Architects who love Lego will be able to treat their families to a Lego holiday experience when a new Lego waterpark opens in Italy in 2020. Gardaland has announced plans to open Europe's first Lego-branded waterpark, designed by Merlin Magic Making, with the multi-million dollar development set to open its doors next year. Aimed at families with children aged two to twelve, the new addition to the Italian theme park

Family-owned COMO Hotels and Resorts will open its first hotel in continental Europe next month, the COMO Castello del Nero in Italy. The Tuscan hotel will be the fifteenth property in the Group’s global portfolio. The 740-acre historic estate is situated in the Chianti wine region of Italy, a 30-minute drive from Florence and Siena. At the heart of the estate is a 12th century castello, featuring 50 rooms and

Scandinavian architecture practice Snøhetta have revealed the first renderings of their proposed design for the Bolzano Museum Quarter in South Tyrol, Italy. The cultural attraction, which – if greenlit – will be picturesquely situated atop Virgolo mountain, will also serve as a satellite facility, housing artefacts from the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology and the Municipal Museum of Bolzano as well as exhibition spaces for Otzi the Iceman – a

Architecture firm Arquitectonica and interior designer Martin Brudnizki have designed the Mr. C Coconut Grove lifestyle hotel in South Florida. The 100-room retreat, which overlooks Biscayne Bay, rises six storeys and will feature several leisure facilities and terraces, including a fitness centre, garden, swimming pool, and spa with a private sauna, treatment room, and outdoor relaxation lounge. The nautical look of the resort – as shown by its azure and

A new hotel in South Tyrol, Italy is coloured to match its natural surroundings throughout with Asian-style patterned panelling, its architect has told CLADglobal. Network of Architecture (noa*) have stripped the former Moarhof hotel down to its supportive structures and redesigned it as Silena, a new 29-room hotel. The architects have designed Silena in line with their “naturalistic-Asian” concept – a marriage of the client’s (Silena proprietors the Mair family)

A redeveloped football stadium designed by Italian architectural practice Iotti+Pavarani in Pisa, Italy will blend into its Tuscan surroundings and sit low, so as not to disrupt the skyline of the city, according to the architects. Paolo Iotti, partner at the firm, told CLADglobal : “The architectural intention is to define a ‘new landscape’ establishing strong synergies with its context rather than creating a self-contained object of ‘design’; our main

Underscoring the important connection between design and wellness, Antonio Citterio, the architect behind the design of Technogym Village – the 2018 Global Wellness Summit venue – will be a keynote at this year’s conference in Cesena, Italy, set to take place 6-8 October. Citterio is co-founder of the multi-disciplinary design practice of Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel, which works in architectural, interior and urban design. The firm’s projects include residential and

Studio Alberto Apostoli will design the spa of the new Grado Thermae in Italy, a thermal centre in an area with a long history of marine baths dating back to the early 19th century. The masterplan of the redevelopment is being overseen by architecture firm Archest, and it is hoped that the new thermal centre will boost tourism in the area. The first baths were built in Grado in 1932,

Destination spa Lefay has announced plans for a second location, Lefay Resort and Spa Dolomiti, in the ski region of Madonna di Campiglio, Italy. Set in the Italian Dolomite mountains, the resort is due to open in 2019, and will include 84 suites and a 5,000sq m (54,000sq ft) wellbeing area. Swimming pools, relaxation areas, saunas, a fitness zone and numerous treatment rooms will all be included in the spa,

Design initiative Young Architects Competitions (YAC) has joined forces with the Italian government to launch ‘Art Prison’, an ideas contest for the refurbishment of a fortress on a remote island in southern Sicily. The fortress of Santa Caterina stands over the peak of Favignana, an isle in the Mediterranean Sea. It was once a prison but has stood abandoned for more than a century. Over time, it has become a

The creative director of Gucci has opened a restaurant, museum and gift shop dedicated to the luxury fashion house – in a 14th-century Florentine palace. Alessandro Michele decided to open the attraction, called Gucci Garden, as a fun and accessible introduction to the brand and “a hypnotic territory that alters the state of consciousness and perception". The attraction spans three floors within the Palazzo della Mercanzia, which previously housed a

A new luxury spa has opened at the Portopiccolo Resort in Sistiana, Northern Italy, designed by Italian architect Alberto Apostoli. The facility is spread across three floors and covers a total floor area of 3,600sq ft (38,800sq ft). The ground floor houses the reception, hairstyling studio, a training pool and changing rooms, while on the first floor there is a relaxation area dominated by an indoor-outdoor pool, offering views of

Italian Serie A football team Atalanta has purchased its home stadium from the local authority and revealed its intention of redeveloping the antiquated venue. A contract between the football club and the Municipality of Bergamo has been agreed for the for the sum of €8.6m (£7.8m, US$10.1m), plus a further €2.3m (£2.1m, US$2.7m) or improvement works that were carried out in 2015. Further work will be done in the shape

