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Muse, critic, designer, entrepreneur, company saviour and first lady of fashion, Donatella Versace may have tempered the sex and theatricality of the family brand a little, but there's still glamour galore in her output and appearance. Her favourite dish of pasta and caviar

Prada and Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas have been collaborating for a decade, and whilst the best-known fruits of the partnership are probably their innovative architectural endeavours – think Seoul’s Transformer project and the Prada Epicenter in New York – those on the inside track have, for the past eight years or so, been exposed to another side of the creative partnership.

Koolhaas, his Rotterdam-based design studio OMA and the AMO think tank, have, since January 2004, collaborated with the Italian house on Prada's catwalk shows.

Adapting the expansive interior space that is part of Milan’s Prada Fondazione in order to meet Koolhaas’s exacting design agenda, the shows are consistently groundbreaking - creating a benchmark in show design not found anywhere else in the industry.

Beginning back in 2004, the show collaborations kicked off with the menswear A/W outing, featuring a relatively simple series of AMO-designed wallpapers draped throughout the space. Recent years however have seen Koolhaas and his team at AMO turn the traditional runway concept on its head, in characteristically innovative style.

The presentation of Prada's S/S 2010 womenswear collection in Milan is one such instance. Designed to split the audience down two sides of an abstracted wall – which came punctuated by seven regularly spaced doors – the openings provided the audience with a fleeting glimpses of the models, whilst 12 projections emulating the interior spaces of grand dame hotels came splashed across the walls, creating a beguiling, through-the-looking-glass effect.

Raising the bar, the Fall 2011 menswear and womenswear setting was a two-storey steel 'house' comprising various rooms - all connected by a corridor which acted as the catwalk.

Following on from this, the menswear and womenswear shows for Sring 2011 took place on an elevated stage, surrounding by stadium-style seating. Covered in a metal grille, the surface of the runway was illuminated with neon lights concealed beneath it.

The latest (and arguably most directional) collaboration, the S/S 2012 menswear show saw guests being greeted not by the traditional catwalk, but rather by a perfectly organised 'field' of 600 cornflower blue foam blocks that were individually spaced in 1.5 x 1.5m grid and spread out on top of bright green artificial grass.

Based on a disciplined spacial system, this layout allowed models to walk through the audience in a carefully choreographed sequence - completely banishing the element of front row hierarchy.

Prada isn't the only brand, however, to be shaking up the fashion show as we know it. To read about more fashion houses cutting the traditional catwalk to embrace the spectacular, turn to our March 2012 issue - out now.

If there were a visual equivalent of a double entendre, the work of Nicolas Le Moigne would define it. The Swiss designer goes to incredible lengths to make his designs seem at once greater and less than the sum of their parts. His meticulously crafted cast-off concrete stools for Eternit, for example, have the lowbrow appearance of compacted rubbish. His simple spool table is elevated like art on a podium. Most compelling, perhaps, is his 'Reflecting Ring', the diamond in which faces a mirror that makes it look twice its size and value.

Le Moigne's talent for trompe l'oeil caught the eye of Libby Sellers after his graduation from ECAL in Lausanne in 2007, when Sellers 'sneakily' recorded his contact details from an awards application while acting as a juror. She purchased the rights to his 2008 Slip Stool pretty much on the spot and featured it at her second pop-up exhibition 'Strativarious', where, she says, 'it sold out overnight'.

This month Sellers brings a spectrum of Le Moigne's work to London for his first solo show in the capital. Front and centre will be a limited-edition version of that original Slip Stool in cast-off leather, along with popular designs for NextLevel Galerie in Paris, Helmrinderknecht in Berlin, the Austrian jeweller AE Koechert and Eternit. The running theme is that innate paradox Sellers sums up as 'seemingly fragile yet resilient, at once organic yet also industrial, assuredly sophisticated yet without guile'.

Perhaps Le Moigne's exposure in this country will once and for all demand that somebody come up with the appropriate nomenclature for his contradictory work. At least it will be amusing to try.

In 1996 when Jacqueline Hassink first published 'The Table of Power', her photo-essays of the boardrooms of Europe's largest industrial multinationals, she was just 27 and the world was a very different place. It was a landmark project, the first time most of these rooms had ever been seen by the general public.

