This week we launched our Designing for Disaster series

This week on Dezeen, we launched our latest series named Designing for Disaster, which will look at how designers and architects can help manage and mitigate natural hazards.

Dezeen features editor Nat Barker kicked off the series by explaining why it's time for architects and designers to start Designing for Disaster and how they can prevent, mitigate and recover from increasingly common natural hazards.

In an opinion piece as part of the series, Cameron Sinclair urged architects to start prioritising humanitarian projects.

"How we respond to disasters tells us a lot about our future," he said.

In architecture news, a retrofitted skyscraper in Sydney was named this year's Best Tall Building Worldwide by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

Designed by Danish studio 3XN and Australian studio BVN, the 206-metre-high Quay Quarter Tower skyscraper was a refurbishment of the modernist 1970s AMP Center.

In other skyscraper news, Snøhetta unveiled a chamfered skyscraper on the site of a former airport in Hong Kong.

This week we also continued to report on Dutch Design Week by rounding up eight trends from the influential design event.

Trends identified by Dezeen editor-at-large Amy Frearson included products made out of eggs and hybrid objects designed by artificial intelligence.

In other design news, sportswear company Nike released the Swoosh 1 Flyknit trainers for babies and toddlers.

Made from 80 per cent recycled materials, the shoe was constructed to "help support our earliest walkers", said the brand.

As October drew to a close, we named the best houses of the past month, with four out of five of October's houses of the month being renovations or extensions.

The houses include a Victorian terrace in Melbourne interspersed with mini gardens (pictured) along with a pale-brick family home in Berlin and a barn-like villa in rural Belgium.

Popular projects this week included a cliffside cafe in China by Trace Architecture Office, a minimal pink house in Mexico and a Corten cabin in Nova Scotia by Omar Gandhi.

Our latest lookbooks featured eye-catching bathrooms with striking subway-tiled surfaces and rustic Italian interiors that evoke the history of the Mediterranean.

This week on Dezeen

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