Dezeen Debate features "tech-bro Death Star"

The latest Dezeen Debate newsletter features the news that the US has authorised the deployment of a giant space mirror to illuminate Earth after dark. Subscribe to Dezeen Debate now.

Following approval last week, the Eärendil-1 demo satellite will be launched into low-Earth orbit later this year.

Commenters weren't pleased with the news, with one dubbing it a "tech-bro Death Star". Expressing frustration, another reader wrote, "humanity is cooked in more ways than one!"

Other stories in this week's newsletter included the news that the unopened Rike Concert Hall in Tbilisi is set...

Pittsburgh’s Pickleball Courts by Sharmistha Ray Are an Abstract Riot of Color

Across three pickleball courts in central Pittsburgh, Sharmistha Ray embraces the realm of sport as a canvas for vibrant paintings. Geometry of Play comprises large-scale murals that mark the first artist-designed pickleball courts in the country. While we most often associate outdoor murals with walls, the otherwise nondescript 22-by-40-foot area is ripe for interpretation.

Ray translates their vivid, geometric abstractions onto a playable surface, tapping into the sport’s communal nature. The artist has long been interested in themes of belonging, especially through the lenses of queer identity and the inheritance of multiple cultures.

In Geometry of Play, target-like spheres,...

ENVERITY

ENVERITY is a game development co-working space in Taipei, a place where dreamers turn imagination into reality, where creators meet, exchange ideas, and build new worlds together. The identity is built from modular units, where freedom emerges through systems. Every stroke follows the same geometric logic, much like UI components in a game interface, structured, extensible, and recombinable. It is a language in constant formation, carrying the spirit of play, and the shared ambition to create the worlds of tomorrow.

Rerucha Studio organises Seattle house as "small village of connected spaces"

Local architecture practice Rerucha Studio has arranged a cedar-clad house with detached elements around a central courtyard to function like a park in Seattle, Washington, USA.

Aptly named Park House, the 2,500-square-foot (232-square-metre) residence spreads into three distinct structures connected by a steel trellis across its site.

Rerucha Studio drew from the progressive scale of the context – city, park, house and then courtyard, pulling elements from the nearby Woodland Park where the clients' daughter plays soccer.

"We became interested in how the qualities that make a park meaningful: green space, freedom,...

How stadiums are turning into entertainment districts

As developmental models for sports venues shift, architects and planners are being tasked with designing vast districts to support year-round activity. For our Future Stadium series, we look at the rise of the sports district and some factors driving the change.

According to a study by sports agency Klutch Sports Group and Royal Bank of Canada, as many as 37 sport-anchored mixed-use districts (SMDs) were announced in North America in 2024, triggering a flurry of renderings depicting stadiums flanked by hotels, restaurants, retail and even residential programmes.

"The investment that's being made in these buildings is just so enormous," Janet Marie Smith,...

Museum celebrating work of RNLI among projects from Lancaster University

Dezeen School Shows: a museum dedicated to celebrating the history of Folkestone, UK, and the work of the RNLI is among projects from Lancaster University.

Also featured is a proposal for a textile reuse scheme to provide materials for theatre and dance industries, and a reclaimed timber workshop and exhibition space.

Institution: Lancaster University
School: Lancaster School of Architecture
Course: BA (Hons) Architecture
Tutors: Ana Costa, Stephen Connah, Richard Brook and Laura Miller

School statement:

"The three concerns underpinning everything we do at Lancaster School of Arts – Architecture are Future Practice, Digital Crafts and the Climate Crisis.

"Future Practice: issues such as future cities and rapid...

John Meng's Found-Object Cigar Ashtray

This Achille cigar ashtray is by Zhangzhou-based designer John Meng.

Joe Colombo, who was known for designing vice-centric objects, would've dug this.

Los Angeles Public Library Unveils the World’s Largest Pop-Up Book

The iconic Art Deco architecture of Los Angeles’ Richard J. Riordan Central Library houses more than 10 million items, making it the third largest library in the country. The institution also celebrates its centennial this year. So, what better way to ring in a new century of reading and learning than with the largest pop-up book ever created?

Commissioned by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles in partnership with the Los Angeles Public Library, L.A.-based artist and printmaker Daniel González conceived of a monumental ode to knowledge, discovery, and imagination. “Luceros y Penumbras” also nods to the building’s history, taking pride of place in the elegant...

An Apple Vision Pro Seating Station at a Parisian Opera House

Typically at an opera house, the only thing patrons are looking through are opera glasses. But at Paris' historic Palais Garnier, they've got Apple Vision Pro headsets on offer.

This month the opera house launched a VR experience called "Dans les pas d'une Étoile" ("In the footsteps of a Star"), which lets visitors follow ballet star Bleuenn Battistoni through backstage spaces that are typically off-limits to the public. To view it, visitors sit at a circular banquette that has been outfitted with aluminum arms holding Apple Vision Pro headsets. The film was shot in 180°, and...

Announcing <i>Fusion Forward: Design for Home</i>, a New Competition from Core77 and Autodesk Fusion

Core77 and Autodesk Fusion have teamed up to launch Fusion Forward: Design for Home, a competition inviting designers to reconsider the products that shape everyday domestic life. The brief is broad but pointed: create a consumer product for the home that shows real thought in material selection, form development, and utility. Judges want to see designs that don't just look good in a render but hold up to how people actually live, work, and take care of themselves at home.

Entrants choose one of three categories:

Smart Home Devices — controllers, sensors, displays, hubs, switches, and monitoring devices. The...