A design team led by Nikken Sekkei have won an international competition to develop a feasible plan for 24km (15m) of railway track stretching the length of Singapore. Inspired by New York’s phenomenally successful High Line – a disused railway transformed into a public greenway – Singapore’s Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) invited international architecture studios to propose similarly innovative schemes for the city-state’s longest abandoned rail line. Japanese architects Nikken

German studio KSP Jurgen Engel Architekten have been named as the design team for the new Shenzhen Art Museum and Library complex in China. The firm were chosen ahead of several other shortlisted studios – including star names OMA, Steven Holl Architects and Mecanoo – to design the cultural hub, to be located in the southern province of Guangdong. KSP’s winning design consists of three elements – an art museum,

Scent manufacturer Glade has teamed up with Radical Media to create a pop-up exhibition and experience in New York for the eyes, ears, nose and hands. Glade, usually seen on supermarket shelves in the air freshener section, has taken a unique approach to unveiling its new line of scents with the multi-sensory experience completely built around the senses. The exhibition uses five scents representing the emotional states of optimism, joy,

German-born architect Annabelle Selldorf is transforming an abandoned flour mill in downtown Los Angeles into a multi-disciplinary arts centre for gallery heavyweights Hauser & Wirth and art curator Paul Schimmel. Selldorf – the founder of New York’s Selldorf Architects – is working with local studio Creative Space to retrofit seven interconnected late 19th and early 20th century buildings located at 901 East 3rd Street in the city’s burgeoning arts district.

Kieran Stanley, founder and CEO of Dan Pearlman architecture studio, has revealed new details about their upcoming Giant project, due to take its first big steps in Berlin in 2017. The Giant – which comprises a multi-storey sculpture mounted on a plinth housing a museum – has been touted as “the visitor attraction for the 21st Century”. The sculpture itself will take the form of a mythical giant, with moving

Rem Koolhaas’ Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) has won an international competition to design a cutting-edge arts venue in the UK city of Manchester. Nine internationally acclaimed architects – including Zaha Hadid Architecture, Mecanoo, Rafael Vinoly Architects and Diller Scofidio + Renfro – were shortlisted to design the flagship cultural centre, named The Factory. The £110m (US$166m, €157m) large-scale venue – which takes its name from Factory Records, the Manchester

A six-year, US$34m (€32m, £22.5m) renovation of the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) has been completed and the institute is once again open to the public. The development – carried out by Hunzinger Construction with HGA as architects of record – includes a revisioning of MAM’s Collection Galleries, as well as new work on its 1957 Eero Saarinen-designed War Memorial Center and 1975 David Kahler-designed extension, in addition to a new

A new home for Lithuania’s modern and contemporary art has been designed by Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind for the city of Vilnius. Studio Libeskind has worked with local firm Do Architects to design the 3,100sq m (33,300sq ft) white cuboid structure, which will house more than 4,000 Lithuanian art works collected by the country’s Modern Art Center (MAC). “This is about the cultural legacy of the country,” said MAC founder

A competition is being launched to find an architect and design concept for a new gallery in Riga, Latvia – an ambitious project that aims to become the top cultural attraction in the Baltic region. The Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art will be home to a collection of art from Latvia and the Baltic countries from the 1960s to the present day. It’s hoped that the €30m (US$32m, £21m) art

The Korea Racing Authority (KRA) has launched an international contest to find an architect who can develop a “one of a kind” horse theme park in the northern county of Yeongcheon. The KRA wishes to build the attraction – called LetsRun Park Yeongcheon – on an undeveloped 1,475,000 sq m site (15,800sq ft). It is investing KRW260bn (US$224m, €211m, £148m) in the venture. The authority says it wants to create

Event design company, Strong & Co, says it will bring a “warm, hyper-real tropical paradise” to Europe in the middle of winter 2016/17. The company, famous for its pop-up experiences at big cultural events, such as the UK’s Glastonbury music festival – is seeking funding for its latest venture, dubbed Summerland. It envisions a four-hour live experience that will take visitors from the cold, wintry streets of London into the

A dramatic mountain-shaped theatre in the southern Chinese city of Dali – the latest cultural creation from Beijing architects Studio Pei-Zhu – has entered the final construction phase. The Yang Liping Performing Arts Center will feature an enormous canopy roof, which falls and rises to evoke the surrounding Cangshan mountain range in China's Yunnan province. Visitors will be encouraged to walk over and under the roof in order to reflect

A Norwegian architecture group is transforming an earthquake-hit urban area in Valparaiso, Chile into a community venue for music, theatre and circus performances. The Scarcity and Creativity Studio – formed by Masters students from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design – has partnered with youth group Sitio Eriazo to work on the project. Valparaiso, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was badly hit by the 8.3 magnitude quake which caused

