A garden pavilion fabricated by robots has opened to the public in the grounds of the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London. The Elytra Filament Pavilion is formed of tightly-woven carbon fibre cells, inspired by shells of flying Elytra beetles. The pavilion has been created by experimental architects Achim Menges and Moritz Dörstelmann in collaboration with engineers Jan Knippers and Thomas Auer and researchers from the University of Stuttgart.

French architecture firm Studio KO have teased the first design images of their forthcoming Yves Saint Laurent museum in Marrakech, Morocco. The renderings reveal a terracotta brick structure, formed of curved lines and straight edges. The building will span 4,000sq m (43,000sq ft) on a site next to the city’s Jardin Majorelle – a garden much loved by Saint Laurent, who was a regular visitor to Marrakech before his death

New video footage has been released providing the first extensive look inside David Adjaye’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. Builders are putting the final touches to the museum, which will be opened by US President Barack Obama on 24 September 2016. The video, released by The Washington Post, shows construction workers installing the display cases in readiness for the first exhibits – which will focus

Italian brewery Peroni will tomorrow (May 19) launch a six-week residency in London, transforming a café and restaurant into The House of Peroni – a “multi-sensory destination of Italian sights, smells and tastes.” The residency, named Amare l’Italia (For the love of Italy), will temporarily take over the Proud East restaurant in Haggerston. Designer Margherita Maccapani Missoni, heiress to high-end fashion house Missoni, is the residency’s “Master of Style.” She

Hungarian architects Napur have won the international design competition to design the new Museum of Ethnography building in Budapest. The firm – who worked in collaboration with architects and designers Rudolf Mihály, Orfi József, Bodonyi Csaba, Dávid Papp and Exon 2000 – overcame high-profile competition from 14 other design teams, including the likes of MVRDV, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. The winning scheme is a

The Palestinian Museum, designed by Heneghan Peng, has opened its doors today (18 May) without any exhibits. The US$60m, (€55m, £40m) project, located in the West Bank north of Jerusalem, has the intention of creating an iconic building to act as a beacon of hope for the Palestinian people. It was first mooted in 1999, but has been stalled multiple times due to political tensions in the region. The building

Architecture practice Close to the Bone have blurred the boundary between a stairway and an observation tower by building a gravity-defying monument in a Belgian forest. The studio were commissioned to build an observation point in the municipality of Tielt-Winge, after a popular wooden lookout tower was destroyed by arsonists. The brief called for a new landmark that could survive the elements and attack from vandals. Their solution was Vlooyberg

The reimagined Helsinki City Museum in Finland has reopened to the public following an €11m (US$12.4m, £8.7m) refurbishment and expansion of its new premises. Moving from its former home in Helsinki’s historical district to a new location in Senate Square, the 105-year-old museum now occupies five historical buildings surrounding three inner courtyards, opening up spaces never previously accessible to the public. The 18-month renovation by Arkkitehdit Davidsson Tarkela incorporates the

UPDATE: Snøhetta's striking and hotly-anticipated new building for San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) opens today (14 May) in the US city. The international architecture studio have been working on the project, one of their largest to date, over the past three years. They have added an abstract, fog-like 10-storey extension to the museum's existing building on 151 Third Street, designed by Swiss architect Mario Botti in 1995. Their

UPDATE: Snøhetta's striking and hotly-anticipated new building for San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) opens today (14 May) in the US city. The international architecture studio have been working on the project, one of their largest to date, over the past three years. They have added an abstract, fog-like 10-storey extension to the museum's existing building on 151 Third Street, designed by Swiss architect Mario Botti in 1995. Their

A design team led by French architects Agence Ter has won an international competition to revitalise the Pershing Square public park in downtown Los Angeles. The contest, called Pershing Square Renew, was organised by a consortium of government, community and business leaders seeking to create a world-class public space for those who “live in, work in, visit and love” the heart of LA. Agence Ter and project partners SALT Landscape

Construction has been completed on a meandering ’Sky Walk’ and observation deck towering 55m (180ft) above a forest valley in the Czech Republic. Local studio Franek Architects created the dramatic timber and steel structure for a ski and wellness resort in the mountains near Dolni Morava. The Sky Walk provides a constantly shifting view as you ascend to an altitude of 1,116 meters above sea level. A number of ways

US real estate developer iStar has detailed its ambitions to reinvigorate the struggling New Jersey town of Asbury Park, the economic plight of which has been documented in song by Bruce Springsteen. The firm has announced “a multi-billion dollar redevelopment plan” to transform a 1.25-mile stretch of the park’s waterfront with new public realm, hotels, cultural facilities and residencies. The town was once a popular beach resort, but has fallen