In the spring of 2009, with the world already in the grip of financial crisis, the Dutch-born, New York-based artist decided to take another look at Europe's economic landscape through its boardrooms, and to see how boardroom design, revenue and employee numbers in Europe's upper corporate echelons had changed.

'The Table of Power 2', Hassink's fourth project with creative director Irma Boom, is an intriguing study of power from an altogether unexpected perspective that provides a rare glimpse into the privy councils of the new millennium. We talked to Hassink about her work.

The Table of Power 2 opens up the boardrooms of some of Europe's leading corporations including ING Group, BNP Paribas, Banco Santander, Société Générale, Volkswagen and Siemens. How much red tape did you encounter in gaining access?

There were many hurdles to overcome, but I think because of the internet and mobile devices, our boundaries of private and public spaces have changed, which means it's easier to access people in the corporate world. That said, the economic crisis - and the negative image of banks - did make things more difficult.

How long did you spend shooting each of the boardrooms?

About 45 minutes to one hour.

Which impressed you the most?

Boardrooms are like sculptures to me. I walk around them and absorb the three-dimensional qualities of the table and the room. Dexia's boardroom table is handmade from very beautiful wood. It almost looks like a sculpture.

Are we correct in assuming there's a very masculine feel to all the boardrooms?

CEOs in European corporations usually influence the design of the boardroom and one of our findings on this project was that between 1995 and 2010, there were no female CEOs heading the top 40 European companies on Fortune's Global 500. I also understood that it's important for the boardroom to be practical in the sense that it's a place for making decisions, so there shouldn't be too many objects distracting from that decision-making. One could say that that is a masculine way of thinking.

What was the goal of the Laboratory section of the book? Was it simply an interesting compilation of figures or ranking of corporations by country, or were you trying to see if there was some kind of connection with the boardroom?

The idea of the Laboratory section was a logical step. Travelling around photographing these rooms, I found I wanted to know the facts about the changes in the European corporate landscape. In New York, I worked with three research assistants collecting data from issues of Fortune magazine published over the past 15 years. Every year, Fortune publishes a ranking list of the world's largest 500 corporations.

I had questions that I wanted answered, such as: How many of the top 40 European industrials participating in 'The Table of Power (1993-95)' remained on Fortune's Global 500 in the years 2000, 2005, 2009, and 2010? How has the revenue for each European company on Fortune's Global 500 that participated in both Table of Power projects changed over the 15-year period between the two projects? And on how many continents and in how many countries and territories did the top 10 European corporations on Fortune's Global 500 have operations over the 15 years since the first 'Table of Power'? We ended up creating 15 maps.

What surprised you the most about the numbers/rankings?

The huge increase in volume and the stagnation in growth around the crisis. We are all geared towards economic growth in this world, and all of a sudden, it felt like the running horse was standing still.

What's your next project?

I've just finished another major body of work: 'View, Kyoto (2004-11)', which will come out in 2013. Since 2004, I have spent a month or so almost every year in Kyoto documenting the relationship between private and public space in Zen Buddhist temples and their gardens.

It's been just over ten years since London architect Stephen Marshall built Artists' House, the contemporary cottage on the grounds of the New Art Centre in Wiltshire and a modern foil for the grand 1804 mansion and Orangery at Roche Court. Originally conceived as a residence for artists putting in long days in the sculpture park, it was repurposed a few years ago by curator Sarah Griffin for the centre's first design exhibition. This weekend Griffin will launch a second design show, which features work by three Britain-based artists - a juxtapostion of domestic household items with larger-than-life creations.

Swiss-born artist Hans Stofer takes up residence - quite literally - on the ground and lower-ground floors, where he has 'unpacked' his personal miscellany. In reality, he has recreated or photographed these everyday things in the studio, yet he exposes them here in such a raw state that the viewer feels like a trespasser in a very private world.

Jennifer Lee, the London-based potter, occupies the first floor with her delicate, earthy ceramic vessels, mathematical in form and yet anachronistic in appearance. Lee's extraordinary talent is in her process: she uses no wheels or glazes, yet attains a warm, sophisticated result with just a hint of (meticulously planned) asymmetry.

There's a duality to Lee's work that seems to be an overriding theme at the Artists' House. Out in the courtyard, especially, the work of Laura Ellen Bacon is at once monumental and inconspicuous, blending into the bucolic grounds. The Derby-based artist sculpts with willow in the image of enormous hornet's nests and organic baskets. Her work seems to cling organically to the sides of buildings, wrap around trees and drape over ancient stone ramparts like overgrowth years in the making.

