• If you build it: the rise and rise of self-build

    14 February 2014

    Self-build, custom-build, collective custom-build - we’ve always been a nation of DIY lovers, and now the British housing crisis is spurring on several do-it-yourself alternatives to the hegemony of the volume housebuilder. Blueprint has assembled a panel of architects, developers, researchers and strategists to share their perspectives on this emergent field

  • Blueprint launches Blueprint for the Future competition

    14 February 2014

    Architecture and design students are invited to put their creative talents to creating a cycling ‘hub’ building and satellite hubs in Sheffield, to support the city’s drive to enhance its sustainable transport system and its cycling community. The VeloCity competition, run in conjunction with the British timber body TRADA, is offering a £5000 top prize

  • Photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia at the Hepworth Gallery

    14 February 2014

    Johnny Tucker finds an often surprising emotional depth in the work of Philip-Lorca diCorcia, the US photographer and artist whose constantly developing photographic style is on show in a retrospective at the Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield

  • Post World’s End Architecture: Greece

    13 February 2014

    Though it's the birthplace of democracy, today Greek citizens find it a hard concept to believe in, living, as they do, in a country where financial independence is an impossible fiction, and where youth unemployment has reached staggering heights. Nevertheless, as the fourth instalment of Post World's End Architecture shows, an emergent architectural scene is transcending the economic situation with imagination and innovation

  • Park life: Veronica Simpson considers car park design

    4 February 2014

    Should car parks be written off as dinosaurs of a bygone, car-centric age, or can they be refurbished, repurposed or reinvented to become urban assets rather than eyesores? Veronica Simpson goes in search of answers, and unearths some surprisingly attractive and innovative solutions

  • Blueprint for the Future: considering graphene

    4 February 2014

    In the first of a new series looking at the very latest materials and their likely impact on architecture, design and the wider world, Chris Lefteri turns his attention to graphene. Chris Lefteri is a designer and has written seven books about new materials and their applications

  • On the Drawing Board: National Graphene Institute by Jestico + Whiles

    4 February 2014

  • Opinion: Dan Hill on 'smart cities'

    31 January 2014

    Though we’re still waiting for hoverboards, we live in an era long predicted by science fiction, where technology can intelligently operate our cities, responding to our needs. But instead of focusing on smart cities we should be concentrating on smart citizens, says Dan Hill as he outlines the past 10 years of smart-city thinking. Dan Hill is CEO of Fabrica, a design and communications research centre in Treviso, Italy

  • The art of repetition: Soviet-era posters

    31 January 2014

    An exhibition of iconic Soviet-era posters for iconic Soviet-era silent films go on display in London this January, produced using a combination of painterly technique and bold, graphic typography

  • Zaha Hadid on designing the new Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku

    31 January 2014

    The architect speaks to Blueprint about her approach to creating the new Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku