The first German issue of the Architect@work fair shows how relevant a focused trade fair can be. Alongside fairs such as Bau, ISH or Light+Building the more specialized fair provides a platform for innovations in the field of architecture.

Design - what is it? Industrially refashioned craftsmanship? Something that is second to none in dominating the present day and as such has become "total"? And just why does brand mean a dark spot on a deer's stomach? Sweet and nutritious delights from the pre-Christmas chest of books.

In his two-volume "Die Stadt im 20. Jahrhundert" (The City in the 20th Century), Vittorio Magnano Lampugnani summarizes topographical, historiographic and organizational aspects of urban planning with an impressive wealth of material, a monographic approach to key figures, and great earnestness.

A contemporary panorama made up only of portraits of artists is what Angelika Platen has created over the past decades. A book with a selection of her black-and-white images shows just how subtly the photographer is able to balance proximity and distance.

Weighing in at eight hundred pages in length, "The Story of Eames Furniture" indeed makes a promising impression. A variety of historical images showing Charles and Ray Eames, the Eames Office itself as well as legendary products such as the Lounge Chair, are a feast for the reader's eyes. Unfortunately, however, in places the book's content appears to be strongly influenced by the authors' subjective perspective on design history.

With his book "Total design" Mateo Kries, Chief Curator and future director at Vitra Design Museum in Weil/Rhine, has critically assessed the new and supposedly exaggerated role of design.

Everything is beautiful. Art, design, people, cars. In early December, Art Basel Miami Beach and Design Miami transform Florida's capital into an island of bliss.

The catalog "Drawing Fashion" presents drawings of haute couture from 1910 to the present day. Drawings, watercolors and gouaches by illustrators including Georges Lepape, André Edourd Marty and René Bouché enchant readers with their outstanding beauty.

In the form of "Qubique - the next generation tradeshow", which will take place for the first time at the end of October 2011 against the spectacular backdrop of the former Tempelhof Airport, the German capital is finally going to host an event in the area of furniture and Interior design that can be taken seriously and promises to be successful.

In 1958, a model housing development was built in Budapest, the designs of which derived from a government-organized architecture and design competition. Even though the house designs were subsequently not built in other places, the interior designs laid the foundations for the modern Hungarian furniture industry.

Oliver Grabes heads the design department of the long-standing company Braun and in conversation with Jens Müller explains his way of looking at things. What is the design process at Braun like today, how does the company deal with Dieter Rams' legacy, and why are Apple products so successful compared with Braun?

Something is happening in Russia. Concern about the architectural quality of the buildings in Moscow and the approach taken to public space has led to the founding of the Strelka Institutes. The educational institute's provisional new building was created by Rem Koolhaas, who is supporting the initiators.

In some countries a midday snooze is part of everyday culture, in others it is treated with disdain. Science has long since proven that a noon nap boosts a person's performance during the rest of the day. Hardly surprising then that there's a broad array of representative recliners and napping chairs available for rest areas in offices.

Philippe Bestenheider's designs are often reminiscent of the aesthetics associated with primitive peoples. If anything, though, that is unintentional. The Swiss designer simply loves playing with geometry.

Whether a silk stocking, a small pig on a trampoline or the human brain, artists and scientists have made any number of contributions on elasticity to the anthology "Findings on Elasticity" . The outcome is a conglomeration that lets the reader share in a creative thought-finding process.

At present, the London Design Museum is holding a retrospective on the works of John Pawson. Alexander Menden met the British architect and talked with him about the difference between "building" and "architecture", fleeting ideal states and his failed attempt to become a Buddhist monk.

What happens to furniture that has done its service? It is stored in attics, cellars and in forgotten corners. And sometimes it seems as if the old items had taken on a life of their own.

At the 13th Designers' Saturday Stylepark celebrated the occasion of the 10th anniversary of its foundation with a large 10, candy-floss, and a sky full of colorful balloons. And the interest was so great that the pink Stylepark balloons were soon floating all over Langenthal.

Mathias Hahn, a talented young product designer from Germany, moved to London six years ago in order to gain a foothold in the design community. He has made an international name for himself within a very short space of time, with his sympathetic, straightforward and functional everyday products.

NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf is inviting architects and designers throughout the world to submit designs for an exhibition of container houses next spring.

Walls made of gold foil, dancing teabags and any number of light corridors - the 13th Designers' Saturday took place in Langenthal, Switzerland. An excursion on the "Black Line" through this charming Disneyland of design.

Offices are increasingly turning into social centers. To make certain the stress of constant communication does not become too fierce and the office becomes a social flashpoint, the modern work nomad withdraws into a chic little shed or a new kind of basket-chair.

You will search in vain for a new paradigm or new typologies of work at the Orgatec 2010. Instead, people are busy working away at furniture systems that enable the temporary privacy of retreat in the midst of the open field of omnipresent communication.

Luca Nichetto is one of the few Italian designers in the upcoming generation. Sandra Hofmeister talked to him about the life and death of his furniture, about new perspectives in Scandinavia and about the meaning and meaninglessness of national borders in design.

In the form of the Beijing Design Week, China intends to play a prime part in the future international design circus. "Design Landing" is the motto of the first edition, which will launch in September 2011.

Phone booths have more or less vanished from public space. Yet now they are returning in a changed shape - in offices. While they once served to provide access to phones, phone boxes now offer a touch of privacy in the world of today's open-plan offices.

Spanish design collective CuldeSac has come up with a special idea for an exhibition for Tokyo Designers Week: "Made in JAPAIN - The true story of Spanish Design" uses a comic to convey a fantastic tale of interculturality.

With the exhibition "Small Scale, Big Change", the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is honoring socially motivated architecture from around the world. On display are eleven projects which, detached from the mainstream, help to improve local living conditions. As meager as the means may in some cases be, the impact this commitment to building has is astonishing.

The exhibition "Realstadt. Wishes knocking on reality's doors" is showing in Berlin more than 300 architecture and urban planning projects from all over Germany. The exhibition stretches across around 8,000 square meters, yet as far as content goes, the presentation leaves many questions unanswered and the exhibits are more like showy objects.

At the Danish company Petersen Tegl, the seventh generation is now producing high-grade bricks as well as a special range of molded bricks, glazed tiles and special terracotta.

The specialist trade fair architect@work is intended specifically for architects, interior designers and planners. And has long since been established in other European countries. On December 8 and 9, it debuts in Germany, with Düsseldorf as the exhibition venue.

The exhibition entitled "Ideen sitzen / Ideas that sit well" at Hamburg's Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe invites visitors to peruse chairs, armchairs and sofas. The tour of the museum swiftly morphs into a voyage of discovery through the history of interior design, if not even the history of ideas and cultural history of recent decades.

From today the Internet platform Stylepark is also adapting to mobile end devices and from November 2010 Stylepark's very own app will be available. This way, the culture of design and architecture presented by Stylepark becomes an extremely handy reference when you are out and about.

Berlin's Aedes gallery is holding a small but high-quality group exhibition on the topic of surfaces, called "Membranes, Surfaces, Boundaries. Creating Interstices".

"Interieur 2010" in Kortrijk has as its title "The New World". And the trade fair organizers believe that the new world is characterized by optimism not pessimism, by reflection not superficiality, by color not sobriety. And thus it is that the Interieur biennial once again takes its stand as a promising place within the design universe.