Hotel operator Pan Pacific Hotels Group is set to open Parkroyal on Pickering, a hotel and spa in Singapore, based on a hotel-in-a-garden concept, at the end of 2012. The hotel is located at the gateway to Singapore's Central Business District and landmarks such as Chinatown and China Square Central. Designed by Singapore-based architectural firm WOHA, Parkroyal was built with a strong focus on integrating environmental elements throughout the property.

The Peel Group has appointed architects Allies & Morrison to design its new luxury hotel project in Manchester. Architects from across Europe were invited to take part in a competition - organised by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) - to design the hotel, which will be located on the site of the former Worsley New Hall in Greater Manchester. Worsley New Hall was a historically significant manor house

It held murderers and madmen behind its walls for three centuries but now one of Northern Ireland's most notorious jails Armagh Gaol is a step closer to becoming a luxury hotel and spa. A planning application has been submitted which seeks to redevelop the former Armagh prison into a mixed-use property that will provide a 65-bed hotel with a spa and conference facilities as well as an education and heritage

Detailed plans for the first phase of Rafael Viñoly's Battersea Power Station masterplan have now been submitted to Wandsworth Council. The project in Nine Elms in London was granted outline planning consent in 2011 and the new application provides a detailed specification for the first stage of the development. The application covers the details of the scale of the buildings and structures, the external appearance and the landscaping within Phase

Rosewood hotels and resorts is to open its second Asian resort in Phuket, Thailand in 2014. Located on a 600m (1,968ft) Emerald Bay beachfront in Western Phuket, the Rosewood Phuket resort comprises 87 villas, 20 residences and five hideaway homes and a spa. The Sense Spa will feature five treatment rooms, seven spa villas with steamrooms and showers and a swimming and watsu pool. The central feature of the spa

When the Asworth family - the owners of the Watergate Bay boutique hotel in Conrwall, UK - opened the new £3m spa at the hotel they opted to move away from the hushed, clinical approach and challenged the traditional way of thinking in spa design. Stride Treglown and Household, the designers who worked on the Cowshed Spa, were responsible for creating a warm, lived-in space, complementing the easy-living feel embodied

Image: The spa will use exclusively Brazilian products The first '100 per cent Brazilian spa' is set to open at the Botanique Hotel & Spa mountain retreat, created by AOL co-founder, David Cole, founder of The Body Shop, Gordon Roddick and Brazilian entrepreneurs, Ricardo and Fernanda Semler. Set in 700 acres (283 hectares), in the mountains of Campos do Jordao, half way between Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the

Image: Part of the hotel will be underwater Plans are moving forward on a futuristic underwater hotel project in Dubai, which will allow guests to sleep with fish swimming outside their bedroom windows. The Water Discus Hotel will have 21 submerged rooms, as well as 30 above the surface, a dive centre, luxury spa, two restaurants, a swimming pool and a helipad. According to Bogdan Gutkowski, CEO of Big Invest,

Image: An artist's impression of the Aniyana resort Initial plans have been announced for the creation of a 41-acre beachfront luxury resort on the island of Grand Caicos in the West Indies. Aniyana, which takes its name from the native Lucayan Indian name for Grand Caicos, will comprise a limited number of exclusive beach and lagoon-front luxury residences available for ownership, each in its own private setting and nestled in

Image: The indoor lap pool at the Pudong hotel Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts has announced the openings of its latest properties - one in the Azerbaijani capital Baku and the other in the Pudong area of Shanghai, China. Located to the east of the Huangpu River, Four Seasons Hotel Pudong, Shanghai forms part of the new 55-storey 21st Century Tower in the district's Lujiazui business hub. Gensler are behind

Image: The lodge is located in the Punakha Valley Como Hotels and Resorts is to open a new 11-bedroom lodge - and a sister property to its Uma by Como, Paro boutique hotel - in Bhutan's Punakha Valley on 15 September. Bali-based Cheong Yew Khan is behind the design of the lodge - Uma by Como, Punakha - and previously worked on the Como Shambhala Estate and Uma by Como,

Image: The Morris Adjmi-designed West Penthouse Albany - the luxury resort community jointly owned by Tavistock Group and golfers Tiger Woods and Ernie Els in the Bahamas - has started work on its new Marina Residences. Three six-storey towers with a total floorspace of 275,000sq ft (25,548sq m) are being built to house the 35 residences, while two of the three buildings will house ground floor offices. The project has

Design World Partnership (DWP) has secured a new Memorandum of Understanding with NEXT Hospitality to form a new industry design concepts and solutions partnership. The agreement - signed in Bangkok, Thailand, on 23 August - will lead to the establishment of the dwp | next partnership, which will offer services to clients worldwide. DWP chief executive officer Brenton Mauriello said: "This is an exciting time for DWP, as we continue

Image: The Touch Spa has four treatment rooms Marriott International has announced the launch of the 383-bedroom Renaissance Shanghai Caohejing Hotel - the group's sixth Renaissance-branded hotel opened in the Chinese city. The hotel is managed in partnership with Shanghai Caohejing Park Huagang Properties and includes the 360sq m (3,875sq ft) Touch Spa housing four treatment rooms and a foot massage lounge. Karen Wang Interior Consultant led the interior design