And yet it will be in situ only until April, which seems slightly surreal. Emptying the Artists' House come spring will be like an exhumation of objects that have collected there over generations.

While hotels often double as platforms for new art, few of them can lay claim to a selection picked from one of the most influential contemporary art galleries today. Settling in until 30 April at London's Hyatt Regency Churchill is 'One Giant Leap' - the first of a series of three exhibitions taking place during 2012 at the hotel, featuring an assortment of works from the Saatchi Gallery collection.

Predominantly scattered around the ground-floor lobby and restaurant, the mix of paintings, sculptures and installations - most memorable being a life-sized hippopotamus by Christina Mackie - were selected to allow for increased access and interaction outside gallery norms.

The partnership, Saatchi's first with a London hotel, is a testament to the gallery's inventive approach to art. Highlights include works by Chantal Joffe, Martin Honert and Dexter Dalwood.

Also in the mix, is a limited-edition Saatchi Gallery suite. Available to guests of the Hyatt, the room is filled with art - from Ronin Cho's interactive knocking door and Steve Bishop's taxidermy fox to a bespoke wall-to-wall soap installation in the bathroom by young artist Celine Fitoussi. A collection of lamps and a furniture range from the Danish design company Republic of Fritz Hansen are also on display.

'One Giant Leap' will be swiftly followed by another show. Details are still to be confirmed, so keep your eyes peeled for the news.

Taken in from Wallpaper* HQ, OMA's new home for Rothschild (the practice's first London building) seems the most exciting addition to the 'City-scape' in years. What makes New Court such a winner, perhaps surprisingly, is its restraint in scale and effect. A ten-storey mesh cube with various annexes, topped by a two-storey 'sky pavilion', it displays a lightness of touch that is certainly missing from the Walbrook Building, Foster's still unoccupied heavy-metal blob it overlooks.

Nathan Mayer Rothschild first moved to the St Swithin's Lane site, just round the corner from the Bank of England, in 1809. This fourth headquarters for the family firm, now a financial advisory company, opened its doors at the tail end of last year. Last week, lead architect Ellen van Loon took us on a tour.

Given the lane is a skinny medieval cut-through, it's hard to take in the façade at street level. What you do get is a marble forecourt and, for the first time in 200 years, views through to Wren's St Stephen Walbrook church.

On the right is an oak-panelled archive and, to the left, a large new lobby. OMA were also commissioned to design the building's interiors, a rare privilege on a big City development. Here in the lobby, and in various meeting rooms, they have had some fun with the company's history.

There is plenty of metal - mostly aluminium and brass as a nod to the bank's long association with cold, hard commodities (the price of gold was, until recently, fixed at New Court). Metal walls are embossed with abstract impressions of the oak panels that were central to the old decorative order. Meanwhile, family portraits and Queen Anne furniture are installed in glass-box meeting rooms.

As one architecture critic pointed out, this does give the building the feel of a boutique hotel in places. Armies of wait staff trundling to and from the large kitchens and the director's dining room add to the effect (Not to mention the whiff of beef Wellington and Eton mess in the air).

This is a building that makes the most of its position, with incredible views across the City and towards St Paul's. And the best views come from the 'sky pavilion', each of its two storeys double height. It is already a popular event space with its just-lofty-enough aspect. In fact, the whole building seems perfectly pitched.

In a gorgeous, medieval Italian city like Bologna the historic treasures come in abundance, yet you'd be hard-pressed to find fine examples of contemporary architecture. Palazzo Pepoli, the new city history museum that opened its doors last weekend, is one such example. Marrying old and new, architect Mario Bellini and graphic designer Italo Lupi took a rundown 14th-century monument and opened it up with all the steel-and-glass tricks of the modern trade.

'Our main idea was to create a museum that tells the city's history, addressing it from different sides - financial, social, urban and artistic,' says Fabio Roversi-Monaco, president of the Carisbo Foundation, which acquired the palace from the local authority a decade ago. Nine years ago, Roversi-Monaco launched a competition for its renovation and transformation.

'It is part of the city's historic itinerary,' he muses of Palazzo Pepoli, the last of eight Bologna buildings to open to the public under the foundation's management (the others are San Giorgio library in Poggiale, Palazzo Fava, Casa Saraceni and San Colombano, plus churches Santa Maria della Vita, San Michele in Bosco and Chiesa di Santa Cristina). They all proudly focus on Bologna's wealth of history, under the umbrella of the foundation's main programme, Genus Bononiae.