The transformation of Pier 57, a derelict 1950s floating pier in New York City, into a mixed-use scheme has been declared “tantalisingly close to being realised”. Seth Pinsky, executive vice president at property firm RXR Realty, has revealed work will begin soon on the 450,000sq ft (41,000sq m) development on the Hudson River – recently rebranded the SuperPier. Speaking at a summit in NYC, Pinsky said the first two floors

A biblical theme park in the US state of Kentucky is building its very own full-size version of Noah’s Ark. Operator Crosswater Canyon, a non-profit subsidiary of Christian organisation Answers in Genesis, says that when it is finished, the ark will be the largest timber-framed structure in the US. The attraction will form the centrepiece of a new park called The Ark Encounter, telling the biblical story of the great

A new media library on Réunion Island brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘eye-opening’, with enormous socket-shaped openings staring out from the structure’s facade towards the Indian Ocean. French architects Peripheriques are the team behind the unorthodox structure, located in the island’s French commune St Paul. Irregularly placed gaps across the exterior are intended to resemble eyes seeking knowledge and information from the collection of films and literature

A Spanish design studio has created a children’s playground with a mind-bending twist: it's set inside a kaleidoscope. The interiors of their hexagonal-shaped structure appear to constantly shift due to optical effects caused by reflections and movement. “Kaleidoscopes have been enjoyed by multiple generations,” said Juan Manzanares Suarez and Cristian Santandreu Utermark – the creative duo behind Spanish studio A2arquitectos. “We observed the optical effects of these toys and decided

Ground has been broken on the latest project from Foster + Partners; a museum in Narbonne in the south of France exhibiting a priceless collection of ancient Roman artefacts. Archaeologists working in the city – which was once a major Roman port – have uncovered a treasure trove of ancient buildings and relics. Many of these will be housed in the Musée de la Romanité Narbonne (MuReNA), which has been

Architecture firm Dan Pearlman have unveiled plans for a 10-storey articulated sculpture and museum known as ‘The Giant’, which is set for a worldwide rollout from 2017. Touted as “the visitor attraction for the 21st Century”, the sculpture will take the form of a mythical giant, with moving limbs and eyes. Each will be custom-designed for its location, with the first scheduled to open in Berlin, Germany in 2017 and

A museum dedicated to Auguste Rodin has reopened in Paris on the 175th anniversary of his birth. Hôtel Biron – the 18th century Parisian mansion that houses the museum – partially shut in 2012 and closed to the public completely at the start of 2015 for a €16m (US$17.1m, £11.3m) overhaul. This included urgent floor repairs and a complete redesign of its interiors – the first such redesign since Rodin

A distinctive amber-coloured music venue, envisioned as a new landmark for Latvia, has opened in the medieval port city of Liepaja. The Great Amber Concert Hall features a glowing facade, which illuminates a distinctive reddish hue when night falls. The asymmetrical design by Austrian architect Volker Giencke was commissioned following an international competition in 2003. The concert hall is intended to provide a fresh cultural and social focal point for

One of the creative minds behind London’s Millennium Dome and the Pompidou Centre in Paris, has declared Renzo Piano’s forthcoming national opera house and library in Athens to be “a work of pure genius.” In an upcoming interview with CLADmag, Mike Davies – a founding partner at Rogers Stirk Harbour – is quick to praise the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Centre, which is nearing completion. “It's more than a building,” said

Experience designers Bompas & Parr have partnered with composers, perfumers and academics to transform the top of The Shard in London into “the most romantic place in the world.” The studio – best-known for its contemporary food design, culinary research and creation of flavour-based experiences – will operate the ‘Height of Winter’ experience from 23 November until the end of January 2016. According to the company, “super-scaled crystals, gem-studded snow

Work will soon begin on the creation of a public art depot in Rotterdam allowing visitors to explore behind the scenes at one of Europe’s largest art galleries. The Collectiegebouw will store 75,000 European art works belonging to the city’s Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. While art depots typically hide unexhibited collections from view, visitors here will be able to witness a hive of backstage activity. Restoration, maintenance and transportation of

After a multi-million dollar expansion and renovation, the Center of Puppetry Arts is opening its doors again. The museum, which is devoted to puppets of the world and boasts a large collection of items by renowned puppeteer and Muppets creator Jim Henson, first opened in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1978. The global design and production company Thinkwell Group is behind the 7,500sq ft (697sqm) expansion, which cost US$14m (£9.3m, €12.9m). Half

New York’s American Museum of Natural History has revealed new plans by Studio Gang for its US$325m (€298.7m, £211.1m), six-storey addition, intended to expand the institution’s role for scientific research and education. The cave-like design by Jeanne Gang for the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation, will combine and streamline the various activities at the museum, helping with circulation problems by “conjuring spaces created by forces of nature”,

A new green space in Valencia will fill the the heart of the city with more than 55 acres of plants, trees and flowers. Construction has finally begun on Valencia Parque Central – designed by international landscape architects Gustafson Porter – four years after the approved plans were originally made public. Gustafson Porter beat off competition from a host of international practices, including Zaha Hadid Architects and Rogers Stirk Harbour