Why wood is back at the top of the tree for architects

Strong, clean and versatile, engineered timber is the ‘new concrete’. With wooden skyscrapers in the offing, could it be the answer to the global housing crisis?

Wet docks, giant ducks and the zero-waste city: the best architecture and design of 2018

Windermere catches a wave, the V&A unveils the city of tomorrow, and Hope to Nope harnesses the explosive power of graphic design

The top 10 architecture and design events of 2017

It was a year that celebrated new dawns. From plywood to postmodernism, from the return of council housing to a Cornish art gallery, our critic picks his highlights

Rowan Moore’s best architecture of 2017

Postmodernism returned in style, Liverpool’s Welsh Streets were saved, but Grenfell Tower defined the year

• Observer critics’ reviews of the year in full

Shenzhen’s new V&A-approved culture centre to showcase city’s artistic side

The Chinese megacity has grown rapidly over the last 35 years and with its new Sea World Culture and Arts Centre opening in December it’s looking to make as big an impact in culture as it has in industry

Developers fight on to make famed Edinburgh neoclassical building into luxury hotel

Urbanist Hotels’ latest appeal against its rejected plans for Old Royal High School reopens battle with group wanting site for St Mary’s Music School