Can you take a photograph without a camera? Can a simple matchbox be considered a collectors item? These are the questions the young designers at Toegepast 17 at Z33 Gallery, Hasselt in Belgium aim to answer.

Makiko Shinoda, a social designer from Design Academy Eindhoven, has created a new chess-style game where the pieces build as the players grow in age. Meanwhile, the effect that daily living has on textiles is examined by Veerle Tytgat.

Catching The Sunlight by Eline Cautreels and Maarten de Beukelaer is a photography project, but without a camera. The two creatives placed objects, people and other elements in front of photographic paper, allowing the sun to burn the silhouettes into the paper.

In order save time, we have to spend time coming up with time-saving solutions. This paradox is what Jenny Stieglitz examines in her series of illustrations.

The beauty of everyday objects is explored by Noortje de la Haye. The graphic designer has collected coasters, stamps, matchboxes and other banal objects and presented them as collectors’ items. A book of photography full of images of these objects is the centerpiece of her installation.

Toegepast 17 runs until 17 February 2013 at Z33, Hasselt, Belgium.

For those of you who have been in and around London during the 2012 Olympics, you may have spotted a few unusual installations dotted around the city. These pieces are works created by students from the University of Westminster’s architecture course as part of a program presented by the Greater London Authority and Mayor of London.

University of Westminster students beat off stiff competition from UCL Bartlett School of Architecture, London Metropolitan University and Central St Martins in order to obtain the commission to create temporary architectural installations during the Games.

In Victoria Park, students Jamie Pearson and Lemma Redda have installed Aurora, a pavillion made from some 1,500 ready-made hula hoops. All the hoops are strung together and lit from above and within to create a beautiful glowing canopy.

Meanwhile, in various locations across town, Chloe Leen, Theo Molloy and Steven Wilkinson have installed their Streescape Carousels. Each of these spinning pavilions depicts a panoramic view of urban London.

And, in the Shell Centre at South Bank lies the London Dresser. Created by Hugo Bass, James Kirk and Preet Panesar, this installation is a large-scale cabinet full of small scale versions of London’s most famous architectural builds. Each day, the cabinet is opened and members of the public can sit on, in and around the various miniature monuments.

For four short days in July, this year’s ArtEZ alumni put on an incredible show full of vivacious paintings, innovative product designs and smart artwork. ARTS THREAD’s Jainy Gans picks out some of the highlights from the Fine Arts department.

Entering the main hall of the exhibition, the vibrant canvases of Simone Albers oil and acrylic paintings immediately catch you eye. On closer inspection, many little details begin to reveal themselves amongst the large scale organic and architectural forms.

Claarje van Beuningen

There was something childish yet sinister about Claarje van Beuningen’s work. Using bright colours and foamy materials, Beuningen constructed a series of unusual totem poles. “The message is a call to revise our way of handling nature and ourselves, as well as our preconceived opinions,” explains Beuningen.

Josha de Vree

Far from childish are Josha de Vree’s oil paintings. For her graduate series she explored the relationship between innocent civilian victims of war and humanitarians who knowingly place themselves in the line of fire.

Malou Claire

“What happens to today’s heroes when they step and leave the stage?” This was the question Malou Claire tried to answer by focussing on a group of contemporary heroes: cyclists. Her oil paintings capture cyclists in their most private, vulnerable moments.

Roos van Dijk

Last but not least is the work of Roos van Dijk, who is nominated for the Hendrik Valk prize this year. The artist, who really deserves to be nicknamed the queen of shadows, makes her modern architecture inspired acrylic paintings look like photographs.

Graduates of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie wowed visitors during a five day long exhibition earlier this month. ARTS THREAD selects a few of the strongest projects from across the school’s many disciplines.

In the glass department, Myungsu Seo created a beautiful raindrop installation. Each glass raindrop was different from the next: some were a bit fat, others were elongated and some more crooked than others. Marie de Bruyn created fragile glass bubbles that appeared in unlikely spaces throughout the exhibition space.

Nathalie Sternbauer

Size definitely matters to Nathalie Sternbauer. The ceramics graduate designed a series of vessels and clay pieces inspired by a range of human body parts including a range of penises!

