "Christmas decorations are winter as skeuomorphism"
Movie: Rem Koolhaas explains how his preoccupations have shifted from urbanism and the city to preservation and the countryside in this second movie filmed by Dezeen at the launch of OMA's new Rotterdam skyscraper. "It's a cliche that everybody is living in the city," the architect says. Update: this interview is featured in Dezeen Book of Interviews, which is on sale now for £12. More about OMA now preoccupied with "the countryside and preservation" says Rem Koolhaas
French studio Perraudin Architecture has completed a social housing complex with solid stone walls near Toulouse as part of a bid to prove that "anything that is built today could be built in stone" (+ slideshow). More about Social housing with solid stone walls by Perraudin Architecture