The speculative megastructures of the 1960s weren't just utopian dreaminess, they were entirely practical.

This classic call for everyday beauty is as fresh and vital as ever.

Rem’s Maison á Bordeaux is experienced through the eyes of its cleaner, a woman engaged in a lonely struggle against creeping decay and the absurdities of signature architecture.

Barnyard abominations, shrunken heads, oriental plunder, outsider art - this is the British Museum without the academic figleaf, says William Wiles.

At last, a book for the almost bare shelf labelled "design criticism". But are we any closer to a general theory of stuff, asks Justin McGuirk.

FAT experiments with psychedelic brutalism in the Netherlands.

"It's a serious game and we like to be serious about playing," announces Jean-Sébastien Blanc of 5.5 designers.

"I said, Give me three months and I'm going to come back with a vision for the 21st century."

Artist Martin Creed talks about entertainment, meaning and radiators with Industrial Facility's Sam Hecht.

Sophie Lovell takes a privileged peek behind the scenes at Germany's oldest industrial furniture maker.

An all-Dutch designer team of Jurgen Bey, Ted Noten, Wieki Somers, Bertjan Pot, Simon Heijdens and Frank Bruggeman has been unleashed on the new entrance areas of Rotterdam art and design museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

"Form and content is collapsed into one," says Chris Lasch.

Design Academy Eindhoven shouldn't be in financial difficulty any time soon - the school has recently been given special status by the Dutch government, and awarded extra funding.

A Chesterfield sofa appears to have inspired the soft white ceiling of Artfarm, a gallery and storage space for an art collector on the grounds of his rural retreat in Salt Point, upstate New York.

A fibreglass church has been erected by the bay at Jyllinge on Denmark's Jutland island.

Far from the Prada stores and Armani boutiques Milan is famous for, a new building for the Bocconi University has been designed by Dublin-based Grafton Architects.

The founder of Miami's Design District and co-founder of Design Miami talks about the impact of the economic downturn and how to turn Dubai into a design destination.

It was in Berlin that Ludwig Mies van der Rohe began and ended his career.

The UN building is slowly purging itself of poison, watched over by the fortress-like Bush Mission.