University of Cape Town researcher Suzanne Lambert has created a zero-waste building material made with human urine, which hardens at room temperature, as an alternative to environmentally taxing kiln-fired bricks. More
A team led by US architect David Hertz has developed an energy-efficient technology for harvesting fresh drinking water from the air, which is contained within a shipping container for easy transport. More
New York design studio Breakfast has combined elements of the brick with the pixel to make Brixels, a building block for moving architectural art. More
Japanese brand Muji has revealed designs for an autonomous shuttle bus built for all weather conditions, set to hit the roads in three Finnish cities by 2020. More
Pratt Institute graduate Jae-Hyun An has created a prosthetic leg that allows amputees to perform ballet like never before. More
A double-curved concrete shelled pavilion, constructed using a 3D-knitted formwork developed by Zaha Hadid Architects and ETH Zurich, has gone on display in Mexico City. More
Apple has launched a MacBook Air with a 100 per cent recycled aluminium alloy shell, reducing the carbon footprint of the computer by almost half. More
Dutch designer Marjan van Aubel has developed a self-powered hydroponic rooftop greenhouse that generates solar energy to optimise good conditions for growth, in a bid to tackle the issue of food shortages. More
An artwork created by Paris-based art collective Obvious using artificial intelligence has been sold at Christie's auction house in New York for nearly half a million dollars. More
Self-driving cars should swerve to protect young people over the elderly and humans over animals, according to the Moral Machine survey of more than two million people, conducted by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. More
London-based eyewear brand Kite has teamed up with Benjamin Hubert's design agency Layer to launch a service that takes 3D scans of customers' faces, then uses them to produce perfectly fitting frames. More
Students from Sweden's Umeå Institute of Design have created a minimal, low-cost earthquake alarm that is also a source of calm during non-destructive incidents. More
Swiss company Küschall has made a wheelchair it claims is the world's lightest, using wonder material graphene. More
The Chinese city of Chengdu is planning to launch an illumination satellite disguised as an artificial moon within the next two years, as a replacement for its street lights. More
San Francisco might put the brakes on Uber and Lyft, after a new report has pinned the city's worsening congestion on the ride-sharing services. More
If humans can't reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, can we design our way out of climate-change catastrophe? Last week's UN report shone a light on geoengineering, a discipline that proposes large-scale interventions to counteract global warming. So what ideas are geoengineers proposing? More
Panasonic's Future Life Factory is developing wearable blinkers, designed to limit your sense of sound and sight, and help you focus on what's directly in front of you. More
Flexible electronic paper could be available in colour as early as next year, allowing designers to create clothing, accessories and other products that double as display screens. More
Blockchain, 3D printing and other digital technologies are key to making shared housing models take off, according to research by IKEA's innovation lab Space10. More
Dutch design studios BCXSY and Atelier Robotiq have collaborated to create a lamp with a disorderly pattern that is meant to suggest that it was made by a robot with a mind of its own. More