• Michael Sodeau chooses his must-see art and design events

    The designer and designjunction creative director curates this month's diary of art, design and architecture events

  • Wish you were here? Postcards by Jonathan Meades

    Commentator, film maker, critic and author, Jonathan Meades, has also spent many years taking photographs and collecting postcards. These two loves have come together in Pidgin Snaps, a collection of 100 of his own pictures presented as postcards

  • Paulo Mendes da Rocha and Glasgow School of Art: Blueprint #333

    The latest issue of Blueprint features Brazil’s greatest living architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, and Steven Holl’s new Reid Building for the Glasgow School of Art – here’s what else to expect from the magazine, out next week

  • Is Avoriaz the word's most beautiful ski resort?

    Opening in 1966, the French ski resort of Avoriaz was only accessible by cable car and looked like something from an expressionist movie. It still does, and there are still no cars to be seen...

  • Graubünden’s new generation of architects comes of age

    The Swiss alpine canton of Graubünden is fast becoming a treasure trove of new and exciting architecture thanks to a crop of local practices that are emerging from the shadow of earlier, much-lauded, practitioners from the area, not least of which is Peter Zumthor

  • Man Machine: the visionary work of Dr Fritz Kahn

    After looking at the graphic visualisations of the human body and its organs as devised by German scientist, gynaecologist and author Dr Fritz Kahn as a way to explain complex functions, it may not be possible to think of them in any other way again

  • Erik Spiekermann on books

    Now finding themselves in a new world of post-digital publishing, booklovers have more to tackle these days than they can possibly ever read, says Erik Spiekermann. Erik Spiekermann set up MetaDesign and FontShop, and is a teacher, author, designer and partner at Edenspiekermann

  • Two of a Kind: a new home for France’s FRAC art centre

    Quel surprise! The new home for one of France’s FRAC art centres realises a wild proposition from Paris-based practice Lacaton & Vassal - a doppelganger volume of a former shipyard hangar in the docklands of Dunkirk

  • Electric Dreams: rethinking the motor car

    The car was undoubtedly one of the most important products of the 20th century. But as the 21st century gathers pace, this incredible personal transportation device has become a victim of its own success, causing many cities to suffer increasingly unacceptable pollution levels and gridlock. The car industry is reinventing itself, but may not be part of the future transport solution at all

  • Andreas Ruby and Nathalie Janson on the Baugruppe initiative

    Despite ever-increasing house prices, more than 86 per cent of Britons want to own their own home. As debates still range around the UK Government ‘incentives’ such as Help to Buy, can our continental cousins provide alternative models? Complementing our Self-Build feature (see page 88), Berlin’s Baugruppe initiative brings benefits across scales of the individual, the community and the city. Nathalie Janson is a researcher, writer and editor at Ruby Press, an architecture and urbanism publisher founded and directed by co-author Andreas Ruby. They discuss the work of Baugruppe