DAMn°’s latest cover features the contribution of Pentagram partner, Harry Pearce, to The Haiti Poster Project. Inviting established & emerging artists and designers to create a series of limited edition posters, the project will sell the posters online with all proceeds donated to Doctors Without Borders.

If you are not familiar with the Mayan calendar you might not know there are less than two years to go before the end of the world. Prophets of doom are popping up all over the place, yet for Belgian artist Louis De Cordier, what better time to build an Ark in Spain’s Sierra Nevada.

Michael Meredith and Hilary Sample are the two principals of MOS, a collective of architects, thinkers and state-of-the-art designers. With works spanning designs for private houses to urban strategies and research books, Julien De Smedt and Jesse Seegers of JDS Architects Skype-talked their contemporaries, in a testament to MOS’ networked practice and philosophies.

Lake Disappointment and the wonderfully named Great Sandy Desert are just two of the landmarks along Western Australia’s Canning Stock Route. In a landscape that eats four-wheel drives for breakfast, a new hybrid art project headed by the Perth-based FORM cultural organisation brings together nine remote Aboriginal art centres to realise their past present.

In his own way Luca Nichetto is an heir to the great Venetian craft tradition, yet one of the few who actively engage in industrial and product design. With works for companies such as Foscarini, Moroso, Offecct and many others, he describes how a childhood spent watching his grandfather at the kiln has shaped his career.

Buildings in film often play a supporting role that reduces them to one-liners and mere scenery. 2 1/2 Dimensional is an exhibition of architectural voyeurism that looks at what happens when the building itself becomes the protagonist, with spatial explorations proving to have compelling plotlines.

A layer of snow added to the dramatic beauty of inauguration day for Herzog & de Meuron’s Vitra Haus. The latest addition to the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, for company chairman Rolf Fehlbaum it represents another member of an architectural ensemble piece.

For almost two decades Stefano Marzano has been leading Philips Design. ‘Contributing competence’ with projects such as Philanthropy by Design’s awarding-winning Chulha stove and a series of probes that make tangible research about people’s desires and future quality of life, the professional ripple maker Marzano reveals a deeply held humanistic philosophy to design.

It’s brave and it’s bold, but that’s what makes wild dreams step out fantasy’s shadows. Ventura Lambrate is a new Fuori Salone zone that will be opening eyes and doors during Milan’s design fest. Driven by the Dutch Margriet Vollenberg and Margo Konings of Organisation in Design, content looks set to reign supreme.

Japan is the land of the perpetually rising modern, yet its traditional crafts are taking on contemporary guises to preserve the collective memories of the country’s culture. From the Imabari Towel Brand to artisans employing famed katagami techniques, can design’s active sense of history save the day?

Inertia doesn’t make for terribly attractive decoration, and just a flying visit to four of Milan’s historic design houses tells you that was never part of the original owners’ vision. Unexpected Guests is a new exhibition that brings contemporary design to some of the Italian city’s most intriguing domestic settings.

The Business of Design Week initiated by the Hong Kong Design Centre aims to promote design as one of the juices that flows through the Big Lychee economy. Yet with plenty of international speakers participating, can the local design community’s activities move from smoke to fire?