New trends in teaching and curricula are influencing future design. In Hamburg design is now only part of art courses. At other art academies, it is becoming a marginal subject. But there's no sign of designers putting up a fight.

Euro 60 million for a collection plus the cost of investing in a building: Why on earth is the Chinese city of Hangzhou buying an extensive Bauhaus collection and building a special museum to house it in on the Design Campus?

Crisis or no crisis, Greece's landscapes not only enchant the locals, but countless tourists, too. Yet there is more to the country than beautiful beaches and olive groves. Have you ever counted the Monobloc chairs on your vacation snaps?

The Monobloc chair is considered the epitome of mass furniture. For long treated derogatorily, recently a series of designers have focused firmly on it. The publication on "220°C Virus Monobloc" sheds light on all facets of this realignment.

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.

The world is so full of useful things that they easily escape our notice. Konstantin Grcic's current exhibition "Design Real" at London's Serpentine Gallery directs our attention in innovative and insightful fashion at a particularly intriguing corner of the vast realm of the useful, one where technical innovation and iconic power are held in artful balance.

Shop window decoration by artists and designers have a long-standing tradition. Now Tokujin Yoshioka has created an installation for Maison Hermès in Tokyo that plays superbly with the power of images.

The era of the energy-saving lamp has begun. But is it even ready for its new tasks? Many have in recent months warned about the health risks, even environmental associations are sceptical whether the energy savings are great and as regards disposal of the lamp as waste. And with reference to its design, it is not just a matter of taste, but also of drastic consequences for everyday culture and design.

He created seating buds, mushrooms for the home and incomparable interiors. Pierre Paulin's upbeat creations have had a significant influence on design history. They are as alive as ever today. The visionary French interior designer died at the age of 81 last Saturday.

Construction

It is with great sadness and shock that we learned of the death of architect and designer Hannes Wettstein.

Ettore Sottsass died in his home in Milan aged 90 on the very last day of 2007. Not only in Italy, and not only in the world of design and architecture are people mourning the loss of a designer of genius, as the world has lost a great humanist. For Sottsass, who construed design as the incessant search for a possible metaphor of existence, the search has come to a dramatic end.

When an international chemical conglomerate, an Italian furniture manufacturer and a German designer collaborate on the development of new materials and their application then legends are born. For example the new plastic cantilever chair "Myto".

"MYTO", a fully synthetic cantilever-based chair was created in what has been an unparalleled cooperation between a designer, a furniture manufacturer and an industrial corporation.

On the death of Dino Gavina, one of the last "great masters" of Italian design. Typical somehow, the tardiness in writing about the death of one of Italy's really greatest designers. All the more Dino Gavina retreated from the public eye in the last decades, all the less was published on his sudden death on April 6.

NASA-Experimente und andere Lichtspiele mit Achille Castiglioni

The young Spaniard Jaime Hayon is currently one of the most dazzling figures in the international design scene. Without taking existing styles into account, he drew the attention of the crowds and was omnipresent in Milan.

A book has been published just in time for the Milan Furniture Fair - on the oeuvre of Ludovica + Roberto Palomba.

New standards in product photography: the book about Konstantin Grcics stool Miura with photographs by Florian Böhm.

If there really are things, which are not apparent unless you are aware of them, then the Fortuny lamp is a good example of this. If you didn't know it had been designed exactly a century ago, you definitely wouldn't notice it.

The Kram Weisshaar office has designed a limited edition for porcelain manufacturer, Nymphenburg.

It needn’t always be digital. The good old notebook, without the upper case N, proves its worth in an age when everyone has to be permanently creative.

Walls becoming doors: Car concepts inspired by nature.

With coatings, technical details and new production methods makers of carpets and floor coverings are offering a new approach to room design. An overview of selected innovations@Domotex.

Homapal offers a wide range of laminated wood panels with high-quality deck laminates.

A major study examined the responses of clients to different light settings in retail outlets. Katharina Sommer summarizes the findings and explains what they imply for lighting design in stores.