Beijing

It's rare to see a firm as high-profile as MAD Architects take on the unglamorous work of social housing, but it has indeed done so. Baiziwan Social Housing is designed to resemble a mountain range and features raised walkways and lots of greenery.

Following hot on the heels of AutoX in Shenzhen, online search firm Baidu has been granted permission to test fully driverless vehicles – with no human safety driver aboard – on the streets of Beijing.

Perhaps going to work in the morning wouldn't be such a drag if the workplace was designed by People's Architecture Office. The firm has revealed an unusual office complete with running track, garden and a seating area meant to resemble a mountainside.

Work is underway on a new skyscraper in Beijing, China, that was designed by starchitect Zaha Hadid before her death. The 207 m (679 ft) tall Leeza Soho tower will include a novel interior split into two halves and joined by the world's tallest atrium.

In Beijing, even cramped apartments can fetch a small fortune, but PAO recently built a new prefab home for a first-time buyer for just US$10,000. Based on the firm's patented panel system, it can potentially be assembled by a couple of unskilled people in as little as 24 hours using a hex key.

SOM's Beijing Greenland Center by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill features an elegant trapezoidal glass facade that's claimed to improve the building's energy performance and reflects sunlight throughout the immediate area.

Kitted out with a hybrid powertrain to challenge the Volvo XC90's fancy T8 setup, the Beijing hints at the direction VW will take with its next range-topping four-wheel drive.

MVRDV's is nearing completion on its Beijing-based Chongwenmen M-cube shopping mall. The building sports a pearlescent facade that, while it doesn't match the brilliant Markthal, still promises to be eye-catching.

Material scientists at Stanford University have developed a highly effective semitransparent air filter that can collect 99 percent of harmful pollution particles, thanks to a dense web of nanoscale polymer fibers. The low-cost filter doesn't require power to function.

Zaha Hadid Architects has unveiled plans for its Beijing New Airport Terminal Building, which it says will be the world's largest.

Chinese architectural firm MAD has started work on an ambitious new project that aims to bring a large new LEED Gold-certified mixed-use space to inner-city Beijing

At Auto China 2014 in Beijing, Shenzhen BYD Daimler New Technology Co., Ltd presented the world première of the production model of its Denza; the first all-electric vehicle for the Chinese market produced by the first Sino-German electric car joint venture.