HOK and ERRE have designed a €220m (US$243m, £188m) arena for Valencia that will be used for music, arts, culture and sporting events. Designed for the client Licampa 1617, the facility will house a 1,200sq m (12,900sq ft) multipurpose room, a 1,300-capacity underground and multistorey car park and the headquarters for the men and women’s Valencia Basket Club. The arena will seat up to 15,600 people or accommodate up to

Elizabeth de Portzamparc has argued that cultural buildings like libraries and museums shouldn't just preserve knowledge and heritage, but should forge social links too by ensuring their accessibility and approachability. De Portzamparc was speaking in the most recent issue of CLADmag following the opening of the Musée de la Romanité earlier this year, which she described as "the most symbolic public facility I’ve ever worked on." Explaining why, she said:

Istanbul-based MAS Architecture Studio have created a barjeel – or wind tower – installation for Dubai Design Week 2019 that gives passersby a place to pause, rest and cool down. The installation, titled Barjeel, was a response to an open call via which Dubai Design Week was seeking to showcase "the design identity of the UAE through diverse representations of local and international creative efforts." Barjeel was inspired by the

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

Snøhetta and Clark Nexsen have revealed their design for the new Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, with elements that help to achieve the mission of it being more than just a library and also serving as a public commons. Located in the US city of Charlotte, North Carolina, the building will cover an area of 115,000sq ft (11,000sq m). It is shaped with a curved prow at one of its corners, which

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

Shanghai's West Bund Museum, designed by David Chipperfield Architects, has opened to the public as part of the West Bund Masterplan that will introduce a new 9sq km (3.5sq mi) cultural district on former industrial land. The 22,000sq ft (2,000sq m) facility, established as a partnership between Centre Pompidou Paris and the publicly-owned West Bund Group, sits on the north bank of the Huangpu River and is located in a

Richard Hall Architect has designed a new art gallery for the Australian city of Launceston in the heritage-listed circular shell of an old gasometer. The DADA gallery will house the art of a private collector so that the public can enjoy it as well. The site is the last remaining gasometer frame in the city and is in a high-profile position close to the city's historic Albert Hall and opposite

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.

A multidisciplinary design studio called Stock-a-Studio has created a temporary gym in a shopfront that can be easily assembled, disassembled, customised and reassembled using a variety of low budget materials. The installation, called [ a kit of these some parts ] x budget gym ], is aimed at encouraging assembly rather than construction and refinishing rather than remanufacturing. Hosted at LA's Materials & Applications – a non-profit organisation that seeks

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

Chinese architects Archstudio have transformed a gallery in Beijing from one that is uninspiring to look at and walk around to being visually eye-catching and interesting to tour. The Ioma art centre was housed in a functional but unremarkable building and was lacking in space for certain uses. In addition to extending the building upwards and along the street, Archstudio added a new façade to capture the imagination of visitors

A team led by Coldefy & Associés has been selected to design the National Pulse Memorial & Museum in memory of the 49 victims of Orlando's Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. The memorial comprises the preserved nightclub building with an adjacent open space that has been transformed as a place for gathering and celebration. There will also be a peaceful garden planted with 49 trees. A pool of water that

Aidia Studio has won the Rifat Chadirji Prize 2019, which sought design proposals for a new Barjeel Museum For Modern Arab Art in Sharjah, UAE. Established in 2017, the Rifat Chadirji Prize is one competition run by the Tamayouz Excellence Award and seeks ideas that respond to local challenges, as well as to celebrate architecture in the Near East and North Africa. Aidia's proposal for a building to house Barjeel's

The Studio of Design and Architecture (SODA) has created a new theatre with a revolving auditorium, a quickly adaptable configuration for a diverse range of events and a striking glass, brickwork and Art Deco aesthetic. The Boulevard Theatre is part of a wider and ongoing 55,000sq ft (5,100sq m) mixed-use development in London also designed by Soda for Soho Estates. The theatre is split into two volumes – with the

