A project involving hand-crafted islands on the Danish capital Copenhagen's waterfront is set to create a completely new genre of public parks. Described as a "parkipelago", the Copenhagen Islands project will involve a number of islands being distributed to suitable locations around the city's inner harbour, with the aim of providing people moveable, floating, public spaces which will be free to explore and conquer. During summer, the islands will be

WOHA Architects are creating a new campus for BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh, that will be set in a park and offer a variety of spaces for culture, recreation and social interaction. The vision is for an inner-city campus that is sustainable and sensitively integrated with nature, employs tropical design strategies to accommodate the climate and provides students with an innovative environment for learning and leisure. When it's completed in

Developers have been given the green light to start work again on the US$750m (£647m, €688m) Nickelodeon theme park development at the Mall of China. Work was suspended as a result of the coronavirus outbreak, however, plans for the construction of the third and fourth phases to resume were approved following an inspection ensuring health requirements were met. Located in the Yubei District of Chongqing City, the Mall of China

A new urban lagoon and park, designed by MVRDV, has opened in the preserved ruin of a shopping mall in central Tainan, Taiwan. The China-Town Mall was built next to the Tainan Canal in 1983, the rise of online shopping means it no longer serves its purpose. Instead, the Urban Development Bureau of the Tainan City Government commissioned MVRDV to create Tainan Spring as a new public space and as

A new US$550m (€509m, £426m) African-themed water park and resort from Kalahari Resorts & Conventions is due to open in Round Rock, Texas, in November 2020. With 1.5 million sq ft (457,000sq m) of resort space, Kalahari said the resort would be its largest yet, and would also be America's largest indoor water park, at 223,000sq ft (68,000sq m). Facilities at the venue will include Tom Foolery's Adventure Park –

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) have designed an office building for Newcastle, UK, that will curve back on itself like a ribbon as it rises and feature a linear park on its roof. Located close to the Sage and the Millennium Bridge, Stereo No. 1 Quayside will cover 10,000sq m (108,000sq ft). The structure will have a slender form of just 13m (43ft) in width and will snack around itself with

A newly opened park in downtown Dallas has been designed by SWA to be welcoming to dogs but to minimise their impact and ensure it remains a pleasant place for people to spend time. Pacific Plaza Park is one of four new green spaces that Parks for Downtown Dallas plans to have introduced to the area by 2022, with the aim of providing more outdoor amenities for its growing population.

Pendulum Studio have created a concept design for a new Kansas City Royals ballpark development in the downtown area of the city that would incorporate a variety of amenities and the blur lines of public and private space. The potential for a move to a new downtown home for the Missouri-based team has been discussed for a number of years – in part with the regeneration of the area in

Lyons with Aspect Studios, have transformed a car park in Melbourne, Australia, into a 10,000sq m (107,600sq ft) urban park with nine distinct areas and two levels of car parking retained underneath. Prahran Square was conceived to provide much needed new open public space in the Prahran suburb of the city, which has the second-lowest amount in the state of Victoria. it combines a park, a square and a network

The Buhais Geology Park Interpretive Centre, with a Hopkins Architects design inspired by fossilised sea urchins, has opened in the United Arab Emirates. The centre is part of the new Buhais Geology Park, which is located on the al-Madam Plain approximately 30mi (50km) from the city of Sharjah. Although now desert, the site used to be a seabed and has an abundance of marine fossils from over 65 million years

Europe's first Legoland Water Park – and the first to open in a non-Legoland destination – will open at the Gardaland resort close to Lake Garda, Italy, on 28 May. The park, which was announced last year, will cover 15,000sq m (160,000sq ft) and will be constructed, in part, from millions of Lego bricks. Aimed at families with children, it will be home to several different themed lands, as well

Nicki Kurran, working alongside Barr + Wray, Pave Always and HB Architects, has created a new £10m ($13m, €12m) spa at Carden Park Hotel in Cheshire, UK. Kurran told CLAD sister title Spa Business : "It’s been an absolute pleasure working with the spa team at Carden Park over the past two years, we’ve created a truly exclusive experience for our guests with some magnificent show-stopping touchpoints." Covering 4,500sq m

Open Platform and JAJA Architects have won a competition to create a new multi-storey car-park and mobility hub in Aarhus, Denmark, with a wooden design that will incorporate space for activities, creativity and socialising. Working with Rama Studio and Søren Jensen Engineers, the firms sought to design a facility that would play an active role in the development of the district in the future. The car-park itself will cover 19,300sq

Jora Vision have created a masterplan and concept designs for a new Russian theme park inspired by the literary poems and fairy tales of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin. Pushkin is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. His fairy tales, which centre around an imaginary land called "Lukomorye", have entertained children for hundreds of years. Now, Svetoch LLC, a company based in

Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and James Corner Field Operations (JCFO) have designed a mixed-use development in North Brooklyn that is part-residential, part-public park and part-flood defence. The aims of the River Street Waterfront Masterplan in redeveloping the former industrial site are to improve the connectivity of the waterfront for the public, reinstate natural habitats, strengthen resiliency and transform the way people interact with the East River. Anchored by BIG's two

Plans for a £175m (US$228.7m, €205.7m) indoor tropical waterpark and spa in Manchester, UK, will have to wait until March for approval, with the local council set to consider the proposal in March 2020. Therme Group and developer Peel L&P initially submitted plans in July 2019 for public consultation, with a planning application to Trafford Council following last month. The plans foresee a 28-acre resort that includes a 700,000sq ft

MVRDV, working with local studio NOW Architects, have won a competition to redevelop Seoul's Tancheon waterfront as a public park called The Weaves, with a mix of natural ecosystems, pathways and places for recreation. Commissioned by the government of Seoul, the project covers a 630,000sq m (6,800,000sq ft) area between the city's former Olympic Stadium and its central business district in Gangnam, as well as a stretch along the Han

London Resort Holdings Company (LRCH) has revealed concept artwork for the first phase of a planned 535ac (217ha) resort that has been described as "one of the most ambitious theme park projects ever in Europe". Set to be located in the UK town of Swanscombe, 20 minutes from London, The London Resort will consist of six lands: The High Street, The Studios, The Woods, The Kingdom, The Isles, The Jungle

A long-proposed US$3.8bn (€3.4bn, £2.9bn) theme park at Hwaseong, 45km (30mi) from South Korea's capital Seoul, looks set to go ahead after the country's finance minister pledged the government's support. To be built by Shinsegae Property Consortium, the park will feature five hotels, an 18-hole golf course and three shopping malls. Reports suggest that huge Korean pop music (K-pop) and natural history areas will act as the centrepieces of the

Work has begun on a new James Corner Field Operations (JCFO) -designed park being built on top of the Presidio Parkway highway tunnels in San Francisco. The Presidio Tunnel Tops project will cost $118m (€106m, £91m) and was made possible when the section of highway, which previously divided the Presidio national park, was moved underground. Covering 14ac (7ha), the park will provide a mix of amenities and nature, with input

Cartoon Network has revealed plans to open a new, immersive hotel experience to the public in mid-2020. Developed in partnership by Cartoon Network and Palace Entertainment, the 165-bedroom hotel will include some of the world’s most well-loved cartoon characters in its theming. Facilities at the nine-acre destination hotel will include an interactive lobby, a resort-style pool and water play zone, an outdoor amphitheatre with an oversized movie screen and interactive

Landscape architecture and urban design practice !melk have released renderings for New York's Pier 97 as part of the wider Hudson River Park project, which is transforming four miles of waterfront along Manhattan's West Side into a riverside park. Pier 97, which is north of Hudson Yards and overlooked by Bjrake Ingels' Via 57 West, is one of the last areas of the project to be redeveloped, with the pier

Aecom are creating a new waterfront public park in San Francisco that will incorporate elements of the site's former life as a port, including its cranes, the slipway and former cribbing and keel blocks. Crane Cove Park is part of the wider regeneration of the Pier 70 shipyard, which was San Francisco's largest shipbuilding facility before it closed down and was turned over to the Port of San Francisco in

The first phase of a new 23ha (2,500,000sq ft) urban park designed by landscape architect Gustafson Porter + Bowman and built on the site of former railway lines and industrial land has opened in Valencia, Spain. Parque Central is part of a larger project in the city that will see train lines moved underground to free up a total of 66ha (7,100,000sq ft) of land. The reclaimed land will be

Morgan's Wonderland, a completely wheelchair accessible theme park in San Antonio, Texas, has announced that it is to build a new "ultra-accessible" sports complex in the city, providing 8,000sq ft (2,440sq m) of covered space for wheelchair sports. Designed by Luna Middleman Architects, the US$3m (€2.7m, £2.45m) Morgan's Wonderland Sports complex will offer fitness and competition for athletes with different abilities. Facilities will include 8,000 sq ft (745sq m) of

OMA will design the new KaDeWe department store in Vienna, having won a competition with a design that combines shops, restaurants, a hotel and a rooftop park. Described by the developer Signa as "a modern version of a traditional department store with a mix of shops, restaurants and hotel," the project will involve the conversion of an existing building, La Rinascente, which is split into two volumes, with retail at

Enhanced designs have been submitted for a £42m waterpark and aquatic complex in Derby, UK. Original plans for the Moorways complex – designed by architects FaulknerBrowns – were approved in early 2018, but the current administration which took control of Derby City Council (DCC) in May 2018 ordered a review of the project. The original plans have now been extended to include more waterleisure space, including a waterpark featuring two