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Bioplastic buckets in the shape of mountains will be distributed across 25 UK beaches this summer as part of a participatory art project by Katie Paterson. Read more

Local authorities have been "amazed to see that young women from slums could design as architects or urban planners", according to the co-ordinator of a United Nations initiative using the video game Minecraft to get communities designing their own public spaces. Read more View the full article

Photo essay: disused military checkpoints and border stations across Europe are catalogued in this series by Polish-born photographer Josef Schulz (+ slideshow). (more…) View the full article

Competition: Dezeen has teamed up with Gothenburg-based Studio Esinam to give readers the chance to win one of five monochrome prints showing elevations of iconic structures from different cities. (more…) View the full article

Architect Alejandro Soffia pieced together a series of modules and covered them in bright yellow corrugated panels to form this prefabricated woodland residence in Pucón, Chile. Read more

Swivelling pods allow the owners of this house in Tehran to adapt to Iran's fluctuating temperatures by opening up rooms in summer, or turning them inwards during winter. (more...) View the full article

Mexican design studio Peca has handcrafted a collection of shelves by carving blocks of lava stone (+ slideshow). (more…) View the full article

This house in Józefów, Poland, has randomly positioned windows each framing different views of the surrounding trees (+ slideshow). (more...) View the full article

International font company Monotype has worked with Google to create one typeface that can be used by everyone in the world, writing in any language (+ movie). (more…) View the full article

Gianni Botsford Architects worked with translucent concrete to create this boxy garden pavilion in Zurich, dedicated to "the old fashioned art of smoking" (+ slideshow). (more…) View the full article

French designer Mathieu Lehanneur has created a meeting room in a London hotel where guests can relax beneath a canopy with an image of trees projected onto its surface (+ slideshow). (more...) View the full article

The first holiday home has been built at the BIG-designed Hualien Residences in Taiwan, a resort development for retirees that still want active vacations (+ slideshow). (more…) View the full article

Dutch designer Ineke Hans has created signposts and furniture to complement an art trail that lines a busy motorway in northern Holland (+ slideshow). (more...) View the full article

Business news: architecture critic Ellis Woodman has been appointed director of the London-based Architecture Foundation. (more…) View the full article

Researchers at University of Maryland have invented a smart material capable of warming up a person when they're cold and cooling them down when they're hot. Read more

Beirut designer Richard Yasmine has created a collection of extra-thin hand mirrors that slot into bases made from marble and brass (+ slideshow). (more…) View the full article

Fraher & Findlay has built a wildflower-topped rear extension, a glass-walled courtyard and a loft extension for a 20th-century house in London. Read more

Tbilisi designer Max Machaidze has created a range of jewellery made up of found objects including pom-poms, skateboard wheels and industrial ceramics from Soviet-era machinery. Read more

Colombian-Ecuadorian filmmaker Alejandro Landes has completed his first built project: a tropical-modernist mansion in Miami that is currently among the city's most expensive residential properties (+ slideshow). (more…) View the full article

Dezeen promotion: an exhibition at Design Miami/Basel will see seven designers and studios, including Jasper Morrison, Michael Anastassiades and the Bouroullec brothers, present household objects realised in Portuguese stone. Read more

We're wrapping up day three of IKEA Festival with a highlights video from this afternoon's events, including an LED installation that mimics natural daylight and Form Us With Love demonstrating how to assemble its new chair. Read more View the full article

Pelli Clarke Pelli has revealed plans to build an office tower in Boston with a folded glass facade that resembles a "dramatic theatrical curtain". Read more

At this house for a racing driver, Czech studio Stempel & Tesar has shifted the living spaces upstairs to make room for a car workshop below (+ slideshow). (more…) View the full article

German car brand BMW has launched its first fully electric production car called the BMW i3 (+ slideshow). (more...) View the full article

News: alternatives to the current United Kingdom flag presented by a national flag charity have provoked a debate about whether a new design should be commissioned if Scotland chooses independence in its upcoming referendum. (more...) View the full article