“This is not about pretty pictures,” says Michael Bellemo of Melbourne-based architecture and art practice Bellemo & Cat, which has designed its home and studio with a vivid printed facade.

It’s a word with nothing but negative associations: repellent, mutant, nasty. On the surface, it’s the enemy of design. It stands for formlessness over form; artlessness over artistry; revulsion over delight; randomness and chaos in place of craft and precision. But it’s also magnetic.

From Copenhagen to Kalmar is a long and fiercely flat journey. From the endless blue water on either side of the Oresund Bridge, which takes you over to the low industrial edge-lands of Malmö in Sweden, through hours of steamrolled pasture and dinky villages.

Winy Maas of Dutch architects MVRDV met up with Joep Van Lieshout to talk about the artist’s SlaveCity project, a perverse parallel society. Here they discuss imaginary architecture, human recycling and the imminent revolution.

It often seems as though there is an infinite variety of trainers to choose from, enough for almost everyone to feel unique. But there is always that moment in the shoe shop – surrounded by a kaleidoscope of lurid rubber, leather, canvas and foam – when you taste defeat and long for a pair of trainers that don’t make you look like an astronaut.

Fabrico Próprio is Portuguese for “made properly”, and it’s what cafes in Portugal hang in their window if their cakes are made on the premises. It’s also the name of a new book by Frederico Duarte, Rita João and Pedro Ferreira celebrating the neglected art of Portuguese confectionery, which it treats as a semi-industrial design product.

Can a hefty dose of serene minimalism overcome consumer fatigue? Jonathan Bell found out.

The crucial word in this book of essays is pessimism, says Justin McGuirk.

A luxury version of the snack leaves an even nastier taste in the mouth than the original, says William Wiles.

Its “crisis” might not be very new but the latest issue of Verb is refreshingly critically engaged, finds Charles Holland.

A captivating introduction to graphic design in the Middle East is marred by a lack of context, says Emily King.

Bubbletecture H – an environmentally themed visitor centre in a mountainous area two hours from Osaka – is the latest building in Japanese architect Shuhei Endo’s ongoing exploration of the geometry of bubbles.

The Brompton Stoops are 30 cardboard structures that will be occupying London’s Exhibition Road when it is pedestrianised for the opening weekend of the London Festival of Architecture this month.

Nicolas Le Moigne is skilled at fencing. In fact, so skilled that he almost dedicated his whole career to it. “My father was the trainer for the Swiss national fencing team for the Olympics in Seoul and Barcelona,” he says, “and he wanted me to fence as well.”

“They’re like your babies,” says Rolf Sachs of his limited-edition designs for the Take 2 exhibition at Phillips de Pury, London last month. “It’s sad to see them go, you build up a relationship with the pieces.”

“There is no Braun-ness anymore,” says New York-based industrial designer Joe Doucet, who has speculatively created a toaster, mobile phone and music player for the German manufacturer.

Two tubes rather than the usual four make up the structure of this city bike by Italian designer F.

A cultural breakdown of the Icona, the UK’s best-selling four-slice toaster, designed by Dario De Pra for DeLonghi.

“We have copper, wine, salmon and wood,” says architect Alberto Mozó, in what resembles a crash course on Chile’s natural resources – and it is wood that he has decided to make use of in his office building for BIP Computers in the Providencia neighbourhood of Santiago.

A pea is all that’s misssing from Anglo-Indian duo Doshi Levien’s Pincipessa daybed for Moroso, inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson fairytale of the Princess and the Pea.

Iris is London-based design studio BarberOsgerby’s latest collection of tables for Established and Sons.

Old street and Bank are among the stations incuded in this shelving system – a three-dimensional version of the London tube map by young British designer Amos Field Reid.

A sliced log of eucalyptus was used to make the facade of this cabinet by London-based designer Peter Marigold, for a recent exhibition at Gallery Libby Sellers.