Carmody Groarke, Trans Architectuur Stedenbouw and RE-ST Architectenvennootschap have won a design competition to extend Design Museum Gent with a new "third place" that will link the museum and the city. The new wing will also link together the museum's two existing buildings, as well as provide additional spaces for exhibitions, debate, reflection, public activities, retail and catering. It is designed to be a welcoming meeting place with free access

The newly opened Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, has been designed by HKS Architects to not only be very adaptable depending on what events it is hosting but to pay homage to a neighbouring entertainment, sports and livestock complex. The $540m (€486m, £420m) centre sports an Art Deco and Moderne architectural style in keeping with the nearby Will Rogers Memorial Center, with two towers anchoring its north façade, rendered

Updated designs of the Barack Obama Presidential Center have been released showing a more sculptural building, introducing a large glazed element and adding a textured finish. The centre will comprise a museum dedicated to Obama's presidency, a library of his archives and a forum to advance the Obama Foundation 's public mission to promote global progress. A Sky Room at the top of the building will provide views of the

Creative studio Unknown Works has completed a 33sq m (355sq ft) restaurant in China called Scotts TKL based on 3D scans of fish and chip shops from around the UK. The project was based on the concept of 'Shanzai' – the act of copying and imitating that is often ascribed to Chinese businesses – and seeks to ask questions about Sino-British relationships and cultural exchange. Ben Hayes of Unknown Works

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

Architects WilkinsonEyre and landscape architects Grant Associates have unveiled a conceptual masterplan for "a global leisure and recreation destination" on two islands off the south coast of Singapore. The Sentosa-Brani Master Plan is part of a wider scheme to rejuvenate Singapore’s Greater Southern Waterfront. The scheme would use the natural features and tropical landscape of the islands as a backdrop for leisure attractions and day-to-night hospitality offerings. New public realm

When the scaffolding comes down later this year on Edwardian Hotels' £300m (US$387m, €348m), Woods Bagot -designed Londoner hotel, an artwork façade will be revealed. The boutique hotel and cinema complex will cover 32,000sq m (345,000sq ft) in central London, span 15 storeys and have a six-storey, 30m (98ft)-deep basement. But Helen Taylor, project lead at architects Woods Bagot, told CLAD that it was creating its faience design – using

The UK government has announced a £250m (US$322m, €290m) Culture Investment Fund for England. The funding package will be spent on infrastructure projects in the culture, museums and libraries sectors. More than £125m (US$161m, €145m) of the fund is earmarked for investment in improvements to regional museums and libraries. As the recipient of the largest single contribution from the fund (£18.5m US$23.8m, €21.4m), the National Railway Museum in York will

The Victoria Theatre, the oldest in the Australian state of New South Wales, is to undergo a renovation led by Scott Carver Architects aimed at conserving its heritage features and reviving it as a venue for live performances. Located in the city of Newcastle, the theatre is expected to cost around AU$11.5m (US$7.8m, €7m, £6.1m) to refurbish, which is said to be more than justifiable investment from a business perspective.

After a five-year, $450m (€409m, £356m) renovation project split over two phases, New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) reopens next week with 102,000sq ft (9,500sq m) of new gallery and public space. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, working with Gensler, the renovation has seen the building's footprint increased to 708,000sq ft (66,000sq m), with gallery space increased by around a third to 166,000sq ft (15,000sq m). There's a

The Ruby City contemporary art centre, designed by British architect Sir David Adjaye, has opened in San Antonio, Texas. So-called because of the ruby red colour of its precast concrete exterior, the 14,000sq ft (1,300sq m) gallery houses more than 900 paintings, sculptures, installations and video works. Its design was inspired by the vision of the late collector and philanthropist Linda Pace and, in part, by the Spanish missions built

Salient has converted a 1990s development called Swabhumi Plaza into a boutique hotel in Kolkata, West Bengal. The plaza was built to celebrate the heritage of Bengal through performance, food and culture. The new Swabhumi Raajkutir hotel has been designed in the style of a pre-independence, 19th century Bengali home to transport guests back to the Bengali Renaissance. The design theme for the property is based on a fictitious story