We meet architect Jim Olson to ask how buildings can bring us closer to nature. Plus: we talk making it in the city at London Craft Week and proffer a little advice for younger designers looking to secure space on the exhibition circuit.

Building a city from scratch may seem like a dream commission but, as Oscar Niemeyer discovered with Brasilia, it isn’t always so simple. We ask documentary-maker Bart Simpson how much the city’s design has dictated the lives of its citizens.

We sit down with London-based designer Michael Anastassiades in Milan. Plus a word with a Saudi princess on the nation’s first fashion week and telling our Arsenale from our elbow ahead of the Venice Architecture Biennale. Andiamo.

Clothing trends change faster than the seasons but the tailors of Savile Row have held onto the skills and traditions that have seen them through. But who are the designers shaping its future?

This week we look at how the ‘made in Britain’ brand is fairing, sit down with UK chair-maker Goodfield and rifle through the textile prints at Liberty department store.

Beirut is a city still dealing with past conflict: the bombed-out buildings and abandoned houses speak of the wars that scarred the Lebanese capital in the 20th century. Although it’s a lively place to visit, the lack of physical monuments commemorating its difficulties suggests a city still dealing with a complex past. Nasri Atallah reports.

This year’s Salone del Mobile clocked a record attendance figure. We bring you interviews with designers and buyers in a special report with the highlights worth hearing. Plus a day out in London to consider design for children.

To celebrate Record Store Day, Monocle contributor Frederick Bernas visits Roebel in Germany where The Optimal Media plant has combined old and new technology to become a major player in vinyl production.

On the back of Qantas’s first non-stop Perth-to-London flight, we meet David Caon, the man charged with designing a comfortable long-haul experience. Plus: our first impressions from Milan Design Week 2018.

Monocle’s Kenji Hall meets Thomas Fagernes, partner, director and senior architect at Snøhetta, to discuss the company’s new project in the South Korean city of Busan and how the design of such structures should echo their function.