Expo 2020 Dubai has announced that it will likely be postponed by a year as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Representatives of the event have been working in consultation with key UAE and international stakeholders, as well as the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the governing body for World Expos, to ascertain the impact of the coronavirus and determine whether or not to go ahead as planned. A proposal

The US pavilion for Expo 2020 Dubai is to be designed by the experiential design and production agency Thinkwell Group and will explore "the exciting future made possible by American innovation, vision, and enterprise". The building will be designed in such a way as to appear to be moving at times and will house exhibits about journeying to Mars, the city of the future and 3D-printed prosthetics and organs. It

Three huge entry gateways for Expo 2020 Dubai, designed by Asif Khan, will welcome visitors onto the site from 20 October, with a futuristic exploration of the traditional mashrabiya. Mashrabiyas are a type of decorative, projecting window often used to control light and airflow that typically found on Arabic residences. Khan's Expo Entry Portals, which are part of his wider work on the expo's public realm, are said to be

The Green Ark, Belgium's winning concept for the 2020 World Expo in Dubai, will function as both an exhibit of biophilic architecture and an illustration of the country's green future. Designed by Belgian bureaux Vincent Callebaut Architectures and Assar Architects, the future building will feature merchandise shops, a brasserie, terrace, and a naturally ventilated agora. Set to be constructed from sustainable materials, the Ark will also have an oasis-like garden

British artist Es Devlin has been selected to design the UK Pavilion for the upcoming 2020 Dubai Expo. Known for working with a range of media – often mapping light and projected film onto kinetic sculptural forms – Devlin is the first woman to be awarded the honour since the contest’s inception in the mid-nineteenth century. The pavilion's design will showcase Britain’s contributions to the artificial intelligence (AI) and space

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

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

A team of academic researchers, landscape architects and artists have come together to look at how nature in cities affects mental wellbeing. Researchers at King's College London, landscape architects J & L Gibbons and art foundation Nomad Projects have used smartphone-based technology to assess the relationship between nature in cities and mental wellbeing in real time. Not surprisingly, they found that being outdoors, seeing trees, hearing birdsong, seeing the sky

The foundations have been laid for Santiago Calatrava’s showpiece UAE Pavilion for the Dubai World Expo in 2020. Inspired by a falcon in flight, the four-storey structure will represent the nation to the 25 million visitors expected to attend the architecture festival, which is themed ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’. Displays will showcase the country’s culture, history and development plans. Located in the centre of Dubai’s 200-hectare exhibition zone, the

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

Dubai has revealed its legacy plans following the 2020 World Expo, announcing plans to turn the site into a multi-use urban leisure district following the six-month event’s conclusion. More than 80 per cent of the HOK-Arup masterplanned expo site will be reused after the international event closes, with a new community-led development called District 2020 repurposing the site under the government’s legacy scheme. Anchored by 65,000sq m (700,000sq ft) of

The future of the Expo 2020 site after the international event closes in April 2021 will be revealed next week, with a “reputational, social, physical and economic” legacy plan. The development proposals will be unveiled during the annual Middle East real estate exhibition, Cityscape Global, which takes place 11-13 September at the Dubai World Trade Centre. It will be the first time the vision for the project has been made

The countdown has begun in earnest for the 2017 international architecture exposition in Astana, Kazakhstan. On 10 June, visitors will be able to explore the city’s futuristic new Expo City, which includes 28 buildings themed around the concept of ‘Future Energy’. Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG) masterplanned the site and have designed several of the buildings. The 174 ha site features exhibition and cultural pavilions (118,620sq m); service

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

British architect Asif Khan has revealed the first visualisations of ‘We Are Energy’ – the UK pavilion he is designing for the 2017 International Exposition in Astana, Kazakhstan. The images reveal a domed tent-like space, surrounded on the outside by a 360 degree display screen. The 2,200sq m (23,600sq ft) pavilion, which is scheduled to be pre-built to shell and core by the Expo organisers, will be illuminated by electric

