Chef René Redzepi’s interpretation of Nordic cuisine contains a few surprises—live ants being among the more startling ingredients on the legendary Noma’s tasting menu, which starts at around $350—but this has not deterred customers. Since he opened his experimental restaurant in a Copenhagen waterfront warehouse in 2003, it has been repeatedly lauded as one of the world’s best.

“The line between my work and life is thin to nonexistent,” says British designer Ilse Crawford, who lives above her studio with her husband in a converted tannery warehouse in Bermondsey, London.

“I want to copy the sun,” Achille Castiglioni famously said—and considering dozens of his lamps are still in production today, in a sense, he did.

There’s a lighting revolution going on at the moment—and its forever-changing built environments as we know them. Thanks to a few recent major scientific breakthroughs, we now know that a life spent mostly indoors has a profound impact on our health. And not in a good way. In response, and pushed by organizations such as the Human Centric Lighting Society, innovation in lighting technology is increasingly turning away from a lights on, lights off approach and turning towards people and their personal needs.

One designer. 8 printworkers. 26,000 square feet of cardboard. 4,500 cardboard pieces. 15 pods.

The Gangnam district of Seoul was single-handedly catapulted into the world’s consciousness by the horse-trot dance moves and universally catchy beat of Psy’s self-deprecating video for “Gangnam Style.”. Four years later, this poke at the lavish lifestyle of the toniest district in the South Korean capital holds tight to its position as the most popular YouTube video of all time.

On certain days and from a certain angle, Sam Chermayeff can be seen relaxing in the buff—in the comfort of a Bertoia side chair—on his East Berlin rooftop. The architect, who co-founded June14 Meyer-Grohbrügge & Chermayeff with fellow SANAA alum Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge, built a sauna up there, boxed in by four walls of clear acrylic.

With a following 12 million strong, Susan Miller, founder of AstrologyZone.com, is on intimate terms with all 12 signs of the zodiac.

Creative personalities transform a telecom building into a hip hotel – the Flushing Meadows Hotel & Bar in Munich’s Glockenbach district. The site came with a catch, but it wasn’t the location. When the owner of a four-storey concrete building from the ’70s approached Sascha Arnold, Niels Jäger and Steffen Werner about leasing the top two floors, they already understood the appeal of the Glockenbach district.

Artist Stephen Turner might never have moved into an egg if he hadn’t nearly stepped on one.

Often, Milan is where it begins, where the best-of-the-best showcase their talent, and where the manufacturers discover the new green ideas and send them to your living room. At least, I did. 16 Potentially World-changing Green Ideas From the 2009 Milan Furniture Fair Slideshow. More on the 2009 Milan Furniture Fair, Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

Her slender limbs and impossibly hourglass torso were restrained by nylon zip ties. Yet beneath the heavily made-up eyes—blue as the ocean behind— a wide smile continued to shine, as the wind whipped her trademark long blond hair. Barbie, actually 4,500 of Mattel’s dolls tied together, took the form of a 10-foot-high wave bursting out of the sand at a beach in Perth, Australia.