Design: The Latest Architecture and News

This edition of Section D, Monocle 24's weekly review of design, architecture and craft, explores London's new Design Museum – a significant expansion for the institution at an entirely new location in West London. The interior spaces of the former Commonwealth Institute Building in Kensington, which is Grade II-listed, have been renovated by John Pawson. Alongside the museum’s Deputy Director, Alice Black, the Monocle team investigate the thinking behind the relaunch and how the spaces are designed to accommodate a shifting audience.

We want to see your designs for an architecture Halloween pumpkin! Download the design template below and illustrate/animate/build something that will squash us with your talent. We'll be accepting entries until October 24, at 12:00 pm EST and we'll publish our favorites before Halloween!

Establishing professional contacts in architecture – and well, in any field, really – has changed dramatically in the last decade, passing from the paper world to the virtual realm. However, small details can still make a big difference when it comes to captivating a potential new client or establishing a new partnership -- and these details aren’t unique to the virtual world.

Among these smaller, but powerful, details is the business card. Timeless and effective, the impact that a business card can have when meeting someone new cannot be overlooked. While simple, monochrome cards with muted prints are well liked among architects, exploring new forms, unusual materials and bold colors can result in a unique card that will leave a lasting impression on the person who receives it.

Below we’ve compiled some examples of cards that can serve as inspiration for architects, engineers, designers, landscapers and urbanists: 

Have you ever fallen in love with a city, and wished you could carry the image of the skyline with you everywhere you go? Now you can turn that longing into a reality with these cityscape-inspired rings by North Carolina-based jewelry maker, Ola Shekhtman.

UNESCO has inaugurated 47 new cities into its Creative Cities Network, with Detroit being selected as the first "City of Design" from the United States. The Creative Cities Network is a selection of cities across the world that promote the creation of creative and cultural industries, within the categories of crafts and folk art, design, film, gastronomy, literature, media arts, and music.

Following the release of their “Vertical House”, a prefabricated home designed for the tight, urban spaces of Japan, Japanese design brand Muji has showcased another set of ready-made habitats, this time a series of three minimalist “huts” at varying scales. Each hut, designed by a different designer, is intended as a retreat from urban activity and can be set-up in rural terrains.

The huts each explore a different material: an aluminum hut by Konstantin Grcic, a cork hut by Jasper Morrison, and a wooden hut by Naoto Fukasawa.

2015 marks the 20th Anniversary of Canstruction Boston. The 2015 theme is "Celebrate 20 years in Boston!" Canstruction Boston is a charity event and exhibition in which teams of Boston-area architects, engineers, contractors, designers and students compete to display colossal sculptures made out of canned goods. After the sculptures are dismantled, all the canned goods will be donated to the Merrimack Valley Food Bank in Lowell, Massachusetts.

A design team from Belgium is developing a new way to add real estate to your laptop. The Sliden’joy, founded by Charlee Jeunehomme, Laurent Wéry and Thomas Castro, is an attachment for Mac and PC that adds up to two extra displays to your laptop.

With the ability to rotate each (13”, 15” or 17”) monitors 180°, the attachment gives you 360° visibility of your screen. The thickness of the unit varies, depending on how many screens and which finish the user selects; the 2-screen unit is currently 1.7 centimeters thick, though the designers claim it could be thinner. Finishes include wood, leather and carbon.