Image: A 2,000sq m spa is among the hotel facilities The Rezidor Hotel Group has opened a new 252-bedroom Radisson Blu-branded property amid the Carpathian Mountains at the western Ukraine ski and spa resort of Bukovel. Among the facilities at the new Radisson Blu Resort, Bukovel is a 2,000sq m (21,528sq ft) spa and wellness facility offering a full range of treatments using Anne Semonin products. Led by Yana Shchebelskaya,

Image: The new hotel's 18m indoor swimming pool The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company - a fully-owned subsidiary of Marriott International - has opened its first hotel in Austria and ninth in Europe on Vienna's Schubertring Boulevard. Verny Capital owns the new 202-bedroom Ritz-Carlton, Vienna, which features a 1,000sq m (10,764sq ft) Guerlain Spa among its facilities - the first Guerlain-branded spa in Austria. The boutique spa incorporates six treatment rooms -

Image: India's first So SPA is among the facilities Sofitel Luxury Hotels has announced the opening of its new Indian flagship property at the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) in Mumbai's financial district - the Sofitel Mumbai BKC. The 302-bedroom hotel has been designed by US-based BBGM, with interior designs from Singapore's Miaja Design Group creating a contemporary French atmosphere. Among the facilities is India's first So SPA by Sofitel, which

Westin Hotels and Resorts has announced the launch of a new nature-inspired public space concept, which it believes will serve as a "modern-day oasis" for guests at its properties. The concept has been premièred at Westin Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego, US, and is to be rolled out to other participating international hotels throughout 2013. Westin's in-house design team took inspiration from NASA research in developing the new concept, which

Image: The Trocadero will house the LDN pod hotel Plans for a Japanese-style pod hotel and rooftop bar at London's historic Trocadero complex have been approved by Westminster City Council (WCC). The council's planning committee gave the green light to Criterion Capital's plans for the hotel, which will offer accommodation in 583 bedrooms measuring between 9sq m and 17sq m (97sq ft and 183sq ft). Plans to create a 495-bedroom

Image: One of the revamped Garden Wing bedrooms A new CHI-branded spa is to open at Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore in October as part of the wider SG$66m (US$53.1m, EUR43m, £34.1m) revamp of the property's Garden Wing. Further details regarding the spa are yet to be revealed, although it will become the first CHI, The Spa in Singapore when it opens. Maps Design have worked on the new Garden Wing. Located

Image: Foster + Partners designed the new hotel ME by Meliá, the "experienced-based" hotel brand owned by Meliá Hotels International, is to open its latest property near Covent Garden, London, UK, next month (September). The 157-bedroom ME London - housed within Marconi House, the former headquarters of BBC Radio - is designed by Foster + Partners and is the brand's fifth location worldwide. It had been initially proposed that the

Image: Bounce features cocktails, high-end dining and table tennis Bounce, a new social club mixing a late-night setting with table tennis, is to open its doors in central London later this year. The £2.5m venue, designed by Russell Sage, has been built on site where the game of table tennis was originally invented by John Jaques III. The 12,500sq ft (1,161sq m) space will feature a raised restaurant seating up

Image: DLA have designed the planned development Rushbond, the Leeds-based development company, has announced its plans to open a new luxury hotel and spa at Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. The company has worked in collaboration with architects DLA and hotel consultancy EPR on proposals for the refurbishment of an existing Grade II*-listed mansion house at YSP. Interiors of the building will be restored and a contemporary

Image: The resort boasts the 4,000sq ft Ho'ola Spa The Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort and Spa will reopen fully later this year following the completion of a US$16m (13m euro, £10.1m) redevelopment of the property in Hawaii, US. As part of the work, the resort will be renamed as Sheraton Kona Resort and Spa at Keauhou Bay on 1 September. The redevelopment has included a radical upgrade of all its

Image: The hotel is in the building's upper third Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts has held an official opening ceremony for its 88th hotel in the upper third of the 103-storey Guangzhou International Finance Center (IFC) in China. The landmark 440m (1,444ft)-tall building has been designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects and was built by Yuexiu Property Group at a cost of £280m (US$441m, EUR357m). Guests enter Four Seasons Hotel Guangzhou

Image: The new hotel overlooks Wembley Way Hilton Hotels and Resorts has announced the official opening of its "landmark" new hotel opposite London's Wembley Stadium - part of wider efforts to regenerate the area. The exteriors and interiors of the 361-bedroom Hilton London Wembley were designed by The Manser Practice to incorporate the "spirit of Britain" throughout. Facilities include the LivingWell Health Club - incorporating a 12-metre swimming pool, a

Image: The spa houses eight treatment rooms Sohum Spa has launched its latest site at a Mövenpick hotel in the southern Indian city of Bangalore. The 4,000sq ft (370sq m) spa houses eight treatment rooms and has a prime emphasis in Ayurveda. Facilities include separate his and hers wet-room sections offering steamrooms, sauna and cold and warm rain showers, as well as private relaxation zones. Sohum is the spa brand