Architects Joan Soranno and John Cook of HGA developed five site-specific cabins that tread lightly on the land at Marlboro College in rural Vermont. These deceptively simple structures update the regional vernacular. Every year, Marlboro College hosts the Marlboro Music Festival in which classical musicians join together to hone their craft. These cabins help support the musicians that live, work, and rehearse together.

Flying the flag for the American design scene, brands such as Lostine, Roll & Hill and the American Design Club have set up shop within East London design store, SCP. Called the Special Relationship, the show also celebrates the brand's new product launches by young American design talents Fort Standard, Bec Brittian and Mark McGinnis. Also be sure to check out the store's newly opened basement floor, which is entirely dedicated to design accessories.

As in previous years, a series of major installations and events are located at the city's V&A museum in South Kensington including this jaw-dropping chandelier that has been custom-made by Canadian lighting brand, Bocci. Dramatically suspended from the Cupola, which is the highest point of the museum building, the 28.280 by Omer Arbel is a tangled mass of copper pipes and blown glass that hangs above the museum's entrance hall.

Hundreds attended the kick-off party at New Center Park for the inaugural Detroit Design Festival in 2011. Photo by Noah Stephens.

Continuing the postmodern theme, esteemed London design showroom, Darkroom, is currently hosting a 'So Sottsass season' with a new collection of merchandise inspired by the visionary Italian architect and designer, Ettore Sottsass.

Over in St James's Park, the highly anticipated collaboration between London-based designer Sebastian Wrong and Danish design brand HAY is on display inside an ornately decorated Georgian townhouse. The opulent interiors provide the perfect contrast for the collection's sleek and contemporary lines.

Continue through the museum's hallways, where you will be greeted by a hypnotic gateway made up of 5000 paper windmills. The installation is the work of Lebanese designer Najla El Zein, who named the piece 'The And Portal' - a playful airway that draws wind and light into the galleries beyond.

The wares have been expertly styled into a playful display that transforms the store's London showroom into a mecca of Memphis.

On the lawn of the Tate Modern museum, architects dRMM have installed a surreal staircase inspired by MC Escher. Overlooking the Thames, the staircase is constructed from a series of giant interlocking staircases made from American Tulipwood and sponsored by the American Hardwood Export Council.

Alongside Nagasaka's Resin Collection, British designer Faye Toogood has created an atmospheric installation called 'The Conductor'. The interactive piece is made up of 160 fluorescent bulbs connected up to a switchboard of cast resin switches. Visitors can operate the switches, which each play a different note when flicked on and off, to create their own personal light and audio show within the space.

The second annual Nordic Food Festival took place last month at several locations in New York, and included a beer dinner with complementary fare.

Austere in downtown Los Angeles will serve as the forum for the pop-up NORTH Nordic Food Festival.

The New York NORTH Nordic Food Festival featured a dessert and coffee tasting.

Fredrik Carlström, center, the owner of Austere, will host the Nordic Food Festival L.A. style.

A Denmark Dinner was part of the New York festival; Scandinavian design was integral to the overall experience.

The second day, September 12, will feature goods on sale from hundreds of makers, plus food and music.

The 2014 Detroit Design Festival kicks off on September 23 with a party and Detroit Made exhibition at the Detroit Creative Corridor Center. It's free and open to the public, but registration is required. RSVP for the event here. Detroit Made showcases the state of present-day manufacturing in the city. Floyd Leg, shown here, is one of the featured companies. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, inventors Kyle Hoff and Alex O’Dell were able to begin production and retail for a clever system that allows users to turn almost any flat material into a table. The product caught the eye and earned the approval eye of Allison Arieff, a New York Times columnist and former Dwell editor-in-chief, in a recent story about the present-day maker movement.

Designed to be scalable, Haar envisions Löyly being used for pop-up events, festivals, and urban planning projects.

Brass and Copper In keeping with the fall season, lighting and accessories made from polished brass and copper finishes provided warm accents across London Design Festival's exhibitions and trade shows. Copper is a plentiful natural resource in Chile, which is why Santiago-based design studio Bravo chose to create its beautifully crafted new line of 'Base' storage vessels from Chilean copper and locally-sourced wood.

Houstonians enjoy the Blue Bayou Festival along the banks of the Buffalo Bayou. The city's annual calendar also includes the Bullunar hot-air balloon festival, the Bayou City Arts Festival, the Art Car Parade, the Livestock Show and Rodeo, the International Festival, and more.

London-based designers Lightning and Kinglyface presented a collection of three tables made from a variety of exotic hardwoods, including Zebrawood from West Africa and Tiger Fig from Brazil. Called Zebra, Tiger, and Larch, the table's tops each feature an intricate geometric inlay pattern.

Modern Memphis Loud patterns, geometric shapes and clashing colors brought a postmodern feel to this year's London Design Festival. A Festival highlight, London store Darkroom dedicated its new season collection to the post modern era, with home and fashion accessories inspired by Italian design hero Ettore Sottsass.

Inspired by Brazilian modernist architecture, the precise lines of Alexander Mulligan's Sol Light are crafted from laser cut and folded brass.

Decorative Wood Intricate inlays, colorful resins and cleverly cut timbers were spotted on the stands of both established and emerging designers. The Douglas Fir used to make Gavin Coyle's Jac tables is sawn and stacked together in a carefully constructed sequence that transforms the timber's annual growth rings into a decorative feature.

Specially developed by Norwegian designer Inger Steinnes for the café at the Norwegian National gallery, the ceramic components of the Dupla cake stand can be stacked together in different combinations to create unique cake stand compositions.

NASA shot this image of India on the first day of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

At the TENT London exhibition in east London, Dutch Designer David Derksen exhibited a collection of multi-faceted Copper Lights made from etched and folded copper sheets.

Over on the Australian Pavilion at 100% Design, Melbourne-based designer Mark Douglas exhibited a line of two-toned blown glass pendant lamps fitted with incandescent bulbs.

Over at independent trade show designjunction, the bold color combinations of Barcelona-born, London-based Cristian Zuzunaga's Labyrinth blankets caught our eye.

Feature Filaments Even though LED has taken center stage in lighting design over the past several years, it was once again the humble incandescent bulb that featured in three new pendant lights launched at the show. An incandescent bulb shines out from within a smoked-grey, hand blown glass shade and conical wire frame on the Hooked Pendant Lamp by London studio Vitamin.

Over at 100% Design, architect Alex Meitlis launched a new sculptural collection of polished brass accessories for silversmiths, Hazorfim.

Stylish Stacks Colorful components were stacked together into modern totems to create one-of-a kind lighting, furniture and accessories. German designers Schneid presented the Eikon lamps, turned-ash pendants with interchangeable metal shades that are simply attached with magnets.

Made up of old glass shades sourced through eBay, Studio Jon Male's up-cycled Rebay floor lamps made for an impressive display at TENT London

Livable sculpture at its finest. Created for the Zermatt Festival, an annual festival of chamber music, this structure (designed by a team of second-year architecture students!) maximizes the beauty of its surroundings with its 720-degree spiral composition. Valais, Switzerland. By Alice Studio/Atelier de la Conception de l’ Espace from the book Rock the Shack, Copyright Gestalten 2013.

Danish brand HAY delved into Memphis designer Nathalie Du Pasquier's archive to reissue a series of printed cotton textiles as part of its "Wrong for HAY" collection. Shown here is Sebastian Wrong's "Curve" chair upholstered in a blue, green, white, and black pattern called "Ice".