Kieran Long visits a hidden world and wonders how 21st-century factories like this will shape the cities of the future.

Trailblazing Danish practice BIG is building a ski park on top of a waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen – and the incinerator blows laser-lit smoke rings.

Behold the “spime”: a new way of thinking about objects that presents them as immortal, evolving data rather than just physical, disposable stuff.

Shigeru Ban has used recycled cardboard tubes, his signature material, to build everything from shelters for earthquake victims to pavilions for luxury brands.

I’m standing on 150 million tonnes of rubbish. Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island, New York City, fills 2,200 acres and, for many years, was the largest tip in the world.

For decades artist Chris Foss has been imagining the spaceships of tomorrow, says William Wiles.

An live-action game on Brighton’s streets made bank robbers of its players, including Hazel Tsoi-Wiles.

The American photographer's irreverent perspective exposes the superficiality of car-worship, says Isabel Stevens.

Iain Sinclair’s relentless pessimism about the London Olympics fails to depress Chris Hall.

Hal Foster turns a spotlight on famous buildings, but pays no heed to their contexts, says Kieran Long.

Rafael Viñoly’s banana-shaped arts centre in Colchester shelters a number of creative organisations – with very mixed results.

Japanese design group Nendo’s acrylic shelving unit will tidy your stuff while shattering it into pieces – using an intriguing optical illusion.

Olafur Eliasson’s reflective facade distorts and amplifies light and colour, making it a beacon ready for the long, dark Icelandic winter.

Kengo Kuma’s cantilevered timber bridge pays passing tribute to Isozaki and postmodernism but sits comfortably in its traditional rural context.

Mieke Meijer and Dutch firm Vij5 have invented a process to make wood out of paper and invited other designers to test out the new material.

A family home near Stuttgart demonstrates how building sustainably is as much about clever use of interior space as it is technology.

Keith Williams’ new home for this Canterbury theatre combines civic dignity with a few touches of appropriately theatrical flair.

A trio of graduates has built a device gathering plastic from the beach – and wants to build a ship that will turn the trash into chairs.

In its first hotel project, esoteric fashion house Maison Martin Margiela has refurbished a 19th-century townhouse in Paris in minimalist style.

The Turner-prize nominated sculptor is inspired by classic pieces of modernist furniture and reinterprets them to make “places, not things”.

Israeli design graduate Rachel Boxnboim has rustled up an afternoon treat, with her hand-stitched fabric moulds for a tea set.

A Parisian nightclub designed by David Lynch recreates the director’s dreamlike aestheticwith the help of traditional French craftsmanship.

GMP Architekten has placed angular sporting venues amid the gentle Shenzhen landscape to evoke the spirit of a traditional Chinese garden.

The pencil has been the object of rivalry since it was invented, but while the world has changed around it, it remains the same as it ever was.

Nature and science are integral to my design process, and these are some of the things that inspire, stimulate and uplift me. I appreciate the technical detail of design and find pleasure in making sense of how things work.

Mind Design has achieved the impossible -– it has devised a way to make those slow, excruciating minutes you spend sitting in front of Apple’s “spinning wheel of doom” into a delightful moment of inspiration. No excuse for a tea break, then …