But the most exciting thing is the re-organisation under the hood. Design+Build will continue to bring you the very best of that strange space where architecture and the graphic arts collide, but in a whole new way.  Feature articles will occur least often, and will be longer, more involved articles around a particular subject. The new Inspiration section will be a growing collection of inspirational design, art and photography related to architecture and the built environment. Finally, the Snippets section will be a running feed of interesting and related links.

There will still be a few rough edges around the place as we tidy up things here and there, but they will be getting cleared up over the coming days. So please have a look around, and enjoy yourself.

The other major plus of Cartagen is the fact that it can be hooked into by css to infinitely "re-skin" the mapping data making it look however you wish. This is great from the perspective of designers and other visual workers.

Another key advantage, as pointed out by Digital Urban, is that "The ability to build applications that run naively in the browser without the need for plugins will allow agencies such as the police, government, health service etc a to view data that is currently restricted due to rules on installing plugins/software on networks".

Check it out at Cartagen.org.

For the photo shoot they mocked up some rooms in a house adhering to the principles. Within these mocked up rooms, measurements, boundaries and suggested uses are marked on the walls and floors, displaying as an integrated part of the room itself.

I'm unsure whether the markings are actually a part of the room, or some post-processing wizardry - but the way in which they have done is somewhat unimportant. what is interesting is the concept behind it.

The notations (for lack of a better word) are fantastically minimalistic, less decorative than they are utilitarian. They sit apart from the room, even though the are totally integrated. There is almost a sense in which they act as a sort of wayfinding design, but within the confines of the home.

From the point of view of the magazine layout, the sparseness of the room allows a simple full spread image to also be overlaid with the copy from the article. The copy doesn't integrate quite as well as the notations, but still hands all control over to the image itself. The result is a handful of spreads where the immediate impact is that of the photograph, but as you investigate the image, more information is revealed, taking you naturally through the article.

This integrated annotation is a fantastic technique, and one that I can imagine could have possibilities of use in the real world - perhaps as interior design, or wayfinding in commercial buildings. It will certainly be interesting to see where it pops up.

A selection of photos from the last week (well really fortnight I guess). Enjoy

Paris rita Crane

The say that in comparison to Melbourne's great emphasis on entertainment (arts/culture and fine dining) there is very little in the way of quality retail. They propose four very interesting themed retail ideas to solve the problem.

Local is the name of the food themed suggestion. They envisage an inner-city building transformed to allow the growing of local produce. They see producers coming closer to the consumer, resulting in less transport costs, fresher food, and victory for all. From my experience living in Christchurch, being only minutes from somewhere you can buy fresh produce from the people growing it is wonderful. This sort of concept would be an excellent idea.

Format is a new concept for a music store, drawing from both the past and the future. The vision is of old-style listening booths (as those from the 50s and 60s) with the possibility of listening to any album/track/anything digitally. On having made your selection you would be given an option of how you want the songs provided, whether digitally, or physically. I think this is an awesome concept, somewhere I would love to shop.

A concept specifically for niche magazine and zines, Kiosk is seen as a small intimate space. There would be multiple small shops, with warm inviting interiors in order to enjoy and purchase these publications. This seems particularly suited to Melbourne.

London Store is a proposed concept for a large building in the heart of the city that will house a number of boutique international brands within it. I guess similar in a way to David Jones does things, but more exclusive.

I think certainly there are some ideas of this batch that are better than others (I love the idea of Format especially), but they are certainly worth more thought. What do you think?

What is especially interesting is the similarities in relevance to the design of websites and web applications. In this age of social networking websites are now meeting places, and some ways taking the place of the plazas and malls of the physical world. Many of the insights in this clip are hugely relevant to the design of websites.