News: the latest celebrity to dip their toes into design is hip-hop artist Snoop, who has teamed up with holiday rental website Airbnb to create a pop-up house during next week's SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. More about Snoop collaborates with Airbnb to design pavilion for SXSW
News: construction has finally begun on a 216-metre skinny skyscraper designed by Foster + Partners for a site next door to Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building in New York. More about Foster's skinny skyscraper underway beside Mies' Seagram Building
News: British curator Beatrice Galilee has been appointed to a newly created role as curator of architecture and design at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. More about Beatrice Galilee appointed architecture and design curator for The Met
News: French studio LAN has won a competition to revamp the Grand Palais exhibition centre in Paris with plans to restore galleries around the Grand Nave and insert a new entrance court. More about LAN wins renovation of Grand Palais exhibition hall in Paris
News: the Oscars has been given a new logo and visual identity ahead of this Sunday's awards ceremony in Los Angeles. More about The Oscars gets a new visual identity
News: NASA is developing robots made from a tensile system of interlocking rods and cables that can transform from flat components into a ball shape then tense and flex to roll around the surface of planets. More about NASA's latest robot is designed to bounce and roll across rough terrain
News: alternatives to the current United Kingdom flag presented by a national flag charity have provoked a debate about whether a new design should be commissioned if Scotland chooses independence in its upcoming referendum. More about Designs proposed for union jack flag without Scotland
News: British designer Thomas Heatherwick has unveiled plans to create a new art gallery at the V&A Waterfront museum in Cape Town by hollowing out sections of a grain silo complex. More about Heatherwick unveils gallery inside grain silos for Cape Town's V&A Waterfront
News: international architecture firms IND and Powerhouse Company have won a competition to design a 100-metre-tall broadcast and observation tower in Çanakkale, Turkey, with a design that resembles a continuous ribbon. More about Ribbon-like design wins competition for Turkey broadcast tower and visitor centre
News: architects have "nothing to do with the workers" who have died on construction sites in Qatar, according to Zaha Hadid, whose Al Wakrah stadium for the FIFA World Cup 2022 is under construction in the gulf state. More about Preventing migrant deaths at Qatar stadium site "not my duty as an architect" says Zaha Hadid
These photographs show the newly converted aquatics centre by Zaha Hadid Architects for the London 2012 Olympics, which will open to the public next week without the controversial wings that housed additional seating during the Games. More about Zaha Hadid's Olympic aquatics centre due to open in its completed form
News: Zaha Hadid, Richard Rogers and David Chipperfield have been named on a shortlist of six architects in the running to resurrect Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace exhibition hall in south London. More about Zaha, Rogers and Chipperfield shortlisted for Crystal Palace rebuild
News: the rising cost of property in city centres is causing the "biggest crisis" facing architects and urbanists, according to critic Joseph Rykwert, the recipient of this year's RIBA Royal Gold Medal (+ interview). More about Property prices are "castrating the whole notion of city life"
News: Google's latest research project equips smartphones with the ability to map their surroundings and build navigable three-dimensional virtual environments that can be used to give directions indoors. More about Google’s Project Tango uses your phone to map your home
News: Dutch designer Joris Laarman has developed a 3D-printing technique that allows a robot to draw metal structures in mid-air. More about 3D-printing robot by Joris Laarman draws freeform metal lines
News: Dutch firm Mecanoo has won the competition to renovate Mies van der Rohe's Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library in Washington DC. More about Mies van der Rohe's Washington library to be overhauled by Mecanoo
News: two British entrepreneurs are constructing a hydroponic farm in a network of tunnels under south London that could supply local restaurants and retailers with fresh herbs and vegetables. More about Underground farm built in abandoned tunnels beneath London
News: construction is set to begin later this year on a new six-storey home for Mexican design and architecture gallery Archivo, designed by emerging studio Zeller & Moye and overseen by Mexican architect and gallery founder Fernando Romero. More about Fernando Romero's new Archivo gallery to feature jutting floorplates
News: a team of researchers from Harvard University has developed a team of robots that can build architectural structures based on the behaviour of termites. More about Robotic bricklayers developed to work like termites
News: universities "aren't interested in the type of education that is needed for creatives," says Neil Austin, head of the UK's leading furniture design course, which is being closed down. More about Creativity "isn't welcome" in UK universities, says head of axed design course