Lorenzo Quintanilla/Kees Boeve/Pablo Ponce

Fellow ceramicists Lorenzo Quintanilla, Kees Boeve and Pablo Ponce were equally experimental. Ponce’s collection of time capsuls really grabbed our attention. “I want to show different moments, which occur in our society, from a political, social or ethical point of view. In the capsules I made, memories have found their place,” Ponce explains.

Lilly Lam/Leonie van der Vyver/Jurrijn Huffenreuter

Studesnts of the DesignLab created their own versions of the traditional tea set, with some unusual outcomes. To create their sets, the graduates spent three weeks at the porcelain capital of China, Jingdezhen.

Joost Lub

Back in Amsterdam, Design Lab graduate Joost Lub got so annoyed with the sound of Dutch barrel organ music that he invented a percussive alternative. The drum covered barrel organ might not sound the same, but we imagine that the incessant drumming could be just as annoying!

Daniel Vom Keller/Ada Kruszynski

The Fine Arts department presented a nice mixture of installations with Swiss designer Daniel Vom Keller making thick, black marble ‘float’ in the air, where as Ada Kruszynski used stone which looked like sparkling black granite for her crumbling pyramids.

Lisa Timmers

Architecture graduate Lisa Timmers loves working with paper. For her Paper Dance project she reinvented the ancient trick kids use to make a paper garland – folding a string of paper into a rectangle, cutting out a figure from the bottom up, and spreading it like a harmonica- into a life size version. Her other project, Matters of Privacy was made entirely from shredded paper.

Schöner Schein, Luminauten

Entitled Schöner Schein, translating as Beautiful Appearance, the entrance to the city’s Palmengarten played host to German lighting artists Luminauten’s nightly show of a sea of brightly-coloured flowers, with the intriguing byline – ‘Plants often attract with their beauty and the fragrance of their flowers. But one or two of them know how to use their charms and then it is too late …’

Other installations within the Palmengarten featured captivating titles such as Dancing Water, created by Lyon-based lighting designer Jacques Fournier, Snail Trail by Philipp Artus, Archilace by London-based Loop.pH and Damned Ikebana by Makoto Azuma.

Shade of Play – Schattenspiel; Resonate – Container Ship

On the river we came across Resonate, a light and sound installation set in the 40-metre-long interior of a container ship. ‘A network of bright lines is suspended in the steel hull of the vessel and creates atmospheric sounds. With the help of digital LED light and sound, visitors experience the space interactively as a three-dimensional space composition.’

Resonate is a project by the Interior Design Masters Degree Course of the University of Applied Sciences Mainz (Prof. Klaus Teltenkötter, Prof. Bernd Benninghoff), and was created in cooperation with the Masters Degree Course in Klangkunst-Komposition (Art of Sound Composition), Academy of Music at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz.

OVO, Odeaubois & ACT Lighting Design; Archilace, Loop.pH

Time Drifts, Philipp Geist

PLEASE HAVE A SEAT, Bernd Spiecker; Vom Rätsel Wasser, St. Katharinen

SHINE SHINE SHINE, Bestregartssets

Finally, the art gallery Bestregartssets the FBC building aglitter with 1000 flash lamps for SHINE SHINE SHINE.

For more information, visit Luminiale 2012.

Laura Gill, Talking Sticks/ Mortar & Pestle Studio, Bow Arts Open Identity/ Karin Soderquist, To The North Pole

Design 2012, a multi-disciplinary exhibition displaying the work of over a dozen designers from the UK and beyond opened at the Dreamspace Gallery last night.

Open until 15 March, the show features a wide range of projects from the realms of architecture, furniture, product, graphics, typography and urban and interactive design.

If you get the chance to pop along, make sure to check out the hilarious work of Laura Gill. Gill will be showing her Talking Sticks, a collection of hand-painted sticks with bright coloured hair and funny facial expressions. Sourced from green spaces around London, the sticks draw inspiration from the concept of the talking stick used by American Indians during group discussions to enable each person to be heard.

Design Studio Mortar & Pestle is also be there showing their giant ident created for Bow Arts and ARTS THREAD favourite Karin Soderquist is there too showing off her To The North Pole project.

