MJM Architect and Hansenbuilt Design have converted a derelict loft space in Victoria, Canada, into a co-working space and social club with a focus on health and connecting with others. Kwench was founded by Tessa McLoughlin to evolve and expand what a co-working space could be, with the aim of making its users healthier and happier. It is based on promoting a balance of knowledge, wellness, experiences, novelty, curiosity, and

Avanton, a London-based property developer, has announced potential plans to create an alligator farm and enclosure inside a Grade II-listed Victorian gasholder on the city's Old Kent Road. The enclosure would form the centrepiece of a housing and office development worth a reported £230m (US$300m, €270m). The structure's tanks would be converted to become a habitat, while part of the 160ft (49m) iron frame would be glazed to create a

PDP London have won a Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) international design competition to create a new green trail in South London that will make use of Victorian rail viaducts that are no longer in use. The Low Line project was conceived by local resident David Stephens in 2012 as a means of repurposing the disused rail infrastructure that runs along the south of the River Thames as public

State Library Victoria, in Melbourne, Australia, has reopened after being revamped by Schmidt Hammer Lassen and Australian studio Architectus to expand its community outreach and enhance the visitor experience. The work is part of a five-year redevelopment plan and focused on a number of spaces within the library, which comprises 23 individual buildings and occupies an entire city block. The aim was to better weave together the spaces within the

Architects including Kohn Pedersen Fox, OMA and James Corner Field Operations have completed work on the K11 Musea in Hong Kong, the final milestone in the regeneration of the Victoria Dockside into a purpose built art and cultural district. The 28-hectare (3,000,000sq ft) district has undergone a 10-year transformation, led by Kohn Pedersen Fox and based on the ‘100 Creative Powers’ vision of Adrian Cheng, executive vice-chairman and general manager

Coal Drops Yard – a historic development which draws on Victorian aesthetics – has opened next to Granary Square in London. Designed by Heatherwick Studio, the 100,000sq ft, hybrid structure occupies the site of a 19th-century coal transport facility and includes new public space as well as 60 units for multiple shops and restaurants. Originally built in the 1850s to transfer coal from rail wagons to road carts, the site

Asian real estate corporation New World Development has officially launched its “most ambitious” project to date: a museum-retail complex in the heart of Hong Kong's US$2.6bn (€2.2bn, £1.9bn) Victoria Dockside. The K11 Musea will form a high-end experiential retail, art, cultural and dining destination, and anchor the Tsim Sha Tsui harbourfront’s 3 million sq ft (278,700sq m) art and design district. Ground has now broken on the project and it

A US$2.6bn (€2.2bn, £1.9bn) arts and design district in Kowloon, Hong Kong, has reached a major milestone with the completion of the 66-storey mixed-use tower at its heart. Designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Architects, the K11 Atelier building is located on the Tsim Sha Tsui harborfront, replacing a long-derelict warehouse terminal that was once integral to Hong Kong’s famous port. It is the high-rise centrepoint of the Victoria Dockside scheme,

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London has made an unusual acquisition – a section of a former council estate that’s set to be demolished. The piece of the building that the museum has acquired consists of a three-storey maisonette flat, its exterior walkway and sections of concrete stairway, which was part of Robin Hood Gardens in Poplar, East London. It’s being taken apart and will be delivered to

Kew Gardens has announced an opening date for its historic Temperate House, which has been closed while undergoing a five-year renovation. The southwest London attraction said the Victorian glasshouse – the largest in the world – will reopen to the public on 5 May 2018, complete with 10,000 rare and exotic plants. The long and painstaking restoration, designed by Donald Insall Associates and costing £41m (€46m, US$54m), is the biggest

An architecture competition has been launched to design of Australia’s first purpose-built Pride Centre for the LGBTI community. Located in Melbourne, the Victorian Pride Centre (VPC) will be a gathering place for Victoria’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities, and will “celebrate, bolster and protect equality, diversity and inclusion.” The centre will provide flexible and multi-use spaces including a theatre, gallery, café/bar, prayer room, library and health service, in

A gothic Victorian country mansion near Manchester has been restored and renovated as the second property for boutique hotel company Oddfellows. Over an 18-month period, Tim Groom Architects and interior designers SpaceInvader transformed Buntwood Hall – previously used at different times as an equestrian stud farm, a town hall, an office for a film company and a fashion designer’s studio – into Oddfellows On The Park; a Victorian-style hotel with

Health and wellbeing specialist Victoria Lockhart has announced she is leaving her role at global design, engineering and consultancy firm Arup to take up a position at the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI). Lockhart is a leading researcher in the field of wellness design, specialising in the role technology plays in accurately establishing how the new generation of sustainable buildings will affect the people who use them. IWBI administers the

The reinstallation of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s (V&A) Aston Webb Screen – previously a solid stone wall hiding the building’s Victorian boilers – has been completed, breaking down the separation between the street and the museum. The last stone has now been placed in the modified, newly-open structure; signalling a major milestone in the V&A’s Exhibition Road renovations designed by architects AL_A. According to the design team, “the screen

Designer Mathieu Lehanneur’s famous marble sculpture, which mimics the look and feel of rippling water, has gone on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London as part of the city’s ongoing design festival. The piece, called Liquid Marble, evokes a surreal vision of the sea by using 3D movie-making software to reproduce the visual effect of the water’s surface on a piece of hand-polished black marble. Liquid Marble

Architecture studio Hassell have unveiled their design to revamp the Geelong Performing Arts Centre; one of the leading cultural venues outside of Australia’s main cities. The studio – fresh from winning a competition to design the Western Australian Museum in Perth – have been commissioned by the Victoria state government to oversee a major upgrade of the 35-year-old building’s facade and interior facilities. The result is a contemporary exterior with

A new Indian restaurant and cocktail bar has opened in London with a design that pays tribute to the scientists and botanists of the Victorian era and their explorations in the jungles of India. Flora Indica, which opened at the weekend, is the latest dining and entertainment concept from designer Henry Chebaane and Blue Sky Hospitality, who recently opened London’s sci-fi tinged Asian restaurant Kojawan. Walls and shelves of the

The Victorian government in Australia has given the go ahead for a AUS$300m mixed-use tower designed for Melbourne by Zaha Hadid Architects and Plus Architecture. The decision whether or not to approve the 54-storey building – which has been designed as a series of four tapered vase-inspired volumes – was deferred to Victoria’s planning minister by Melbourne’s planning advisory committee due to the size of the scheme. The proposal was

Architecture studio Farrells have been honoured with an NEC Award for their delivery of a waterfront swimming pool in Hong Kong. The firm, led by Terry Farrell, won the NEC Award for Large Project Of The Year 2016 – which recognises excellence in project delivery and good practice. They were commissioned to build a new home for the Kennedy Town Swimming Pool, after its former facility was demolished to make

A BMX and skate park has opened within an old Victorian bathing house beneath the seafront in the British town of Hastings. Source Park is formed of a main park, a plaza and a skating shop in the 1870s White Rock Baths building, which once housed the town’s Turkish Baths and smoking rooms – a popular destination for the country’s first seaside tourists. Since the baths closed, the building has,