Hasta La Ideas

Things got a little weird in November, as our focus turned to synthetic biology and we featured cheese made from bacteria taken from human noses and tears (pictured) plus new creatures that could save existing species.

Synthetic biology

Other bizarre stories included bio-surfaces containing “hacked” bacteria that could clean your feet as you walk on them and floor tiles made of coloured snail poo.

We also featured “Frankenstein-esque hybrid organs” that could be created from animal cells and even a concept for a woman giving birth to a dolphin so she could eat it.

Zaha Hadid’s Qatar stadium

Zaha Hadid unveiled the design for a stadium to host football games during the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup. Critics and many of our readers compared the Al Wakrah stadium to a vagina, but the architect hit back at the claims and described the comments as “embarrassing” and “ridiculous”.

We then compiled a selection of more yonic architecture projects that we’d previously featured.

OMA’s De Rotterdam opens

OMA completed its vast De Rotterdam development and Rem Koolhaas told Dezeen that the building is “a dynamic presence in the city” in an exclusive movie interview.

Most popular

Most clicked in November was underwear designed to stop farts from smelling.

In second place, a proposal to train honey bees to detect cancer “in ten minutes”.

Next up was our interview with a leading CGI artist, who told us that images in most kitchen, bathroom and bedroom catalogues are computer-generated but “no-one has realised”.

A sinuous structure that won a Chinese bridge competition was fourth most popular.

Then in fifth place were new images of the garden bridge to span the River Thames proposed by Thomas Heatherwick.

Dezeen’s month

We cleaned up during the November award season. Dezeen founder and editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs was named Business Web Editor of the Year by the British Society of Magazine Editors and also made the Hospital Club 100 list of the most influential people in the UK’s media and creative industries. To top it off Dezeen scooped Digital Service of the Year at the IBP Awards, bringing our total haul to three awards in less than two weeks.

We also relaunched our World Design Guide of the best architecture and design events around the globe with a new look and updated content for 2014.

See all our stories from November 2013 »

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Rafael Viñoly’s Walkie Talkie skyscraper in London stole the limelight when it reflected the September sun onto cars parked nearby and caused them to melt.

Walkie Scorchie

The tower was re-nicknamed the Walkie Scorchie for this “death-ray” effect, which a CGI artist declared he predicted a year before it struck.

Viñoly himself then admitted he knew the problem would occur, but said he didn’t realise the beam would be so hot.

Kanye West

In an interview on BBC Radio 1, Kanye West revealed he is frustrated he’s not taken seriously as a “real designer” and that he plans to move into architecture.

Peter Saville announced he is working with West to create a new visual identity for the rapper, who asked Saville to “do a YSL” for him.

Most popular

The cast-iron facade of Paul Smith’s Albemarle Street store in London received the most views in September.

Also popular was a holiday home in India constructed from concrete with local basalt stone mixed in.

Paper-thin shutters fold out from the walls of the narrow timber house in Tokyo that was in third place.

Zaha Hadid’s Serpentine Sackler Gallery extension in London’s Kensington Gardens also got a lot of hits.

A bright white house in Japan designed with a squashed diamond shape to maximise space without overlooking the neighbours finished off the top five.

Dezeen’s month

The London Design Festival took place in our home city, so we were out and about reporting from the various exhibitions and installations like the Escher-style staircases outside the Tate Modern gallery.

The installation’s designer Alex de Rijke explained the project in a movie we filmed for our Dezeen and MINI World Tour, for which we also spoke to Kieran Long about why the V&A museum acquired the first 3D-printed gun.

Long joined our list of Opinion columnists along with Dan Hill, Alexandra Lange and Justin McGuirk in September, and we also launched a mobile-friendly responsive version of our site.

See all our stories from September 2013 »

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Moving into the second half of the year, China opened the largest building in the world in Chengdu in July but halted the construction of a 838-metre-high tower in Changsha that was planned to become the world’s tallest (pictured).

Internships

The debate about unpaid internships sparked by Sou Fujimoto continued into July when D&AD chairman Dick Powell said that young designers should offer to work for free.

This caused outrage in the design community and among our readers, so Powell moved to defuse the controversy by writing a letter to Dezeen stating that unpaid work is not “acceptable on any level”. The founder of Intern magazine also spoke about the dangers of creating a culture on unpaid labour in an interview we conducted.

3D printing

The relentless march towards a 3D-printed future paced forward, as 3D printers hit the UK high street and German police tested a printed gun.

