Getting ready for the holiday shopping list? How about a set of Lego bricks? Or maybe the new issue of Mark can have a special place under the Christmas tree. BIG’s long-standing dream of building the Lego House in Billund comes true with photos by Iwan Baan as the cover project of issue #71. Don’t be fooled though, because the genius of Lego is that it isn’t a toy, but more like a tool that allows you to fabricate your own world.

This latest issue takes us to Shenzhen to check out some of the latest projects to be completed in the Chinese city nearby Hong Kong. With the Sea World Culture and Arts Center, Maki and Associates adds an important cultural space to Shenzhen’s waterfront. Elsewhere, the architects of the Shenzhen-based firm Urbanus added a new typology to Chinese urban landscapes: an urban village on the roof of a conventional mall.

Heatherwick Studio shows us the art of reinvention with the conversion of a decommissioned grain silo in Cape Town. The imposing silo has been turned into an art gallery with a hotel. Awestruck by the sheer magnitude of Heatherwick’s architectural accomplishment, we’re left with nagging questions about how works of art can compete with the building’s utterly compelling transformation.

In other news: Brooks + Scarpa designed a museum that’s dominated by its sculptural roof; COBE transforms a former grain silo in Copenhagen into 38 unique apartments clad in galvanized steel; we speak to Alezander Rieck about the place of the printed word in a digitized world in this issue’s Bookmark; an interconnected residence by Jakob + MacFarlane marries technology with its green surroundings.