Renzo Piano’s art complex on Oslo’s waterfront is suitably monumental on the outside, but strangely sterile within.

New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward is being rebuilt by an army of famous architects recruited by Brad Pitt. While some question whether this is the rescue party the area needs, a neighbourhood rises that is unlike anywhere else on Earth.

Whether he's collecting rolls of tape from around the world or reinterpreting classic chairs, the London designer prefers to explore the diversity in the everyday to creating "showy" objects. 

Haworth Tompkins’ latest addition to the RCA’s Battersea campus is an “art factory” where the production facilities take centre stage.

It has long been a byword for a lavish welcome but from ancient Greece to modern Hollywood the red carpet has also had a habit of tripping up our heroes.

Icon 116 is devoted to Japan. Nearly two years after the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the north of the country in March 2011, we revisit the disaster areas where architects and designers, including Toyo Ito’s KISYN group, are now helping to rebuild local communities. On the cover is Kengo Kuma, the master of “deceptive minimalism”, and we also talk to rising stars Takram Design Engineering.

The Dublin-based duo excel in designs that resonate with their cultural and historic contexts. They created one of the outstanding buildings of 2012 – Belfast’s Lyric Theatre – and are now testing their approach on major projects in London and Budapest.

San Rocco may be a magazine rather than an architect, but its spirit of intellectual enquiry and diverse crowd-sourced content has quickly established it as an influential voice in European architecture, as well as a compelling model for a new type of practice.

Jim Archer has designed a system that gets rid of waste, saves on fuel and provides a facility where communities in Kenya can come together and cook. Not a bad outcome after much time spent rooting through piles of rubbish.

Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of Formafantasma specialise in challenging conventional ways of thinking about traditional materials such as leather and charcoal – and despite their collaborations with big-name manufacturers, they show no sign of losing their edge.