A small boutique wellness retreat has opened on the shores of Lake Garda in Italy. The Speranzina Relais and Restaurant is privately owned and operated by the Giordano family and is located at the end of the Sirmione peninsula. Designed as an “über-luxury” retreat, the property has just three guest bedrooms – two of which are fitted with private spa areas. The 101sq m (1,000sq ft) Royal Suite Maria Luisa

Italy’s government is giving away more than 100 historic buildings for free on the understanding that any prospective owners must turn their site into a heritage attraction. Hoping to breathe new life into disused public buildings, including castles, farmhouses and monasteries, the scheme was unveiled by the government-run Agenzia del Demanio (ADD) – Italy’s state property agency. "The goal is for private and public buildings which are no longer used

The sweeping Dolomites mountain range in northeastern Italy has inspired a dramatic new hotel designed by architecture firm Network of Architecture (noa*). The irregular, asymmetrical silhouette of the Hotel Tofana in the town of St. Kassian is designed to evoke one of the tree-lined mountain peaks that dominate the region’s Badia Valley, complete with plants lining the building's terraces and façade. Guests can “ascend” the hotel as if it was

Luxury health and spa resort Preidlhof in South Tyrol, Italy, will re-open on 1 April following a €6m ($6.44m, £5m) refurbishment that includes the addition of suites with 'spa loggias.' Overseen by Austrian designer Reinhard Köck, the resort will unveil 36 new luxury suites and five luxury penthouse suites, bringing the total number of rooms to 70. The suites will all feature spa loggias and some include whirlpools and private

Boutique hospitality group Sereno Hotels has announced the opening of Il Sereno Lago di Como – an “intimate, design-driven” hotel designed by Patricia Urquiola on the banks of Italy’s Lake Como. The picturesque location is a popular beauty spot, drawing tourists with its dramatic vistas of the southern Italian Alps and idyllic small towns, and George Clooney, Madonna and Donatella Versace have all snapped up properties on the lake. Il

Alberto Rolla, one of the architects behind the recently-constructed Juventus Stadium, has designed a 40,000-capacity venue for Serie A rival Fiorentina. The ground will be located in Florence and cost around €420m (£367.2m, US$448m) to build. Stadium seating will be tight, with fans in the front row seven metres from the pitch. The surrounding 48 hectare area will be developed to include a hotel, a shopping mall, public realm, 700

Serie A football club AS Roma has moved a step closer to achieving its own stadium after striking a deal with city officials. The Italian team has been trying to develop the 52,000-capacity Stadio Della Roma for a number of years, but has faced several delays. The delays were compounded when the anti-establishment Virginia Raggi of the 5-Star Movement became the city’s mayor last year and began pushing for design

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) will design a new factory and visitor experience for mineral water company San Pellegrino, after finishing top of an international competition for the project. The studio revealed their sinuous design for the 17,500sq m (188,000sq ft) complex, which will “guide visitors through the 30-year journey of the natural mineral water,” is inspired by “the serpentine run of the Brembo river and the sloping Alpine mountainsides.” San

German studio GMP Arkitekten have won an international competition to add a retractable roof to Verona’s first century Roman amphitheatre. City officials want to add the new roof to the historic open-air structure – which once hosted Roman sports and ceremonies, but is now primarily a concert venue – in order to better preserve the structure and protect spectators from bad weather. The design competition was launched in March 2016

Italian architecture practice Studio Fuksas have completed the largest new building in Rome in over 50 years: a convention hall and hotel nicknamed The Cloud. Opening this month after nearly two decades in development, the New Rome/EUR Convention Hall will host exhibitions and conferences expected to bring in as much as €400m (US$437m, £358m) annually to the city of Rome. Located south of the city’s core, the complex is open

by Kim Megson | 20 Sep 2016

James Pallotta, the American investor in charge of Italian football club AS Roma, has claimed construction work on a new stadium for the team could begin next March. Plans to build an 52,000 home ground inspired by the colosseum of ancient Rome have been in the pipeline for four years, with little sign of a breakthrough being made due to what club president Pallotta described as “some problems due to

by Kim Megson | 08 Aug 2016

Visitors to a forthcoming food theme park in Italy will be able to grow their own food on-site in a futuristic pavilion designed by architecture and innovation firm Carlo Ratti Associati. The attraction, called the Area of the Future, will be one of the centrepieces of FICO Eataly World, an 80,000sq m (861,000sq ft) edutainment park focused on food-production and nutrition currently under construction in Bologna. Visitors to the circular

by Kim Megson | 21 Jul 2016

Italian collective the Network of Architecture (noa*) have completed their apple-inspired spa and wellness centre for a boutique hotel in Italy’s Passiria Valley. The outer structure of the Applesauna wellness building is totally green, and is experienced as a hill. It evolves into a “mystical and intimate space” as guests move inside to use the sauna, showers and relaxation area. A key element of the design is the cycle of

by Tom Anstey | 07 Jul 2016

Rome's Archaeological Heritage Department has completed the first phase of a major restoration of the historic Colosseum, aimed at returning the landmark to its former glory and possibly turning it into a regular entertainment venue. With funding support from Italian fashion brand Tod’s Group, the first phase of restoration has included the surface cleaning of the northern and southern façades, removing dirt and gunge created mainly by vehicle pollution, which