This week, budget supermarket Aldi hit the headlines for selling replica Eames chairs
This week on Dezeen: discount supermarket Aldi triggered a debate about copyright laws in furniture design this week after it emerged the company was selling replica versions of a classic chair design by Ray and Charles Eames.
Furniture designer Rupert Blanchard shared images of Aldi's near-identical version of the DSW Eames Plastic Chair, currently produced under license by Vitra, to his social media saying it was "not cool".
Architecture and design critic Oliver Wainwright jumped in on the Twitter conversation, declaring that "the licensing model that sees Eames designs elevated to luxury collectibles goes utterly against everything they stood for".
In other news this week, Instagram users shared image of Herzog & de Meuron's nearly complete Jenga-like residential skyscraper in New York while Foster + Partners unveiled the design for its first project in Brooklyn.
Also in New York, the first completed tower in the massive Hudson Yards development opened its doors as the Skyscraper Museum released an online tool chronicling the explosion of skinny towers in the city.
Prolific Japanese studio Nendo completed its biggest-ever project – a complete renovation of a shopping centre in Bangkok – and we continued our coverage of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2016, including a roundup of the best pavilions presented at the exhibition.
Pritzker Prize winners Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura teamed up to renovate a museum at a historic Portuguese monastery and MVRDV created a transparent interior for a Hong Kong office block.
In design news, low-energy lighting brand Plumen launched a crowdfunding drive to finance the creation of new products and designer Janne Kyttanen spoke about his new venture capital fund that will design and launch new companies.
Danish brand Republic of Fritz Hansen became the latest furniture company to launch an accessories range, with products by high-profile names including Jaime Hayón and Arne Jacobsen, while Yves Behar's studio Fuseproject partnered with Juicero to design a Wi-Fi-enabled home juicer.
As preparations continued in the UK for a referendum to decide whether the country should leave the European Union, a survey of creatives revealed that 96 per cent are in favour of remaining.
Popular stories this week included an exhibition in London by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, a roundup of "radical" Spanish buildings completed after the economic crash in 2008, and new images of Herzog & de Meuron's gallery for the Vitra Design Museum's permanent collection.
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