The architect who created the £269 million aquatics centre has criticised “rude” Games bosses for not inviting her to a single event.

Zaha Hadid claimed she was not asked to the opening or closing ceremonies of the Games, or to any of the diving and swimming heats at her acclaimed building in the Olympic Park. — thisislondon.co.uk

London's Serpentine Gallery just released plans for the 2012 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei. This summer's pavilion, the twelfth commission in the gallery’s annual series, will be open to the public from June 1 to October 14, 2012. — bustler.net

The fact that one of Britain’s most exciting new design practices is named after a social research organization formed in the 1930s is not a coincidence. The photographer Theo Simpson and the graphic designer Ben Mclaughlin founded their London studio, Mass Observation, last year with a mission to examine everyday experiences and surroundings. Their expanding portfolio of self-published books and print editions investigates contemporary social, political and economical issues... — tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com

The clouds, made of 100 per cent environmentally friendly foam, soap bubbles and helium, can float as high as 20,000 feet and can travel up to 20 miles before they break up.

The clouds were formed to celebrate the launch of WiFi hotspots from The Cloud, giving Sky Broadband Unlimited customers free and unlimited access to WiFi in popular places such as The London Eye. — thisislondon.co.uk

Staffers at some London data centers won’t be burdened with long commutes when the 2012 Olympics roll into town this summer and jam up city streets. Instead, they’ll have futuristic sleeping pods to crash in so they can never leave work.

In the past month, a London company called PodTime has sold 19 pods at £1,375 ($2,190) a pop to three collocation facilities, including a data center operated by Interxion, says Jon Gray, the founder of the 1-year-old company. — wired.com

Because towers take so long to plan and construct, the current crop reflect a vision up to a decade old, reckons Nick Offer of Arup, an engineering firm. Economic conditions and the scale of such projects mean that only the very brave will invest now... In 2010 the coalition scrapped the previous, Labour government’s density targets, which were designed to encourage developers to build more units. Instead it has endorsed “garden cities” — economist.com

For all its Brutalist charm and rigid adherence to the now-outmoded ‘streets in the sky’ concept, Robin Hood Gardens was an easy target for those who call architects hypocrites eager to champion crumbling estates they wouldn’t dare live in themselves. Many of the current residents can’t wait to be rid of it: a consultation in 2008 found that over 75% supported its demolition. — londonist.com

The Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei collaboration – the 12th pavilion – breaks the mould of the sequence so far as the criterion for the commission had been for an architect not to have built in England. But Herzog & de Meuron are also deeply engaged in the art world, having built the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis and the de Young Museum in San Francisco. They are currently working on art museums in New York, Miami and Kolkata. — ft.com

Perhaps emboldened by the success of the atheist bus, or his own Living Architecture initiative (in which top architects design desirable holiday homes), or the fact that he's got a new book to promote, Alain de Botton is now proposing a series of temples for atheists to be built around the UK. — guardian.co.uk

The last few years have seen a new generation of alternative publications and editorial talent emerge, and London is very much a part of the scene. This month saw the release of the fourth issue of P.E.A.R.. Printed on newspaper stock, this zine was started by the editorial collective of Rashid Ali, Matthew Butcher, Julian Krueger and Megan O’Shea, with the designer Avni Patel, in 2009. — tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com

Named A Room for London, the accommodation is also an art installation commissioned by Living Architecture and Artangel. Living Architecture is a social enterprise that operates a handful of holiday homes throughout the UK and aims to provide members of the public with the opportunity to experience contemporary architecture at first hand. The Artangel organisation commissions creative projects by contemporary artists. — telegraph.co.uk

Richard Rogers's 1986 headquarters for the insurers Lloyd's of London has just been listed Grade I. This makes it, along with the Royal Festival Hall, one of the few 20th-century structures to be placed at the same level as, say, St Paul's. But, like the gothic cathedrals it so closely resembles, Lloyd's was not meant to be an entirely finished product. Look up to the top of its facade, and you'll find cranes are still there... — guardian.co.uk

The name of the ArcelorMittal Orbit tower is a real mouthful, a hybrid title for a mongrel artwork. The contorted steel “sculpture-cum-tower-cum-engineering feat,” in the inelegant phrase of Tate director Nicholas Serota, is the totem of our Olympic games, rising more than 375 feet out of the central plaza of the park, on former light industrial land equidistant between Stratford and Hackney Wick in east London. — architectmagazine.com

Built on a temporary site and made entirely from recycled shipping containers, London's latest retail park lays claim to be the world's first ever "pop-up" shopping mall. The aptly-named "Boxpark" opened for business today along a vacant strip of east London's fashionable Shoreditch High Street. It is composed of 60 standard-size shipping containers, stacked two stories high and five rows wide. — cnn.com

The winners of the Architect's Eye Awards, which celebrates architects' passion for photograph, were announced on Tuesday, November 22, during a ceremony hosted by the competition organizers, International Art Consultants, at their gallery in London, UK. — bustler.net