The renovation was a long time coming. At the time of the competition, the structure was in need of extra support and the frescoes and reliefs required retouching. But the major addition was the steel and glass tower in the one-time courtyard. 'When we started, the courtyard was open and totally destroyed,' says Bellini, who fought off competition from the likes of Mario Botta and Renzo Piano for the commission. 'The only way to connect the upper and ground floors in a continuous walk was to cover it and create this tower, which is made of four smaller towers that make it appear more slender,' he adds. 'By doing so we made the courtyard the real heart of the museum, surrounded by the entrances to the displays, the café and the shop.'

Bellini, who will launch another grand museum project later this year at the Louvre Islamic Art Galleries (on which he worked with French architect Rudy Riccioti), was keen to tackle the challenge of placing the ancient and modern in parallel. 'The building in itself was something we wanted the visitor to see and experience,' he explains, 'so the new building doesn't touch the old one and we didn't want to imitate the historical language with the new additions. I think it works.'

The 34 rooms are organised in 14 themes - from urbanism and art to theatre and music - over more than 6,000 sq m. The permanent collection counts an impressive 15,000 works of art and 115,000 books. Educational spaces, a cinema, shop and café have all been allocated space. 'We tried to make this a lovely journey - a museum for people with different interests and different paces,' says Bellini. 'People can come many times and every time discover something new.'

Japan is a modest nation when it comes to self-promotion and Honda in many ways reflects this. The country's third-largest carmaker and the world's largest motorcycle maker seldom broadcasts its achievements. This seems a pity. Founded in 1948, Honda now has 70 manufacturing sites in 27 countries. This week the firm announced plans to expand its luxury arm Acura into the UAE, Saudi, Russia and Ukraine.

Wallpaper* travelled to the heart of the operation to see what else the company has in store. Our first stop, the old-school Twin Ring Motegi racetrack surrounded by lush countryside, is an hour from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant. Honda built it in 1997 to introduce the American open-wheel racing IndyCar Series to Japan.

The site's Honda Collection Hall is a museum of the traditional sort. It showcases restored motorcycles, cars and Honda's robot research - which began in 1986 with the rather clunky E0 but later evolved into the almost human ASIMO - Honda's Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility robot.

Watch the ASIMO robot running

But we were there to drive. We started with Honda's small N-Box mini-van, built for the Asian market. It's only 4m long, yet its innovative interior layout means the cabin and boot are roomy. These kei-class cars look almost gadget-like, and driving them was child's play. An upright seating position added to the feeling of invincibility.

We also tried the Brio, a tiny commuter car designed for the Indian and Thai markets, and the zero-emission FCX Clarity. Honda built the latter, its first hydrogen fuel-cell car, in 2008 but never mass-produced it - a shame, as it has super-steady acceleration and emits a satisfying jet-engine roar.

Honda's 'Wako' innovation hub is back in Tokyo and closed to visitors, but we managed to get a rare peek. What struck us first was the confident Japanese aesthetics of the EV-STER, a small sportscar Honda plans to put into production. 'I wanted this to be a car that would make car lovers smile and make young people who are not yet into cars think: wow, it's a really cool vehicle,' said Ryo Sugiura, who oversaw EV-STER's look. The futuristic cabin features twin lever steering, a kind of push-and-pull system that Honda feels could replace the conventional steering wheel.

Next we saw the AC-X (Advanced Cruiser Experience), a clever concept that offers two driving modes. When it's in auto-drive, for autonomous cruising, the steering column retracts into the dashboard, an ottoman appears and the interior illuminates to create a relaxed living-room feel. Outside, the front bumper, rear diffuser and front running lights adjust to the mode.

At Wako we got the chance to examine the electric RC-E motorbike, based on the classic RC racing-bike series. They also rolled out the Micro Commuter Concept, a tiny electric commuter which can be customised by sliding graphic sheets across the front, side and rear panels.

And finally: the robot. Honda's ASIMO is a gender-neutral autonomous machine capable of responding to the movement of people and its surroundings. It can even predict future movement using its pre-set space sensors: if it anticipates a collision, it will stop what it's doing and change tack.

