"The new album narrates urban life. It is rather personal music, bound up with this city, there are images of an asphalt jungle and a house that is being built in a city, and we always support the ones who don't have power." -Baba Zula — Qantara.de

Creators of an online petition opposed to the change say the new logo "loses the prestige and elegance of the current seal." They want the 10-campus system to use the traditional circular medallion that shows an open book, the motto “Let There Be Light” and the 1868 date of UC’s founding. Or find a dignified alternative. The petition had more than 39,000 supporters so far. — latimesblogs.latimes.com

The budding industrial designer also gave his top picks from the fair, which unsurprisingly all feature bright swaths of primary colors: a Charlotte Perriand bookshelf from Galerie Downtown accented with yellow squares; a Pierre Guariche chair from Demisch Danant, a Riteveld chair from Galerie Vivid; and a desk from Galleria Rossella Colombari by Gio Ponti, whom he was so delighted to have discovered: “He tried to make the office fun!” — blogs.artinfo.com

Gateway Towers 1 is designed to please even the most exacting and fussy Corinthians. That's why every home here is fully automated, giving you the most advanced technology of the century and making your life smooth and easy. Even the amenities have been handpicked with special attention, right from the designer fixtures to the Swarovski lobbies to the private theatre within the towers. — gatewaytowerspune.com

There is a growing movement afoot in design. It has assumed many names over the years, all of which emphasize the public good and the engagement of too-often marginalized voices. Of late, we've seen life-saving products, more dignifying environments, and more efficient systems, all designed for the betterment of all. — PublicInterestDesign.org

The €150m satellite of Paris's Louvre museum shimmers like an apparition on the raised plane of the former coalmine, looking down over streets of pitch-roofed miners' houses, dotted with the occasional chip shop. The building is formed from a series of long, low-slung walls that fade in and out of view as the changing light dances over its surface – or as clouds of drizzle engulf it entirely in the wintry gloom. — guardian.co.uk

Produced as a diploma project in 1928, it justified itself by pointing out – as generations of environmentalists would later insist – the need to minimise human impact on the planet. Except rather than treading lightly on it, we wouldn't be treading on it at all, but living in flying mobile homes, which could dock at collective housing, hotels, factories and leisure centres, able to descend to the earth to enjoy it unspoilt. — guardian.co.uk

The mayor's office in Yvrac said Wednesday that workers who were hired to renovate the grand 13,000-square-meter (140,000-square-foot) manor and raze a small building on the same estate in southwest France mixed them up.

"The Chateau de Bellevue was Yvrac's pride and joy," said former owner Juliette Marmie. "The whole village is in shock. How can this construction firm make such a mistake?" — npr.org

You lack a cozy balcony? No worries, Julien Berthier has the perfect solution for you: the ‘Balcon additionnel’. The small balcony will be lifted up to the building from a boom-truck on the ground. It fits every building, is permanently attached to the truck, allowing it to be quickly fitted and removed. An easy service for installing a plastic Haussmannian-style balcony on all kinds of buildings. The balcon additionnel is made from plastic resin, steel and paint. — ignant.de

The building is alluring but unsettling. Is the museum’s 10-story concrete cube splitting apart or being pieced together? Is it being held intact by an enormous brace — a transparent protrusion on the cube’s side containing a 54-foot-long escalator — or is that a destabilizing gash that pierces the building’s body? — NYT