A portable router designed to bring constant internet connectivity to tough locations in Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond was presented at the Design Indaba conference in Cape Town this week. More
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
Dutch firm Levs Architecten used unfired clay bricks from local mines to build the barrel-vaulted structure of this primary school on one of Mali's vast plains (+ slideshow). More
A bright red shipping container at the entrance to the offices of Cape Town branding agency 99c houses a waiting room for visitors. More
This children's library with rammed earth walls in Burundi, Africa, was built by Belgian studio BC Architects and Studies and members of the local community, according to an open-source design template (+ slideshow). More
News: architect David Adjaye has designed an office campus featuring ten conical towers as the centrepiece of a new 65-hectare urban development under construction in Kampala, Uganda. More
Red brick buildings wrap around an elevated piazza at this education centre in Rwanda by German office Dominikus Stark Architekten (+ slideshow). More
Holidaymakers can now spend nights sleeping beneath the surface of the ocean at this partially submerged hotel suite in the Zanzibar archipelago (+ movie). More
News: designer and entrepreneur Gwendolyn Floyd has launched an e-commerce platform that allows female artisans from developing countries to overcome "economic discrimination" and sell jewellery using just a mobile phone (+ movies). More
Visitors to the Afrofuture exhibition in Milan built light-up glasses from recycled materials at a workshop organised by Maker Faire Africa (+ movie). More
News: researchers from IBM have redesigned the bus routes across Ivory Coast's largest city using data from mobile phones. More
Milan 2013: Congolese music performed with mobile phones, carpentry workshops making fantasy coffins and a photo-documentary inspired by the failed Zambian space programme are all part of an exhibition of African design and culture in a Milanese department store next week (+ slideshow). More
Dezeen and MINI World Tour: we speak to architect David Adjaye, fresh off the stage from his presentation at Design Indaba, about his relationship with Africa and why he believes the continent provides a great opportunity for architects. Update: this interview is featured in Dezeen Book of Interviews, which is on sale now for £12. More
Dezeen and MINI World Tour: in the second part of our tour around Cape Town, Design Indaba founder Ravi Naidoo shows us the former industrial suburb of Woodstock, which the city's design community has recently made its home, and explains the importance of upcycling in South African design. More
Dezeen and MINI World Tour: in our first Dezeen and MINI World Tour despatch, Ravi Naidoo takes us on a tour of his home city and explains why he founded the Design Indaba conference that is taking place in Cape Town this week. More
This week Dezeen is in Cape Town so here's a steampunk-inspired coffee shop in the city by South African designer Haldane Martin. More
Manhattan-based firm SHoP Architects has sent us a movie and more images illustrating its masterplan for Konza Techno City, a new "silicon" city 40 miles from Kenya's capital Nairobi (+ movie). More
News: the Kenyan government has commenced work on Konza Technology City, a £9.1 billion IT and business hub dubbed "Africa's Silicon Savannah". More
Dezeen Wire: discarded bottles sourced from hotels, restaurants, homes and foreign embassies are being filled with sand and used as bricks to create curved-walled houses in a Nigerian village - BBC
The bottles are bound together with mud resulting in durable walls that are sustainable, cost-effective and provide insulation from the sun's heat. The resulting buildings are also bullet-proof – a useful benefit in an area plagued by violence. An estate of 25 houses is currently being built with plans for a school to follow.
See our previous story on a house made from sand bags in South Africa.
Dezeen Wire: Cape Town in South Africa has been named World Design Capital 2014 by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid). More