Hugh McEwen, The Aylesbury Town Hall/ Studio SC, Future Grass

Hugh McEwan is showing his vibrant The Aylesbury Town Hall, a pastel drawing which has been photographed then re-printed to reproduce the original colours and Studio SC are displaying Future Grass, a quaint desktop accessory which neatly stores nearly any item in among the blades of artificial grass.

Design 2012 runs from 6 – 15 March at the Dreamspace Gallery, Craftwork Studios, 3 Dufferin Street, London, EC1Y 8NA.

For more information visit the Dreamspace Gallery website.

Suzaan Heyns, 'Fish-Scale Dress'/ Eric Loubser, 'Bird Neckpiece'

The ten finalists for this year’s Design Indaba MBOISA (Most Beautiful Object in South Africa) award as chosen by a mixture of top design journalists and cultural commentators including Laureen Rossouw, editor of ELLE Decoration and Chris Roper, editor of the Mail & Guardian online will go on display at the Design Indaba Expo in the Cape Town International Convention Centre next month.

Finalists come from a broad range of creative disciplines such as architecture, jewellery, fashion and sculpture.

Of the final ten, we like Suzaan Heyns with her Fish-Scale dress, a nude netting dress juxtaposed with hand-cut metallic leather scales and Johannesburg-based jeweller Eric Loubser whose 9ct gold, silver, rose quartz, haematite and ruby covered neck-piece is inspired by birds and Victorian jewellery.

We also like the look of Mornè Visagie’s A Travel Journal, Volume 1 and 2, a hand-stitched lithograph on paper inspired by the landscape surrounding Robben Island and Linsey Levendall’s street art mural.

Linsey Levendall, 'Paste Mural'/ Mornè Visagie, 'A Travel Journal, Volume 1 and 2'

Previous winning designs at the MBOISA award include The Dreams for Africa Chair created by 160 women from Valley of 1,000 Hills in KwaZulu-Natal. Created using traditional Zulu beadwork, the chair aimed to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS while also symbolising the importance of dreams.

All finalists will have their work displayed at the Design Indaba Expo with the winner to be determined by public vote.

For more information and to vote for your favourite designer visit the Design Indaba website.

The Design Indaba Expo 2012 is open from 2 – 4 March at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

The winners of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) student awards were revealed in December 2011.

Amongst the winners was Kibwe Tavares (University College London) who blew everyone away with his short film ‘Robots of Brixton’. Set in the year 2050, the sci-fi animation depicts a world in which robots are discriminated against by humans. Familiar areas of Brixton such as Brixton High Street, Southwyck House and Brixton Village serve as a backdrop to the narrative, re-designed and beautifully rendered by Kibwe.

Hannah Wilson, Sean Peel & Steven Kok, 'Zeitgeist archive, Berlin '

University of Liverpool students Hannah Wilson, Sean Peel and Steven Kok also received travelling Fellowships from the Skidmore Owings Merrill for their entry: ‘Zeitgeist Archive’.

‘Berlin has a unique condition of duplicated spaces; two Berlins each with its own architectural language,” the trio explain. “Since reunification, some citizens want a new identity embodied within a new architecture, whilst some favour the rebuilding of the lost….but is it possible to capture a lost epoch and its values?”

The three students intend to find out by sending a million safety storage boxes to each person born in Berlin for them to fill with objects throughout their lifetime. These boxes would then be integrated into the architecture to given insight into the “lives of individuals and the life of the city”.

Basmah Kaki, 'An Acoustic Lyrical Mechanism '

Bronze Medal winner Basmah Kaki speculated sound energy and ambient space in his entry, a re-design of an active granite quarry on the outskirts of Bangalore.

“Inspired by local religious traditions, the design is built around an existing sacred temple located within a thin, excavated area of the quarry,” says Basmah. “Largely placed inside the rock face, to protect against the mine’s constant hammering sounds and blast vibrations, this temple offers an entry point that then channels into a retreat space situated 30m above the quarry’s floor, high enough to escape the destructive noises and yet embedded enough to listen to the sounds generated by a layered adaptive skin mechanism attached to the cliff rock.”

The winning projects will be on display until 28 January 2012 at the RIBA. The exhibition will then travel across the UK.

For a full list of the winner visit the Presidents Medals Student Awards website.

RIBA website.