European health spa operator Ensana has recently opened a new luxury wellness and relaxation centre at its 5-star Thermia Palace Ensana Health Spa Hotel, on the spa island of Piešt’any, Slovakia. The €4m ($4m, £3m) development, which covers almost 13,000sq ft (1,200sq m), features year-round indoor and outdoor swimming pools, experience showers, a tepidarium, a large whirlpool, Finnish infrared sauna and steam room. The new wellness and relaxation centre at

TechnoAlpin created a snow-filled retail installation for clothing brand Woolrich as part of the 97th edition of clothing exhibition Pitti Uomo from 9-10 January last week. The Woolrich Forest installation was created in Florence’s La Dogana, with a space in the building transformed into a winter scene that echoed the wintry landscapes of Pennsylvania, where the brand was founded, and that allowed its outdoor products to be suitably showcased. TechnoAlpin

Studio SKLIM have created a compact café in Singapore using the concept of negative space to carve out seating booths, countertops, display shelves and overhanging canopies. The café covers an area of just 28sq m (301sq ft) but accommodates an experience and retail corner, a take-away counter, seating booths and a counter for conducting workshops. The central counter block is cast in concrete and is designed to merge into the

The new Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture in Washington State, designed by Olson Kundig, opened towards the end of last year, providing more space and flexibility, a more transparent layout and improved climate control. The building was actually completed in October, but information from the architects has just been made fully available. The 105,000sq ft (9,800sq m) building, which is 66 per cent larger than the old building,

Kerry Hill Architects have designed a spa and wellness resort on a mountainside in Hokkaido – their fourth resort in Japan for hotel operator Aman, following the opening of Aman Kyoto. The Aman Niseko resort is to be an all-season retreat situated among the mountain, forest and river surroundings of Mount Moiwa. It is designed to take advantage of the setting by framing the forest and mountain scenery from inside

Petr Pelčák has designed a new Hard Rock Hotel in Prague that will feature a three-storey feature wall with a 5,900sq ft (550sq m) soundwave of moving light, as well as a spa and a rooftop bar. The building itself is owned by EP Real Estate and has been in development since 2015. It will house 523 rooms, all with in-room music-themed yoga programmes and complimentary use of Fender guitars,

Architects Bertil Harström and Johan Krauppi have created a free-floating hotel on one of Sweden's longest rivers, with the micro-destination featuring a spa among its offerings. Owned and conceptualised by the architectural duo, the circular Arctic Bath Hotel and Spa will float on the Lule River during the summer months, with the structure frozen in place through the winter. It's set to open in Harads on 15 January 2020. The

Retail and leisure destination developer Intu is creating an €800m ($886m, £679m) resort on Spain's Costa del Sol, designed by WATG and Broadway Malyan, that will feature eight distinct neighbourhoods, each offering a different experience for visitors. Located in Torremolinos, Intu Costa del Sol will cover 2.5 million sq ft (235,000 sq m) and will incorporate 1.5 million sq ft (142,000 sq m) of retail space, 20+ leisure operators, 70+

Alberto Apostoli is designing a new four-level spa for the Formentin Hotel that is inspired by the Aurora Borealis and the icebergs of the Northern seas. A historic thermal hotel built in 1911, the Formentin Hotel is located in the centre of Abano Terme, an ancient thermal area located between Verona and Venice. The 840sq m (9,042sq ft) spa will include a swimming pool on the ground floor, a thermal

LABS Collective is transforming the Grade-II listed Victoria House in Holborn, London, into a 200,000sq ft (18,600sq m) co-working space with a variety of amenities for downtime and a focus on wellbeing. The neoclassical building will be updated with a modern design and contemporary feel, while its heritage will be preserved through sensitive restoration of its architectural detail. The new facility will accommodate around 4,000 professionals, with 150,000sq ft (14,000sq

MAD Architects have inserted a number of organically-shaped bubbles into the fabric of Beijing's Qianmen district to provide new space, new use cases and incentives for younger generations to return to the area. The Hutong Bubble 218 project sees organically-shaped interstitial interventions inserted into the restrictive context of a former hospital on a hutong – a narrow street or alley. The hospital had already been converted into accommodation for around

The celebrated Chiva-Som International Health Resort in Hua Hin, Thailand, has reopened after the most recent phase of a five-year renovation that has seen accommodation and facilities upgraded, with a new Qatar presence also announced. Designed by Designrealization, the renovation masterplan was aimed at bringing a "modern and fresh take" to the resort, with teak, Thai silk, and bamboo complemented by a light colour palette of natural hues. As part

Plenty has been written about the newly opened Diller Scofidio + Renfro expansion of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, but there's been work going on behind the scenes too. With 38,000sq ft (3,500sq m) of new gallery space and 21,000sq ft (2,000sq m) of new public space, there's much more for visitors to explore. But front-of-house spaces need new back-of-house spaces to support them and that

Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos (SMA) have created a branched, undulating design for Chablé's planned Sea of Cortez spa resort that blends with the natural landscape and gives guests both privacy and ocean views. Located on the Baja California Peninsula just north of La Paz in northwest Mexico, the resort will cover an area of 64,900sq m (698,700sq ft). The site is set on the coast between two hills in a sparsely

Thai architects Onion have created a community reading space in Bangkok called Samyan Co-op that offers different types of seating and atmosphere to suit different types of users. The project was commissioned by Golden Land Property Development, who were planning to build a new commercial mall and wanted to give something back to society. Their brief for Onion was to create 500-capacity reading and working space that would be free

BuckleyGrayYeoman are to convert a former ice factory, coachworks and power station to house 30,000sq ft (2,800sq m) of restaurant units, retail space and offices adjacent to another of their mixed-use developments. The firm completed its Eccleston Yards mixed-use creative hub project on a derelict and underutilised car park in London, UK, for Grosvenor last year. It comprises a public courtyard where people can sit and a pedestrian mews surrounded

A mixed-use public space comprising a golden cube-shaped kiosk and a giant floating balloon, designed by David Gianotten and Rem Koolhaas of OMA, has been unveiled outside Hong Kong's recently opened K11 Musea. Kube is at once a place to buy coffee, a place to sit and a place to hold events. The anodised aluminium kiosk, which changes colours as the light changes, opens up as a small retail unit.

Copenhagen-based studio Effekt has used the need for a climate adaptation plan by a town in Southern Jutland, Denmark, as an opportunity to enhance its identity, public spaces and connection to nature. Tønder had been in need of a plan to manage frequent stormwaters due to its coastal location. Effekt recognised that this could be achieved by remodelling and reorganising public spaces in a way that would improve connections between

Wolfgang Tschapeller has suspended four levels of library stacks containing around 100,000 volumes in an inverted ziggurat at the Unversity of Cornell 's Mui Ho Fine Arts Library. Tschapeller's goal was to create "a 21st-century interpretation of the grand reading rooms associated with great research collections." To achieve this, he removed the third floor of the Rand Hall building, in which the library is housed, to create a double-height space

Doone Silver Kerr (DSK) have used 25 shipping containers, each 30ft (9m) in length, to create a 20-room aparthotel with design elements that optimise the use of space. Designed for Stow Projects and Ciel Capital, the Stow-Away hotel comprises five levels each made up of five containers. A reception area and restaurant are housed on the ground floor, with the guest rooms making up the upper four floors. In order

The Manser Practice has created a concept design for a road bridge that is temporarily closed to traffic, reimagining it with green public space for use by pedestrians, cyclists and riverboat users. London's Hammersmith Bridge has been closed to vehicles since April this year due to concerns about its structural integrity. People have responded to the closure by making use of its full width as pedestrians and cyclists and enjoying

Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA) has collaborated with agricultural collective Cityplot to design a lifelong learning centre in Germany that uses social, spatial and leisure elements to optimise the learning process. Life Hamburg will be a 12,000sq m (129,000sq ft) figure-of-eight-shaped building that is aimed at reinventing learning for 800 children and 800 adults. The centre's design is based on the purpose-inspired and personal learning educational principles of Learnlife and

Architects Hesselbrand have designed the 120-room Acquarossa Spa & Hotel in the Swiss Alps with elements for sustainability and fostering a sense of community among both guests and residents of the local area. The Acquarossa is aimed at bringing people together in a social and relaxed atmosphere based on their mutual interest in wellbeing and experience-based tourism. Located in the village of Acquarossa in Ticino, Switzerland, it provides views of

Waechter Architecture has created a 20,000sq ft (1,900sq m) hotel and spa complex called Society Hotel Bingen that incorporates a redeveloped schoolhouse into its design. The development, which is in the Columbia River Gorge in the US, comprises twenty individual hotel cabins, a spa and bathhouse building and a sanctuary area. The old schoolhouse contains 10 standard rooms and two 24-bed dormitories, as well as a library and a gym.

Beijing Fenghemuchen Space Design has created a 1,170sq m (12,600sq ft) library, coffee shop and cultural space in China's Hangzhou City that is contained and shaped by natural wooden bookshelves and elements. The aim was to create a reading-themed space that could also be used for shared experiences and community purposes. Designers Yi Chen and Muchen Zhang chose to use oak throughout for its warmth and naturality as a material

New York-based studio Love is Enough has created a new social and cultural destination with spaces to lounge, work and eat in a former railway goods warehouse in Manchester, UK. Cultureplex, on the edge of the city's Northern Quarter, is described as "community centre for a modern city". At its heart is a multipurpose and communal central space that can be used by people throughout the day. The space is

Pullman ’s Maldives Maamutaa Resort will open two villas with underwater bedrooms this November, allowing guests to see the island’s vibrant marine life up close during their stay. The resort, designed by Blink Design Group with interiors by Miaja Design Group, opened at the end of September and is spread across 18 hectares of landscaped garden in the Gaafu Alifu Atoll. It has 122 villas that are either beachside or