Researchers developed 3D-printed drones capable of self assembly and NASA certified the first printer for use in space.

Most popular

Zaha Hadid’s tower at Hong Kong Polytechnic University topped the list of most-clicked stories in July.

Flat-pack refugee shelters developed by Ikea came in second place.

Number three was a family home in Japan that’s just 2.7 metres wide.

A contemporary house inserted behind the crumbling walls of a ruined twelfth-century castle in England was next.

The top five was completed by another Japanese house, which is cantilevered above the forest floor and has a hole underneath to let trees grow up inside.

Dezeen’s month

We took a break from travelling, but launched a new email service bringing you all the headlines from Dezeen every day and cleverly called it Dezeen Daily.

See all our stories from July 2013 »

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As we move into May in our review of the year, the news was filled with stories about skyscrapers including the topping out of One World Trade Center.

Skyscrapers

Zaha Hadid revealed a 215-metre-high residential skyscraper for Miami and Wilkinson Eyre won a competition to build a tower on Sydney’s harbour.

Proposals were also unveiled for the tallest towers in Singapore and Mumbai.

Our more comical stories on the topic included a proposal for a Dubai-style “space hotel” in Barcelona and a tower under construction in China that bore an unfortunate resemblance to a penis.

3D printing

The world’s first 3D-printed plastic gun was successfully fired in Texas and the US government moved swiftly to block downloads of the files needed to print the weapon at home.

On a more positive note for the technology, a printed robohand was designed to help children born without fingers and a bionic ear that can hear radio frequencies beyond a human’s normal range.

Most popular

The top spot in April went to a glazed garden hideaway by act_romegialli disguised inside a dense thicket of bushy plants and blossoming wildflowers.

Second most popular was Kengo Kuma’s installation of bamboo trees around a topographical landscape of stone and water.

Archea Associati’s winery outside Florence with huge terracotta vaults concealed beneath the vineyard came in next.

A combined house and pet shop with an opaque box balanced over see-through walls of glass and perforated steel was fourth.

Kengo Kuma was in the top five again with a primary school in Tokyo, conceived as the modern equivalent of a traditional Japanese schoolhouse.

Dezeen’s month

We jetted off to New York in May for more Dezeen and MINI World Tour, where Stephen Burks took around his favourite parts of the city and Philippe Starck presented a faucet that uses half as much water a regular tap.

See all our stories from May 2013 »

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3D printing and scanning was hot on the agenda again in March, when a fully articulated dress was printed and worn by Dita Von Teese (pictured) and space architects planned to print a lunar base.

3D printing

A fuel-efficient 3D-printed car was predicted to hit the road in two years, while the house-printing race saw Amsterdam architects’ proposal to print a canal house emerge as a late runner.

Makerbot revealed a prototype of a desktop 3D scanner for copying objects at home and released customisable files for the OUYA games console.

However, the subject took a sinister turn when the Wiki Weapons firm that developed open-source 3D-printed gun parts launched a file-sharing website for blueprints to illicit items including weapons and drugs.

Pritzker Prize controversy

After Toyo Ito was awarded this year’s Pritzker Prize, Denise Scott Brown asked to be retrospectively acknowledged for her involvement in the projects that led her partner and husband Robert Venturi to receive the accolade in 1991.

A string of high-profile architects including Zaha Hadid, Farshid Moussavi and Hani Rashid then signed a petition calling for Scott Brown to be recognised, but the request was rejected by the organisers later in the year.

Most popular

Our top story was about a cabinet that appeared to be intricately carved to look like a distorted digital photo.

David Mikhail’s extension to a nineteenth-century house east London took second place.

A tubular steel slide plummets through four storeys inside the penthouse apartment in New York by David Hotson that came third.

Fourth was a Japanese courtyard house with elevated wooden walkways and glass walls behind its thick concrete exterior by Apollo Architects & Associates.

Another courtyard house with a concrete facade, this time in Mexico, was the fifth most popular post.

Dezeen’s month

We kicked off our Dezeen and MINI World Tour of eight design events around the world with Design Indaba in Cape Town, where we spoke to designers about the integration of design and technology.

Daisy Ginsburg introduced us to synthetic biology, Daan Roosegaarde chatted about his designs for glow-in-the-dark roads and Masashi Kawamura told us about the television commercial he made featuring dancing sperm.

See all our stories from March 2013 »

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