It is up to architects to shape the future of construction by rejecting polarised views to come up with new ideas, building types and ways of working, writes Nathalie de Vries

This year’s event in Cape Town again successfully melded together design superstars with emerging practitioners, but its growing global reputation holds risks as well as opportunities, says John Jervis

The flashy exterior of Denmark's Ragnarock is offset by a light-touch renovation of its surroundings, writes Peter Smisek

MVDRV responds to an Icon reader's questions about living in and cleaning its building in Rotterdam

Gehry, Nouvel, Viñoly's, MVRDV and Sérgio Bernardes held your attention this week

MVRDV's grand gesture in Rotterdam, architects' role in the war and Owen Hatherley's angle on the Walkie-Talkie caused a buzz among Icon readers this week

Ten years in the making, MVRDV's grand gesture in its home city wraps a grey slab of housing around a tasty filling

Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum by Cruz y Ortiz was last year's Interior of the Year. Find out this year's nominees

The judges have announced the nominees for this year's awards. Click here for the full list and details of the awards ceremony on 4 December

Winy Maas, a founder of Dutch firm MVRDV, believes in the kind of high-density urban living only skyscrapers can provide. He talks to Icon about his love of ”intensity architecture” and explains how the pixel will help architects reconcile individuals to collective living

Affordable 3D printers are bringing fantasies of home production closer to fulfilment, but the objects produced on them so far have been of relatively poor quality. In this issue, however, we look into the future at the possibilities rapid prototyping might offer – from cities that replicate themselves, to the “biologically inspired” designs our cover star Neri Oxman is creating at MIT.

In this issue Icon talks to Adrian Smith, chief architect of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. Smith has been designing skyscrapers for 44 years and is working on an even taller tower in Saudi Arabia. Winy Maas of MVRDV tells us about his pixel towers project, and we take in the view from Renzo Piano’s Shard in London. Plus: the latest Scandinavian designs in this month’s design report.

NORD Architecture builds a house for Alain de Botton’s Living Architecture project in the nuclear landscape of Dungeness. It’s the best yet of this series of modernist holiday homes.

Part holiday home, part missionary outpost, the Balancing Barn perches on a ridge in Suffolk like the cliffhanger finale of The Italian Job re-enacted with an extra-long Gulfstream trailer.

The November issue of icon is on sale now. Issey Miyake graces the front cover, while inside we visit BIG’s 8 House, MVRDV’s Balancing Barn and critique the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Last week, some of the world's leading architects and designers gathered in Belgrade for three days of talks. Icon was there.

MVRDV takes another stab at social housing in Madrid.

Something unbelievable has happened: farming has become fashionable. But only if you're doing it in the middle of a city

MVRDV has completed this apartment building and children's centre in Westerdok, just north of the centre of Amsterdam.