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This time last year Rem Koolhaas was named Golden Lion winner by the Venice Architecture Biennale and Snøhetta won a competition to redesign Times Square in New York. The Plastiki boat made of plastic bottles was racing towards Sydney on the last leg of its journey across the Pacific to highlight pollution of the seas. Meanwhile the unpopular Strata tower opened in London just as the RIBA published a survey predicting even tougher times for British architects. Mathieu Lehanneur completed the Pompidou Centre’s new education rooms, Tokujin Yoshioka made a 9-metre window from 500 glass prisms and Dezeen published movie interviews with Philippe Malouin and Tomo…

One year ago this week we were still presenting some of our favourite projects from Milan’s annual Salone Internazionale del Mobile, which included chairs from a mist-filled showroom, a desk that cascades off the wall and a midnight meal in a darkened apartment. We also featured the zigzag-shaped chair launched there by Zaha Hadid, which no one could work out how to sit on. Meanwhile, architecture stories continued to be popular with our readers, who couldn’t get enough of a split-level apartment filled with nooks and crannies, a staircase encased by faceted wood, and a Swedish cottage with a stark pine interior. Over in the Netherlands, UNStudio revealed images of a to…

This time last year Dezeen reported on the opening of a number of new museums around the world, including a transport museum with a zig-zagging roof designed by Zaha Hadid and a wave-shaped museum of the sea by Steven Holl. (more…) View the full article

This time last year work began on the Maggie’s Centre for cancer care in Glasgow by OMA, which opened last month. Industrial designer Bill Moggridge received the 2010 Prince Philip Designers Prize and a pitched-roof extension to a mill-keeper’s cottage in Norfolk won the RIBA Manser Medal 2010 for the best new house in the UK. Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe completed the high-tech refurbishment of a concert hall in Eindhoven and our readers loved a school extension in Spain with a chalkboard wall. Meanwhile, Belgian designers Quinze & Milan created a deconstructed chair with layers of fabric wedged into a wooden frame, Studio Swine built a mobile stall …

This time last year the London Design Festival was in full swing with Kram/Weisshaar’s robotic display lighting up Trafalgar Square, Paul Cocksedge‘s giant magnetic coin crash-landing at the Southbank and Stuart Haygarth’s staircase covered in picture frames at the Victoria & Albert museum. Alasdhair Willis resigned as chief executive of Established & Sons and Thomas Heatherwick won the London Design Medal 2010. Meanwhile Marc Newson designed a range of limited-edition shoes for NIKE and Jaime Hayón launched a collection of furniture for London design brand Sé. John Pawson talked to us about an exhibition of his work at the Design Museum in one of o…

This time last year we featured a couple of wacky clocks – a timepiece of unfurling paper that creates ever-changing shapes, and a belt-driven clock for an architect. We also revealed the news that Norman Foster was working on proposals for a new California campus for computer giant Apple, which we published in the summer. Meanwhile Singaporean designer Tan Lun Cheak produced a glass table that doubles up as a cooker and Milan designer Emanuele Pizzolorusso created a set of paper maps that can survive being screwed up in a pocket or rucksack. We featured a residence clad in tarred black shingles from the Living Architecture series of holiday homes, as well as a large ho…

One year ago readers had some funny things to say about the ring-shaped Apple Campus by Foster + Partners (above), which leads a string of circular and cylindrical designs. (more…) View the full article

This time last year an orchestral academy designed by Frank Gehry opened in Florida, while architects Scott Brownrigg completed the London offices for internet giant Google. Meanwhile, Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am was appointed director of creative innovation at technology company Intel, OMA published a report claiming the world could be free from fossil fuels by 2050 and a restaurant designed by Tom Dixon opened at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. Dezeen readers debated whether designs for a power plant that will blow smoke rings and double up as a ski slope were bonkers or brilliant, but questioned the sustainable credentials of a chair carved from a tree trun…

This time last year Zaha Hadid Architects completed a south London school with a running track through the middle, which went on to win this year’s Stirling Prize. Konstantin Grcic was announced as the recipient of the 2010 Designer of the Year Award at Design Miami and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) was forced to close due to funding cuts. Universal Design Studio designed a pleated facade for an H&M store in Seoul, while one of our readers called the 8 House residential complex by BIG “a seductive three dimensional diagram designed to be inhabited by robots.” Tokujin Yoshioka created a see-through mobile phone, Nemawor…

This week last year designers BarberOsgerby were appointed to design the Torch for the London 2012 Olympic Games, while they later unveiled in June, a fashion designer and an architect showed a collection of 3d-printed clothing and a boulder-shaped mausoleum opened in Acapulco. Japanese architects Apollo completed two houses with pointy overhangs in Sendai, one black and one white, while in Denmark a physical shop opened where customers can buy digital fonts. A Dezeen commenter accused architects Ooze of raping an old house that they had wrapped with a faceted skin, and another thought an orange showroom building with gaping holes in its facade best resembled a chunk …

This time last year designers were going to extreme lengths to devise and manufacture their projects, as an architecture graduate proposed hanging a skyscraper upside-down over a river (above) and another designer created stools using explosions (below). (more…) View the full article