Here are some of the stories that appeared on CLAD this week, from Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium to an interview with the architect behind the Building of the Year. Monday • The British Film Institute (BFI) has confirmed Thailand’s PACE Development Corporation is its preferred bidder to fund its planned International Centre for Film, TV and the Moving Image on London’s South Bank. Read here. • Developers around the world

Architecture studio Grimshaw have revealed more details and images of their Sustainability Pavilion for the Dubai 2020 Expo. The project’s design features were unveiled on 17 January at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2017, with representatives from the firm pledging the pavilion “will be a celebration of ecology, sustainable technologies and design.” Grimshaw’s contribution to the Expo will be one of the centrepieces of the international architecture festival when it opens

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

A major leisure project has been honoured in the Stellar Design category at the American Institute of Architecture’s (AIA) annual celebration of innovation in architecture. The Technology in Architectural Practice (TAP) Innovation Awards honour designers and researchers who have created new practices and technologies to improve the construction and maintenance of buildings. Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture won the design prize for their masterplan of Astana Expo City 2017,

London architects Weston Williamson+Partners (WW+P) have won a contract worth £2.2bn (US$2.8bn, €2.5bn) to build a new “legacy” rail link across Dubai in time for the emirate to host the 2020 World Expo. The Dubai Metro 2020 will form a 15km route between Nakheel Harbour & Tower and the world fair site. The line will connect many of Dubai’s most popular mixed-use and leisure developments, including The Gardens, Discovery Gardens

Legacy plans for Dubai’s 2020 Expo will reuse more than 80 per cent of the site once the event is complete, according to government officials. Upon the Expo’s conclusion, the 4.38sq km (1.69sq m) site will be transformed into an ecosystem connecting multiple sectors, including transport and logistics, travel and tourism, real estate, and education. The government says the plan is to create a “knowledge-based economy” that contributes to the

Architects Höweler + Yoon have proposed an interactive ‘Living Lab’ for the Dubai 2020 Expo, which would creatively explore human empathy. The Empathy Pavilion, designed like a giant elevated cave, would house a 300-person capacity exhibition gallery on the ground floor, several workshop spaces on the second floor and a black box theatre on the top floor. The architects have partnered with the MIT Media Lab’s Opera of the Future

Construction has begun on Astana Expo City in Kazakhstan; the site of the world’s next international architecture exposition. Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture (AS+GG) have designed the city's masterplan and 28 buildings around the 2017 Expo theme ‘Future Energy’. The ambitious project seeks to showcase alternative forms of energy and transport to fly the flag for green and sustainable practices. The design team’s goal is to minimise the site’s

Santiago Calatrava will design a pavilion inspired by a falcon in flight for the Dubai World Expo 2020. The National Media Council of the United Arab Emirates has selected the Swiss-Spanish architect to create its expo showpiece, which will represent the nation to the 25 million visitors expected to attend the architecture festival. Calatrava’s wing-shaped structure is expected to cover up to 15,000sq m (161,500sq dt) in the centre of

The organisers of the Dubai Expo 2020 have revealed the three star practices who will design the main pavilions for the event, following a highly competitive international architecture competition. Foster + Partners, Grimshaw Architects and Bjarke Ingels Group have been named winners of the contest – which was held by real estate company Emaar Properties – and will design pavilions themed around mobility, sustainability and opportunity respectively. The studios overcame

One of the top architecture prizes at the 2015 Milan Expo has been awarded to the Hive; the UK pavilion created by artist Wolfgang Buttress, engineers Simmonds Studio and architects BDP. The team received the BIE Gold Award for Architecture and Landscape on the final day of the six-month international exhibition. Since opening in May, more than 3.3 million people have been to see the 14 cubic metre (459 cubic

The CA$370m (US$281m, £181m, €248m) Vidéotron Centre in Quebec City, Canada, has opened to the public after a three-year construction project. The 18,259-capacity indoor arena will become the primary venue for indoor events in the region and plans are also advancing for the centre to host a National Hockey League (NHL) franchise by the start of the 2017-18 hockey season. Designed by architects Populous and ABCP Architecture, the arena will