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for architects, designers, investors & developers

A new waterfront destination in San Francisco, US, would transform the city's South Beach neighbourhood. Designed by Heatherwick Studio, the project – called The Cove – would be developed on the site of three former piers which were destroyed in 1984. The Cove is based around a dramatic five-acre public park and has been designed to provide a new hub of activity for the city. The horseshoe-shaped building includes modular, [more...]

The new home of Hollywood Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise Los Angeles FC has officially opened in the city’s Exposition Park. Designed by architect Gensler, the 22,000 capacity Banc of California Stadium is the first new open-air stadium in LA since 1962 and has also been LEED silver certified for its sustainable design features. Ground was broken on the US$350m (€289m, £251.5m) project in August 2016 on a site once [more...]

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has released the first design images for a new Seoul Cinematheque – a complex celebrating the visual arts to be built in Chungmuro, the heart of South Korea’s domestic film industry. Opening in February 2021, the venue will show non-commercial, independent, artistic, and classic films across four theatres, including one on the rooftop, with capacities ranging from 150 to 300. The project will be built on [more...]

The official groundbreaking has taken place for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art – Star Wars creator George Lucas’ long-awaited cultural venture in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park. The 300,000sq ft (27,800sq m) museum will celebrate the art of visual storytelling – from comic art, paintings and illustrations to photography, filmmaking and drawings – with collection galleries, exhibition spaces and two theatres displaying original works of art, digital technologies and daily [more...]

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles (NHM) has revealed its masterplan to transform the 104-year-old institution over the next decade. Designed by Frederick Fisher and Partners (FF&P), the NHM West/South Project will reimagine the physical space and programmes of the museum, which sits on the same site as George Lucas’ upcoming Museum of Narrative Art. The FF&P masterplan focuses on areas that were not worked on during the original [more...]

Here are some of the stories that appeared on CLAD this week, from Elon Musk’s latest big idea to a knighthood for David Adjaye. Monday • In an exclusive interview, James Corner, one of the leading figures behind New York’s High Line elevated park, has described landscape architects as “the unsung heroes of the public realm.” Read here. • Architecture and planning studio Ecosistema Urbano have won a design competition [more...]

The Los Angeles Planning Commission has officially approved on Star Wars creator George Lucas’ plans to build the long-gestating Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Exposition Park. The decision was finalised yesterday (11 May), according to news service NBC Los Angeles. New renderings and information released by Lucas and MAD Architects, who have designed the spacecraft-like museum, reveal the latest iteration of the green lit project. The museum will have [more...]

Young architects from around the world will have an opportunity to travel to China to undertake a research project under the guidance of Ma Yansong, the founder of MAD Architects. The studio has launched the 2017 MAD Travel Fellowship, which will be fund five international undergraduate or graduate architecture students to travel to China, and five Chinese architecture students to travel abroad. The fellowship was initiated by Ma in 2009 [more...]

George Lucas’s long-held dream to build a museum celebrating the art of storytelling may finally come to fruition, with the Hollywood director closing in on an agreement to construct the complex in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park. The long-running saga – which has seen the project beset by legal battles and location changes – took a surprising twist last month when Lucas unveiled alternative designs for the museum in LA and [more...]

In a saga beginning to rival his Star Wars franchise for length and drama, George Lucas appears to have finally sealed the deal to develop his Museum of Narrative Art following almost two years of legal disputes. The well-known director is now set to select a location for the venue in either San Francisco or Los Angeles (both in California), after snubbing Chicago, Illinois. According to The San Francisco Chronicle, [more...]

Conservatism should not be allowed to stifle the creation of beautiful and boundary-pushing buildings, according to MAD Architects principal Ma Yansong. “We should always be talking about the shape of the buildings around us, and the buildings around us should be more elegant,” he argued in an exclusive interview with CLADmag. “Some people say that the space you create [inside a building] is the most vital part of the architectural [more...]

Here are some of the stories that appeared on CLAD this week, from George Lucas' latest museum designs to a construction milestone for one of Qatar's leading stadiums. Monday • International hospitality interior design firm Hirsch Bedner Associates (HBA) have announced a major expansion into Western Europe with the opening of two new offices in London. Read here. • New York studio Selldorf Architects will lead a major upgrade and [more...]

The saga of George Lucas’ long-running attempt to build a Museum of Narrative Arts in the US has taken another surprising twist, with concept designs released for locations in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. The Star Wars creator has been trying to establish the museum – which will explore how imagery tells stories from illustration to comics and films – for several years. His ambition to build it on [more...]

Chinese architect Ma Yansong is the rising architectural star at the helm of MAD, the Beijing studio building a reputation for their futuristic sculptural buildings and boundary-pushing ideas. Ma founded MAD in 2004, but only 12 years on, the practice have already developed a wildly diverse and eye-catching portfolio of built and unbuilt work, and opened offices in Los Angeles and New York. Generally accepted ideas about what is architecturally [more...]

Construction is underway on the latest sculptural building designed by MAD Architects; a translucent, star-shaped design hub in the Chinese city Xiamen for fashion giant Xinhee. The building, called the Xinhee Design Center, will have a public atrium at its core with a footbridge used as a catwalk for fashion shows. From there, six long spanning structures will extend out in different directions – like petals growing from a central [more...]

After nearly two years of legal disputes, George Lucas has finally pulled the plug on plans for his Museum of Narrative Art in Chicago, with the director now thought to be eyeing San Francisco or Los Angeles for his legacy project. Blaming delays over a lawsuit from a parks group opposed to development along the city’s waterfront, Lucas said in a statement that he would be taking the museum to [more...]

After nearly two years of legal wrangling, George Lucas looks to have given up on Chicago as a viable option for his Museum of Narrative Art, with the filmmaker’s wife saying they were “seriously pursuing” alternative locations. With more installments than his famous Star Wars films, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art saga reached a significant landmark in February when a judge ruled in favour of legal action taken by [more...]

Beijing-based innovators MAD Architects have designed a flowing, translucent installation for the 2016 Milan Design Week in the famous courtyard of the city’s university. The sculptural piece, called Invisible Border, forms a rippling canopy descending across the Cortile d’Onore courtyard from a loggia to the ground, establishing a shelter for people to gather, socialise and contemplate their surroundings. “Architects usually create borders by defining spaces – what is inside and [more...]

A striking, sinuous opera house designed by Beijing studio MAD Architects has opened in the northern Chinese city of Harbin. Located within the wetlands surrounding the Songhua River, the Harbin Opera House has been designed as a response to the region’s untamed wilderness and chilly climate. The building’s smooth white aluminium walls twist and turn as if sculpted by the water and wind, blending into the surrounding environment and transfusing [more...]