Enveloped in the seclusion of Sweden’s west coast, Torsten Ottesjö’s new building "Hus-1" boasts curved contours and a squamous façade, its silhouette blending in like a natural part of the encompassing landscape.

The Lorraine city of Nancy is not just the city of Baroque and Art Nouveau, but the birthplace of Jean Prouvé too. And now the city is celebrating this relation with a series of exhibitions and showings.

“Your glacial expectations” is the title chosen for a reflective installation that artist Olafur Eliasson realized together with landscape architect Günter Vogt for the outdoor area of the Kvadrat headquarters in the Danish town of Ebeltoft.

What is jewelry? Surely it is much more than something made of silver or gold. For quite some time now, jewelry designers have been experimenting with traditional forms and new concepts. And theorists are also thinking more and more about the kinds of jewelry we wear today.

It was the billowing curtains at Venice’s Piazza San Marco that provided the inspiration for the temporary art installation “Replika” by Ayzit Bostan and Gerhardt Kellermann – currently on show in Munich’s Hofgarten.

ACE has now presented its second collection. The products are all made of ash wood and are certainly eye-catching with their clear, concise lines. Reduction is the determining factor for the entire concept at the young Swiss label.

Can you even “design” parking lots? In the USA, where there is more paved space for parking cars than anywhere else in the world, the calls to take these “lost spaces” more seriously in their role as public spaces are growing louder and louder.

The title “Pottery from Hameln” stretches across the entire cover. The heavyweight publication (it boasts 640 pages) presents hundreds of photos of ceramic collector’s items. Here is an exclusive glimpse at the photo series “white matt”.

Jürgen Mayer H. installs a temporary building for the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.

Parking is by definition the temporary placing of vehicles on a space foreseen for this. In reality, however, the automobile does not get placed somewhere temporarily: they get driven temporarily. So where to put the rising number of vehicles not running? In car parks!

Where everything centers on being youthful today what is our attitude to Art Nouveau? Is it as young and new as the name claims and as Adorno admonished nothing but “puberty declared as a permanent state”? Has it become a dream world far removed from our box culture? Or is it making a cinematic return?

Nina Yashar is head of the Nilufar gallery in Milan, known for its eclectic installations. Here oriental rugs can be found alongside furniture classics, together with new creations by young designers. Now there is a collection of furniture, lighting and accessories under the label Nilufar Unlimited.

Companies bring in designers to join forces with craftsmen to develop new products, which are subsequently produced in structurally-weak regions. Such approaches are quick to label themselves sustainable, as advocates of ethical consumption. But which projects have actually been consistently done through the years? A selection of ten examples between industry and craftsmanship.

In their inhouse Matériothèque the designers at atelier oï play around with materials such as birdseed, paper, fabric, ropes and gelatin. The resulting products for Atelier Pfister, Bulgari, Swatch and other manufacturers are now on display in the monograph “Workshop Guide atelier oï”.

French Label “La Chance” recently presented its first collection of furniture and lighting, “Jekyll & Hyde”. True to its literary role model, each object has a contrasting counterpart.

Designs by architect Terunobu Fujimori present an encounter between the archaic and the futuristic. Up to now, all of his buildings have been in Japan. Now Villa Stuck in Munich is presenting his first major show in Europe. And Fujimori has even created a vision made of asparagus and other eatables especially for the Bavarian capital.

For “design publisher” Thomas Eyck craftsmanship translates into the utmost care in the use of materials. Juliane Grützner spoke to the Dutchman about his collection of hand-crafted objects.

Nicola Stattmann is considered an expert on new materials and technologies. In a joint venture with her brother she is now presenting “Stattmann Neue Möbel” and in doing so takes her family’s joinery into its fourth generation. The first designs illustrate that there are still a great deal of opportunities for development innate in reputedly traditional wooden furniture.

Craftsmanship – is it a thing of the past? Not at all. More and more frequently we see designers and manufacturers making recourse to traditional technical know-how and craftsmanship. And not only when it comes to luxury products.

The “Metropole Aluminum House” by Jean Prouvé was the big attraction at the seventh Design Miami Basel and the trade fair continues to be a fixed date in the diaries of vintage design collectors and admirers of classic design icons alike.

Architecture for Rietveld is spatial art. The Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht is not the only example of open-space constructions by Rietveld that foster a new lifestyle.

Gerrit Rietveld is one of the best-known Modernist designers and architects. However, his oeuvre is not just of historical interest. A visit to the exhibition at Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein shows how Rietveld addresses space, and proves himself to be highly topical.

Should architecture serve power, provide a visual representation of it? How do we read traces of destruction that scar the urban space? An ambitious reader by Bechir Kenzari on the relationship between architecture and violence seeks to answer precisely such questions.

In the form of “JOH3”, J. Mayer H. Architects have completed their first construction project in Berlin. The apartment block is clad in aluminum blinds and has a curved silhouette – offering a new interpretation of the Berlin tenement block.

Documenta 13 has begun. For 100 days, Kassel will host the work of over 150 artists, scientists and philosophers from 55 countries. A photographic tour offers a first impression of the works.

Zaha Hadid: High-risesHamburg: Lost PlacesBasel: Art and designMunich: L’Architecture Engagée3sat: Konstantin Grcic

Paola Antonelli is a design critic and curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Untiring in her enthusiasm, she tells the world why design as part of everyday culture has earned a permanent place in the MoMA.

What attitude do the Germans have toward their homes? This is an interesting question, which sociologist Alphons Silbermann pursued in his 1989 study “Neues vom Wohnen der Deutschen”. It is now to be updated with “Deutschland privat”, which has shown many German homes to be in almost perfect condition. Leo Lübke, the commissioner of the study, is delighted at the Germans’ affirmation of furniture as a cultural asset.

Ingo Maurer, Enzo Mari, Eero Aarnio – they all belong to a group of designers who were born in 1932 and by tenaciously advancing their own ideas have succeeded in creating sensational works. A consideration of the 1932 designers.

Zurich: The Swiss TouchBerlin: DMY 2012New York: Art of Another KindKassel: Documenta 13Munich: Image Counter Image

British photographer and author Alex MacNaughton goes out into the urban jungle and tracks down people marked by life and asks them to reveal their skin to him. They proudly present the images on their skin and tell him their stories too.

She was born and grew up near-by, and then studied architecture. So who else could be better suited than Jolanthe Kugler to write an architectural guide to the Goetheanum hill. She manages to offer a systematic overview of the 170-odd houses in the Anthroposophical Colony, but in the process neglects to give greater depth to the specifics of the individual buildings.