It’s to be found in every child’s room, it is 9.6mm high and 8mm wide: the Lego block. Today, everyone of us owns on average 62 Lego stones. On Jan. 28, 2008, the Lego block celebrated the 50th anniversary of its patent being registered. And 30 years ago saw the birth of the Lego figure as we know it today. It is as high as three Lego blocks stacked on top of one another.

Eco-management systems, eco-labels, sustainability certificates – the need for information on ecological aspects of production is growing by the day. Some companies, such as Italian manufacturer Arper, have already pinned proof of the eco-friendliness of their products to their masts.

All designers know the problem of redesign all too well or that of lending new meaning to an old but successful product. And we all know George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy. A series of amusing films are now combining the two, in a surprising and enlightening manner.

The issue of eco-friendliness and product sustainability is not only becoming increasingly important but there is a growing debate about how designers can help ensure this type of product is developed. Consequently, the 1st Starnberg discussion round, which ended with the agreement of an agenda, revolved around this subject. Unfortunately it is riddled with platitudes.

The "Ampelphase 3: raumrot" (Traffic-light phase 3: room red) was opened in the Vitra showroom in Frankfurt on Wednesday 13 August 2008. Five firms of architects and the architecture class of the Städelschule art academy present their personal installation showing their associations with room red.

In the beginning there was the wing chair. Today it is available in many materials and versions, and it certainly looks as though they are exponentially increasing: Sofas and armchairs with high backrests. A little hideaway from the cold and the noise of the outside world, which more and more people are beginning to appreciate.

The “SZ-Magazin Designedition” campaign was launched at The Design Annual in Frankfurt in early July. Since then, each month the editorial team has presented one of seven selected items of furniture which designers have created exclusively for the Edition.

In 'The House of Viktor & Rolf', the Dutch designer duo present a review of the fashions they have created over the last 15 years. Once again, they have come up with a big surprise: instead of presenting their work on a catwalk, their creations are to be seen in a huge doll's house.

Achille Castiglioni, Andrea Branzi, Alessandro Mendini, Ettore Sottsass and Richard Sapper talk in these short "Design Interviews", which are now out on DVD, about their paths to what was still, at that time, a new discipline, about their own development and careers, about their search for design solutions, which, for the most part, still owed greater allegiance to society than to industry.

Six automobiles and some model – you don't need any more to set the pulse of design aficionados racing. It is only important that the cars be the right ones. For example, six made by Mercedes-Benz - and a host of legends.

Three basic shapes: circle, triangle, square. An investigation in three volumes. Published by the Italian designer Bruno Munari. A book review.

The fifth collection of the Japanese design company “plusminuszero” - As for its design maxim, the company has traded in the good old “Form follows function” principle which is always trundled out when a rationale for minimalism is needed, and has exchanged it for a new mantra of industrial design: “Things that seem to have existed already but didn’t”.

They are well thought out, long lasting, elegant, ultramodern and pretty cool down to the last detail. And they have written design history. We are referring to Jacob Jensen’s hi-fi systems for the top Danish brand Bang & Olufsen. Of course, he has designed more than that; indeed, his studio “Jacob Jensen Design” is already celebrating its 50th birthday.

The culinary result was more than delicious at 'The Design Annual - inside: showtime' – and so that you can recreate the show on a smaller scale in your own kitchen, here is chef Tim Raue’s recipe.

In Nuremberg, on July 25, 2008 a new show opens entitled “design deutschland. case study 08”. It offers a thematic cross-section of classic and contemporary ideas by German designers and companies.

When I think of Hannes Wettstein I always have his hand before my eyes, the way it started to draw with a pencil on any material available. You got gooseflesh just watching him, the way he gave ideas a shape at the spur of a moment.

How the northern Italian metropolis is making impressive use of its title of “World Design Capital 2008” - Those who are going to the northern Italian city of Turin in the coming months, which this year bears the title of World Design Capital, will experience a city which has fully committed itself to the themes of design and architecture.

