Improve – SpecNews

This week’s biggest architecture and design stories on Dezeen

The cover of David Bowie’s Blackstar album, released just days before his death, was designed to reflect the musician’s mortality, according to his graphic design collaborator Jonathan Barnbrook.
This week on Dezeen: the designer behind David Bowie’s Blackstar album artwork revealed its true meaning in an exclusive interview and we looked ahead to the era of the “megatall” skyscraper.
More architecture | More interiors | More design | More news
Rotterdam-based architecture firm OMA also released images of its renovation plan for Berlin’s KaDeWe department store.
Rotterdam is fast becoming a centre for innovation, according to architects we interviewed this week.

Dezeen promotion: a south London residence updated with new living spaces, custom-built furniture and a two-storey lightwell has been named winner in a competition to find London’s best house extensions (+ slideshow).
Designed by Tsuruta Architects to reveal “memories of place and construction”, House of Trace is a two-storey addition to a Victorian property in south London.
The prize for Best Historic Intervention was scooped by Fitzrovia House, a project by West Architecture that involved inserting a new residence behind the Georgian facade of a bomb-damaged west-London house.
Dezeen’s architecture editor Amy Frearson and RIBA London Director Tamsie Thomson were among the judges, who were chaired by NLA director Peter Murray.
“The standard of Don’t Move Improve continues to rise each year,” commented Murray.