Coordination between visual and auditory sensors enables ASIMO to distinguish voices from one another. At four-foot-three and 54kg, ASIMO resembles a young boy and has a boy's agility, too. The combination of strong legs, an expanded range of movements and a newly developed control technology enables it to run forwards and backwards, react mid-stride and adjust its steps to varied terrain. It can pick up a bottle, open the cap, hold a soft paper cup and pour liquid into it. It even knows sign language.

Watch ASIMO demonstrate sign language

ASIMO's raison d'etre is to aid the elderly and disabled. As we prepared to leave, we were shown a self-propelled robot arm, a foldaway electric Motor Combo scooter and a Uni-Cub, a compact one-wheel-drive mobility device that uses gyroscopic stabilising to provide movement in all directions - a glimpse into the near future.

Cutback culture may be dominating the pages of newspapers, but behind the doors of the exhibition halls of the Parc des Expositions in Paris Nord Villepinte, and the galleries flanking the Seine, fresh new product design from old and new sources was flourishing last weekend at Maison & Objet.

Admittedly, economy and accessibility could be seen to be playing a role in some of the newer offerings. Established designers and design houses appear to be looking to small but perfectly formed product to shore up business.

Tom Dixon previewed his new range Eclectic (due to launch in August), featuring accessories and tabletop pieces in his signature materials of copper, glass and wood, while Belgium's Alain Berteau launched a company, Objekten, that focuses on simple, well-crafted, everyday products.

Denmark's Hay, meanwhile, presented a stand that was pure candy to design-tuned eyes seeking beauty in the quotidien and mundane - a vast collection of brightly coloured stationary, wooden trays and tools for grooming, laundry, cooking and working.

Also new to the Maison scene and chiming with the mood for accessibility was Ghent-based Labt, a design house showcasing furniture designed by Belgian architects and graphic designers and using plywood for the most part, to great effect.

This being France, there was plenty of Gallic talent on show. We viewed the well-established Sentou with fresh eyes, its stand an alluring riot of colourful shelving and tables (by the in-house team) and pieces from a new favourite, the Paris-based daughter of design dynasty the Hansen Family, Gesa Hansen.

Twenty-year-old lighting company Forestier reinvented and relaunched itself with ENO co-founder Jean-Dominique Leze at the creative helm, and dazzled with a range of sculptural lighting from an impressive roll call of designers including Arik Levy, Sebastian Bergne, Ionna Vautrin, and Laurence Brabant.

Brand new maison d'edition Marcel By introduced itself with mirrors, shelving and chairs from founders Stephan Lanez, Samuel Accoceberry, Noé Duchaufour Lawrances and Jakob + MacFarlane. Tolix sustained its recent reinvention with a new desk and shelving system from Sebastian Bergne and free-standing shelves from Normal Studio - as did cabinet company Drugeot Labo, whose wooden shelving units become ever more colourful and inventive.

Maison stalwart Ligne Roset presented an impressive stand brimming with newly produced pieces by the older guard - Pierre Paulin (reissues from his Elysée Palace designs of the 1970s), Jean Nouvel and Pierre Charpin - and brilliant fresh talent in the form of Japanese designer Yota Kakuda and young French collective Numéro 111.

Italian design house Gervasoni chose Maison as its platform to introduce a new offshoot with a focus on the bedroom. The Letti & Co collection launched with five fabric-finished bed designs by Paola Navone. Fellow Italians Alessi, meanwhile, chose Maison as the European launch pad for their meta-collection of trays, (Un)Forbidden City, designed by Chinese architects.

Out in town, no fewer than two galleries - the recently established Carpenters Workshop and the Pierre-Alain Challier - helped Nendo celebrate its tenth anniversary with stunning new collections of work. Tools Galerie put a focus on wood used in unusual ways to build furniture, featuring original work from Elisa Strozyk, David Graas, Peter Marigold and Glass Hill, and Galerie S. Bensimon showcased an inspiring collection of works by young American designer Max Lipsey, Rotterdam-based Lex Pott and David Derksen, and London-based Pia Wüstenberg.

Tripping round the streets of Paris in search of fresh design is never a chore - even the Parc des Expositions has Fauchon and Ladurée pitstops to revive fair-worn legs - but it's all the more valuable when you can return replenished not only with macaroons and éclairs, but with a fund of inspiring new design swimming around in your head, as we did on Monday.