Venetian glassmaking association Fondazione Berengo is to host a retrospective of the work of Zaha Hadid, following the architect's death in March at the age of 65. The exhibition will take place Venice’s neo-Gothic Palazzo Franchetti, close to the Grand Canal, during the city’s architecture Biennale from 28 May to 27 November. Hadid’s accomplishments, including recently-completed structures and projects currently under construction, will be represented in the 500sq m (5,400sq

French conceptual artist Daniel Buren has brought vibrant colour to the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, by temporarily adding colourful patterned filters to Frank Gehry’s glass-covered building. Gehry’s building, which opened in 2014, features 12 glass sails formed by 3,600 pieces of glass. In his work, titled Observation of Light, Buren has added staggered filters to each sail, punctuating them with alternating white and empty bands placed an equal distance

The Palestinian Museum Hub – the flagship for a planned network of museums – opens on 18 May in the West Bank north of Jerusalem. The US$60m, (€55m, £40m) project has the intention of creating an iconic building to act as a beacon of hope for the Palestinian people. It was first mooted in 1999 but stalled multiple times due to political tensions in the region. Heneghan Peng were appointed

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced a star-studded shortlist in its bid to celebrate the best building in the world. Zaha Hadid, Bjarke Ingels, Shigeru Ban and David Chipperfield are among the architects in contention to win the first RIBA International Prize. Thirty projects from 50 countries have made the shortlist and will be visited by the RIBA Awards Committee in the coming months. In its inaugural

Pandas are on the agenda for design firm Dan Pearlman, with the Berlin-based practice creating the new panda enclosure for Berlin Zoo, while also debuting a new indoor and outdoor environment for pandas at Everland Resort in Yongin, South Korea. A pair of giant pandas, which can generate millions in revenue every year as visitors travel far and wide to get a glimpse of the endangered species, made their South

Stella McCartney, Thomas Heatherwick, David Adjaye and Antony Gormley are among the designers, artists and architects whose time or work has been auctioned to fund the creation of a new home for one of the world's biggest design museums. The sale, hosted by auction house Phillips, raised over £1.1m (US$1.6m, €1.4m) towards the renovation costs of the Design Museum’s forthcoming building in Kensington, London. A total of 55 pieces were

The world-famous Whistler Blackcomb ski resort is expanding its offering beyond the slopes, announcing a US$345m (€300m, £238m) plan to revitalise and invest in its mountain facilities. To be rolled out in three stages, the ‘Renaissance’ expansion plan will focus first on a US$100m (€87m, £69m) plan to create weather independent, year-round attractions. Ecosign Mountain Resort Planners – who also prepared the first masterplan for Whistler Mountain and Blackcomb Mountain

Marks Barfield Architects, the creators of the London Eye, have been tasked with designing a cable car across Chicago that will become an “iconic attraction” for the city. Chicago-based theatre impresario Lou Raizin and real estate investor Laurence S. Geller are behind the ambitious scheme, called The Chicago SkyLine, which has been designed in collaboration with US architects Davis Brody Bond. Speaking at a city event, Raizin and Geller outlined

Minnesota’s Bell Museum of Natural History has broken ground on a new US$79.2m (€69m, £54.7m) complex near the State Fairgrounds on the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus. To be renamed the Bell Museum and Planetarium, a 120-seat domed planetarium and theatre will be one of the main new features, in addition to expanded galleries and a host of interactive exhibitions. Minneapolis-based architecture firm Perkins+Will have created the box structure, which

MVRDV’s design for a cultural hub in Zaandstad, Holland, featuring a concert hall, cinema, arts space, dance studio, library and architecture centre, has been given the green light by the municipality. The project, called The Cultural Cluster, can now be pushed forwards into the next stage of design. The Dutch architects have completed the preliminary design phase, which visualises a raised cubic volume with variously coloured silhouettes of traditional Zaan

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

Canadian practice Diamond Schmitt Architects have released design details for a new arts complex in Texas inspired by the legendary 1950s pop star Buddy Holly. The Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences will be located in the city of Lubbock, where the singer was born. The multi-purpose centre will be a new home for rock concerts, operas, ballets and touring Broadway shows, as well as large-scale social and

After nearly two years of legal wrangling, George Lucas looks to have given up on Chicago as a viable option for his Museum of Narrative Art, with the filmmaker’s wife saying they were “seriously pursuing” alternative locations. With more installments than his famous Star Wars films, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art saga reached a significant landmark in February when a judge ruled in favour of legal action taken by

Parisian billionaire and philanthropist François Pinault, is taking over a historic commercial building in Paris to showcase his €1.2bn (US$1.4bn, £950m) modern art collection to the public. Pinault, who once ran a fashion empire including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Puma and Balenciaga before handing the reigns over to his son François-Henri in 2001, follows the likes of Louis Vuitton and Prada in opening public museums to store their collections. “It