Danish Design School (Copenhagen)

The Danish Design School was founded in 1875 and has only recently attained the status of a higher education institution. It's consequently going through a period of great change - reconciling it's hands-on, traditional arts and craft background with the theoretical, research-based processes required of it's new academic status. It is also attempting to increase the business opportunities of its students after graduating. Such changes aren't easy: on one side are the demands of politicians wanting to churn out nice chairs to sell to the Chinese, on the other the more farsighted, sometimes abstract goals of an academic design education.

"We have been through a period of being more vocational and oriented to the needs of business," says rector Anne-Louise Sommer. "But I'm trying to steer us on a path that blends our traditional arts and crafts approach with the demands of our new, more academic status. Ultimately we must always have that close link with the business sector and a real societal relevance."

With 700 students, the school is large by Danish standards and demands for place is high, with around 13 applicants for each of the 142 places available each year. In a country where it isn't unusual for students to still be studying full time into their thirties, the average age of the Design School's students has come from 25 to 21 in recent years.

"It is increasingly important to get our students out into the work place," says Sommer. "We are aware that we have a role to play in society. That's also why we have introduced a mentoring programme; students can be a bit unfocused when they leave the school. It's part of our agreement with the Ministry of Culture to emphasis employability more."

Cool of the Jungle (Sri Lanka)

In the Maduru Oya Special Forces Camp, amid the thick jungle of a surrounding national park, lies the Holiday Cabana. Designed by local architect Damith Premathilake and built by the Army using wood and shipping container found in the cantonment, the small house is owned by Lieutenant Colonel Chandimal Peiris and is intended as a lakeside retreat for the officers.

Ler Devagar Bookshop, Portugal

Opened in 1999, Ler Devagar bookshop (in English: "Read Slowly") is located in Lisbon's Alcantra district in a factory housing an old printing press.

Owner Jose Pinto talk about his daily routine: "I arrive in the early afternoon to check emails and make reservations for book releases and exhibits. I talk with suppliers and our regular clients, who tell me we have one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world. I might then have dinner in the store's restaurant with some friends, business partners or one of my customers.

"We are a generalist bookstore but have lots of titles on art, architecture and theater. There's a music shop (CDs and vinyls from Portugal, Africa and Latin America),  a bar (wine and tapas), and space for gallery shows (paintings, photography, sculptures and installations), conferences and concerts.

V&A Medieval & Renaissance Galleries

Location: United Kingdom
Architect: MUMA (UK)

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&) is "the world's greatest museum of Art and Design". Throughout its history the museum has used its own built fabric to showcase pioneering architectural design and constrcution craft, and MUMA's project to create the new Medieval & Renaissance Galleries, located on three levels, reflect the desire to continue the tradition.

The architectural approach is distinctly modern with clear articulation between the old and new. The contrast and spatial tension between the surrounding architectural volumes that define the Daylit Gallery - the powerful curved form of the East Hall apse and the adjacent rectilinear blocks, provides the generator for the intervention. Translucent glass beams, ranging from 5m to 9.5m long, are arrayed across the space, reconciling the slightly rotated cubic forms of the surrounding buildings with the pure semi-circle of the apse to the East Hall, creating a delicate, undulating roof. The result is an informal yet dramatic four storey high gallery space with contrasts with the formal nature of the surrounding galleries.

In keeping with the spirit of a museum that celebrates design excellence, the modern intervention employs innovative construction technologies - ones that are clearly distinct from the historic fabric but also, through form and materials, in harmony with it. By these means we have created the first new-build public space at the museum in over 100 years.

Maxxi, National Museum of XXI Century Arts

Location: Italy
Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects (UK)

Spanning over 27,000 square meters, Zaha Hadid Architects' MAXXI is an iconic complex that has been integrated within the urban fabric of the city, to which it offers a new, articulated and 'permeable' plaza, wrapped by spectacular forms. An exterbal pedestrian path follows the shape of the building, slipping below its cantilevered volumes, which opens onto a large plaza. The fundamental character of the architectural and structural process consists in the use of walls as spatial ordering ordering elements. The interior of the galleries, almost linear, are delimited by couples of parallel walls that follow the building's longitudinal movement. Plasterboard connected with concrete walls creates the technical cavity that contains the museum's complex mechanical systems.