One year ago OMA, Foster + Partners and local firm Rocco Design Architects were competing to to create a master plan for the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong. Foster + Partners won in the end, as reported in March this year. Our most popular story was a house in Indonesia by Aboday with a concrete slide connecting the bedroom and kitchen, which turned out to be our most popular story of the whole year. If you prefer slides to stairs you can see more of them here. Meanwhile Ross Lovegrove unveiled his bicycle for Biomega, graduate designer José Ferrufino made a magical musical box with swaying ears of barley and Zeinstra van Gelderen architecten made a…

One year ago a lot of architecture and design seemed to be centred around love and sex, as we featured a coin-operated wedding machine, a mask for clamping mouths together and a couple of architectural installations that resembled parts of the female anatomy. (more…) View the full article

This time last year Dezeen readers were utterly outraged by a range of beer packaged inside dead animals. Apart from those who found it really, really funny… London mayor Boris Johnson launched the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme, Herzog & de Meuron unveiled an apartment tower for Beirut and Tokujin Yoshioka filled a 15 metre-long tank with flying feathers. Dezeen launched a new comments system, which readers put to use by drooling over a concrete coffee machine, disputing the feasibility of a clock with batteries for hands and ridiculing the London Gate project. See all our stories from July 2010 » See our review of last year » </img></img&g…

Designers and architects were wrapping materials over and around things one year ago, like these wooden plywood ribs that appear to drape the ceiling and bar of a coffee shop in Poland (above). (more…) View the full article

One year ago Zaha Hadid Architects unveiled designs for an enormous undulating arts centre in Chengdu, China and Michael Graves & Associates completed a building for the Dutch national automobile museum inspired by a traditional carriage house. A Japanese home with stairs covering the façade divided opinion, with some of our readers saying it looked like stadium bleachers, while one reader described a monolithic office and residential complex by Erick van Egeraat as an “ugly big charmless building!”. Meanwhile, British designer Robin Day passed away aged 95, architects Carmody Groarke designed an interior for a fashion exhibition with backlit partitions that resem…

This week last year two architectures students unveiled plans for a company that enables illegal migration and our most popular and controversial story was about a giant, latticed canopy by J. Mayer H. that was described as clumsy, grotesque and overbearingly monumental, as well as sublime and gutsy. Our readers also had a lot to say about an anvil-shaped museum with a windowless tiled facade, which many thought bore an uncanny resemblance to Selfridges in Birmingham. Over in Tokyo, architect Emmanuelle Moureaux completed another project with her trademark rainbow of colours, this time a bank, while back in the Dezeen office we were busy deciding which colour gradients …

This time last year Nike launched a football strip for the French national team featuring the classic Breton stripe, while Terence Conran, Tord Boontje, Tom Dixon and over a hundred other prolific designers each created an artwork on a piece of graph paper to raise money for cancer care centres. (more…) </img> </img> </img> </img> </img> </img> </img> View the full article

This time last year Zaha Hadid unveiled concept proposals for two luxury villas at a golf resort and residents of a Paris neighbourhood complained so much about the noisy construction of a Frank Gehry-designed civic building that construction had to stop for the next month. Elsewhere, Danish architects Bjarke Ingels Group were keeping very busy, revealing designs for not one but three new buildings – a technology centre with large holes in the walls, a residential building with a triangular tower and a doughnut-shaped art museum. Dezeen visited Stockholm for the annual furniture fair, where we saw stools with lolly stick-shaped legs, an armchair made from a single she…

Highlights from this time last year include a maze filled with mirrors, an electric car powered by jet engines and a hotel room that looks more like a bird’s nest. (more…) View the full article

This week last year Dezeen readers were swooning over idyllic houses in Australia, as we featured one overhanging the side of a cliff (above) and one that can be hidden behind a steel curtain (below). (more…) View the full article

This time last year the Venice Architecture Biennale was underway, where Rem Koolhaas was awarded the Golden Lion as OMA unveiled their design for the renovation of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice. Our favourite pavilions included a forest of acrylic fronds that moved as though breathing in the Canadian pavilion, a cloud suspended inside the Arsenale exhibition space and a blue foam model city in the Dutch pavilion. Meanwhile we previewed the new identity for Dezeen Watch Store, which launched the following month. Umbro released the new England Home Kit by graphic design legend Peter Saville, Biomega presented a range of bicycles for Puma, C. F. Møller w…

This time last year MVRDV’s Balancing Barn was nearing completion and the proposals for the V&A at Dundee were unveiled, including the eventual winning design by Kengo Kuma. The Royal College of Art launched a collection of pieces for sale by their graduates, Faye Toogood presented her debut furniture collection, Jasper Morrison unveiled a telephone for Swiss brand Punkt and Paul Cocksedge installed fluttering sheets of Corian at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Dezeen Watch Store launched with two pop-ups at the London Design Festival 2010, including Uniform Wares’ 200 Series. See all our stories from September 2010 » See our review of last year » …

This time last year architects Planning Korea designed a futuristic media bridge that resembled a string of bubbles, while the Dutch Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo won the best project at the Dutch Design Awards 2010, despite one of readers commenting that “the Netherlands is represented here like a crazy playground!” Less flamboyant projects that proved popular included a temple in India built by villagers using local stone, a zig-zagging extension joining the two halves of a school in southern Spain and a minimal Japanese house with a double-height glazed void in the centre. Established & Sons filmed designers creating installations in a day at their Mayfair gall…

Hotel brand Trunk worked alongside design studio Tripster to create this boutique hotel in Tokyo, which takes cues from traditional Japanese aesthetics – but unusually boasts its own miniature nightclub. Read more