“Summary” is the name given the annual end-of-summer-term event at Bauhaus University Weimar, presenting what its four faculties have come up with during the academic year. “Summary” is not only a major event in the city, as “Weimar is actually a university in which a city lies”, as Rector Gerd Zimmermann puts it. As it is also an attempt to invite Weimar’s inhabitants to study the students’ efforts and may be even be filled with enthusiasm.

Four days of “Showtime”, four days of flash-lit faces, flamenco and Disneyland, four days of going up and down in an elevator, stroking ponies and hearing parrots blabber, four days of marveling at bags, switches, shelves, kitchens, sofas, fireplaces, cars. Four days of cups and plates, slides and carpets, vases and sounds. Four days under counters, at toadstool tables and on the stage.

Sometimes all it needs is a small twist, a simple change of perspective, and you have a completely new world. Christoph Brech does not only make films. He shows us things which normally escape us. When the artist spent last year at Villa Massimo in Rome as a scholarship holder, he produced works including the film “Punto”, from which we will show you an excerpt.

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

“Mies van der Rohe’s famous pavilion in Barcelona is a copy. Where did the original stand?” At The Design Annual - inside: showtime Mats Theselius offered a brilliant stage show that with guests and guests of honor, with musical backup and dance sets. And a quiz show. All the questions relate to design, architecture, and associated topics.

Yesterday Paul Cocksedge has lectured on his view of light at The Design Annual - inside: showtime, presenting the intentions and methods that he brings to bear in his constant inquiry into light and luminaires.

How did you ever come up with the idea of building a Disneyland/Favela installation and what notion of “showtime” is at work there? Yesterday Editor-in-Chief of form Gerrit Terstiege has asked Tobias Rehberger and Claus Richter about their artistic efforts for The Design Annual – on the Festhalle viewer’s gallery at Messe Frankfurt.

It's showtime, for four whole days of nine hours each, nonstop entertainment!

There it is, finally hanging up there as though on a mountain face, this small labyrinth-like, bewitchingly colorful, madly flashing, tenderly romantic and miracle-working mountain village of the imagination, in which Tobias Rehberger and Claus Richter are staging an encounter between art and design, an interface between show and reality.

Modernist concrete cube or Baroque farmhouse – terraced house or readymade: When designers start working for birds, the outlook offered is surprising. And not just for the ornithologists.

“Something to put something on”. This is the name of the new book by Lawrence Weiner. It aims to be nothing but a “question structure.” For the artist, who fills walls as well as manhole covers with wonderful sentences, does something to start something off. “That is the lovely thing about a book,” says Weiner, “it does not force anything on you, it only presents something. If it is useful, people will pass it on to others.”

The young design studio Raw-Edges in London was officially founded in July 2007. Yet the paths of Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay, who were both born in Tel Aviv in 1976, first crossed many years ago. They are currently exhibiting works at Fat Galerie in Paris with Peter Marigold.

Materialworks Zoom: Aesthetics and function in museum architecture - Kapipane by Okalux

More than a company history: “Projekt Vitra 1957-2007” - "Projekt Vitra" is the self-representation of a successful company. And yet the book, with its intelligent essays, with its products arranged like families for a wedding photo, with historical and contemporary pictures and documents, is more than a corporate history.

For the family of luminaires called “S” does not require electricity cables. The modular lamps for the home and the office have joints made of magnets, which are bearings, axle casing and current conductor in one.

With the “Gina Light”, BMW has created more than just a new show car. The study, whose bodywork is made of a fabric skin, has the potential to trigger a revolution in car design.

In Kortrijk (Belgium) on an area of over 1,500 square meters the exhibition "Backstage" tells the story of twenty of Patrizia’s favorites featuring drawings, sketches, 3D models, prototypes and previously unseen one-off objects.

Flying pies, weeping trees, confused giraffes, speaking clocks, precious lighthouses, owls that play the flute - in only 14 days time the waiting will be over, and the wonderland designed by Tobias Rehberger and Claus Richter will open its doors. It's showtime! To put it mildly!