A skateboarding Santa Claus, a festive snow globe and MVRDV's mirrored art depot in Rotterdam feature in our selection of the best Christmas cards sent by architects, designers and brands this year.
Alongside these joyous cards, was a more apocalyptic take on Christmas from British architect Piers Taylor tiled The Raft of Plague Island (below).
"As the rest of the world look on agog, we sit here trapped on Plague Island and the only real surprise is that most British people seem to be saying 'two sugars please', Instagramming pictures of their Christmas tree and sending out cards of cosy winter scenes, not seeming to give two hoots that the UK is fatally holed, adrift, and alone," wrote Taylor reflecting on the rising coronavirus cases in the UK and potential of a no-deal Brexit.
"There is indeed no future in England's dreaming, and there never was. We're f*cked. Happy Christmas!" he continued.
Read on for this year's best cards for architects and designers:
Apple's plans to develop an electric and driverless car featuring its own battery technology are reportedly back on the table, with a new target production date estimated for 2024.
"People familiar with the matter" told Reuters that Apple is progressing with its autonomous car technology – known as Project Titan – and is planning to produce a passenger vehicle in four years' time.
The mass-market car could include Apple's own battery design that would aim to "radically" reduce the cost of batteries and increase the vehicle's range.
Apple to develop own "next level" EV battery
These improved specifications would be possible with the use of "mono-cell" batteries, which use larger cells to allow for more compact battery packs that are capable of delivering longer range than conventional multi-cell batteries.
Apple is also reportedly testing a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry for the battery as an alternative to the lithium-ion rechargeable battery typically used in electric cars, as it is less likely to overheat and would be safer.
Reuter's sources compare the upcoming technology to the release of the first iPhone in 2007.
"It's next level," said the source about Apple's battery technology. "Like the first time you saw the iPhone."
The automotive developments, known as Project Titan, begun in 2014 and have advanced in a stop-and-start manner since then.
The two sources who are "familiar with the effort" asked not to be named, as Apple's plans have not yet been made public. They commented that the estimated date of 2024 could be pushed back to 2025 or later due to effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the supply chain, Apple recently put forward stocking requirements to Taiwanese auto parts factories such as Heda (1536), Bizlink-KY, Heqin, and Tomita. It also claims a prototype of the car has been tested on the roads in California.
Sources have said that, like the iPhone, which is manufactured by Taiwan-based Foxconn (also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., LTD), the vehicle is likely to be built by an outside company rather than being an Apple-branded car.
The company could also resort to simply designing the autonomous driving system that would then be installed into other cars made by mainstream automakers such as BMW, for example.
Delhi Noida International Airport will be built in Jewar, 25 miles south of Delhi, by developer Zurich Airport International.
The winners, who promised to design "India's greenest airport", saw off competition from rival teams Gensler and Arup, and SOM and Mott McDonalds.
Top: the winning airport design. Above: renders show a tree-filled interior
A goal of carbon net-zero and a LEED Gold standard certification has been set for the airport terminal, which will have the capacity to serve 30 million passengers per year.
Carbon net-zero, also known as carbon-neutral design, is a term for buildings that seek to remove as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they put in.
The winning design for the terminal building features indoor trees and a landscaped courtyard within the building, to bring in the light and to ventilate the space. Green spaces are also planned for the airport forecourt.
"Delhi Noida International Airport will become a unique new gateway to the world city of Delhi and to the state of Uttar Pradesh," said Nordic founding partner Gudmund Stokke.
"Nordic, Grimshaw, Haptic and STUP will combine the collective experience and knowledge from the airports in Hyderabad, Oslo, Istanbul and Zurich to create a truly modern, innovative and green airport, based in a region of strong historic and cultural tradition."
Polish visual artist Alicja Biała has painted a set of colourful large-scale murals inside the Concordia Design building in Wrocław, Poland, as part of its renovation and extension by architecture firm MVRDV.
The murals cover 500 square metres of the office building and rise as high as ten metres. The art was informed by the architecture of the building, as well as local folklore.
Top image: the mural reaches ten metres to the ceiling. Above: the building on Słodowa Island
Biała, who also designed a large light sculpture for the project, lived on-site for five months while painting them and used discarded materials from the site for some of her designs.
She worked around the existing architecture to design the murals that depict characters, some of them mythical, as well as flora and fauna.
Folklore and mythical figures feature in the mural
"It was quite complex to plan out and design, given that it's not one wall, it's not flat," Biała told Dezeen.
"The main painting consists of connected two walls and ceilings. All had to work well from all perspectives, different angles and be coherent."
Dutch architecture firm MVRDV renovated and extended an existing 19th-century building on the Słodowa Island in Wrocław to create Concordia Design, keeping the facade of the historical building.
Concordia Design's restaurant is covered in murals
It now houses co-working spaces, an event space, a food hall, and a roof terrace as well as a restaurant and cafe.
Biała's large entrance artwork is visible through the glass facade of the extension and covers about 400 square metres, before transitioning for another 100 square metres throughout the corridor that connects the two main spaces of Concordia.
An opening towards a park shows off the work
The studio created the opening towards the park, where the mural is displayed, early on in the design process to make the building more inviting.
"On both ends of the building we wanted to open up the building with a large void space in order to be inviting visitors and by-passers into the building," MVRDV partner Fokke Moerel told Dezeen.
"In the extension, we could also make the void transparent, while on the existing side, it hides behind the old, monumental facade."
"The mural was an early concept to align with the presence of this type of art in Wroclaw and to create an inclusive message towards the surroundings: joyful, playful and stories of the history," she added.
Biała also created art "interventions" in each of the 75 office spaces and on the reception desks on two floors.
Biała reglazed 19th-century tiles for the reception desk
She used 19th-century tiles which she found onsite to clad a large reception desk, after cleaning them and then reglazing them with two human figures and decorative patterns and flowers.
“It’s quite difficult to reglaze something from so long ago without issues," she said. "They warp and crack, the glaze crawls off. But in the end, the pieces and their history speak their own design; we just give them another chance."
A light sculpture weighs half a ton
The artist also designed a colourful four-by-four metres light sculpture for the project, which weighs half a ton and hangs in the foyer on the historical side of the building.
"It was inspired by pagan folk decoration called traditionally 'spider' or 'chandelier,'" she said.
"It is a colourful ornament made usually out of paper, straw, textiles. Those folk 'installations' were to symbolise happiness, harmony, good harvest."
The murals cover 500 square metres of the building
She will paint a final large mural on Concordia Design's top floor next year.
“The island has always been a gathering place for the city, a space of many different people," she said. "I wanted to show this multiplicity in a way that is similar to sitting on a bench on the island and watching the many stories pass by."
