November 2018’s World Architecture Festival (WAF), at the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Convention Center, will have a speaker list boasting some of the biggest names in architecture. Adjaye Associates principal Sir David Adjaye, UNstudio co-founder Caroline Bos, Crab Studio founder Sir Peter Cook, OMA partner Reinier de Graaf and AECOM EMEA head of architecture Jennifer Dixon will all speak at the event, among others. WAF attendees will be able to

A 200-hectare, 150-bedroom hotel by luxury brand Anantara is to open in the Chinese city of Chengdu. The hotel will be a fairly low, wide structure with plenty of natural light throughout, owing to the large number of windows all around it. The whole project incorporates a 47-hectare eco-wetland park and, beyond its 150 bedrooms and suites, will have an all-day dining restaurant, speciality restaurant and lobby lounge. Other features

The innovative roof of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, US has been completed and is now fully operational. The roof is made up of eight moveable pentagonal shapes – labelled as “petals” by architects HOK – that join at the centre to provide full precipitation coverage. The eight petals are made from ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) and move together along 16 individual tracks. The mechanism gives the effect of the

Global spa consultancy Raison d’Etre (RdE) has been contracted by the Hard Rock Hotel Davos, Switzerland to design and implement the hotel’s ‘Rock Spa’ which opens on 1 August. Combining spa, fitness and yoga, the new Rock Spa will offer a 360-degree approach to wellness, in keeping with Raison d’Etre’s philosophy to encourage everyone to maximise their potential. The 945sq m spa will boast a series of thermal experiences, including

Asia-based General Hotel Management (GHM) has announced the opening date for its new Sharjah hotel, Al Bait Sharjah, as 1 September 2018. The hotel, which was developed in partnership with Sharjah investment and development authority Shurooq, is marketing its offering as a “refined level of luxury, sophistication and personalised service never experienced before in the Emirate”. In homage to traditional Sharjah architecture, Al Bait Sharjah’s foundations are set into the

The current trend of incorporating wellness into design shows no signs of stopping as renderings and animations from the latest Sir Richard Branson project, Virgin Voyages (a rebrand of the former Virgin Cruises), show a heavy wellness focus in its public areas. Featuring a running track, boxing ring, yoga deck, wellness pool and hydrotherapy pool, the ambitious cruise ship project is looking to change the way people think about sea

English football club Liverpool FC has confirmed plans to redevelop its academy site in Kirkby and the neighbouring Eddie McArdle community playing fields. The £50m project, designed by architects KSS, will see the Reds’ first team and academy football training operations and facilities brought together on one site in a new training campus. The 9,200sq m training centre will create a combined first team and U23 academy facility, each of

Asian hotel interiors specialists AB Concept, co-founded by Ed Ng, have designed restaurant, bar and lounge areas for the new the new Four Seasons Kuala Lumpur. Yun House, the main restaurant, has a decadent courtyard-style reception with an elaborate pewter back panel. Its high ceilings and natural light reference Malaysia’s longstanding tradition of socialising in gardens. The design of Yun House was inspired by legends of Canton voyagers, according to

Architecture and design practice Sam Jacob Studio will give London’s Cartoon Museum "greater flexibility" in displaying its collection, having been appointed to design its new home. The museum, which showcases a collection of cartoon and comic art dating back as far as the 18th century, was founded in 2006 and is "dedicated to preserving the best of British cartoons, caricatures, comics and animation". Following a 25-year lease deal agreed with

A 35-acre public park, which will also complete the Miami Beach boardwalk, will accompany Eighty-Seven Park – Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano’s first foray into the US residential market in Miami, Florida. Eighty Seven Park’s developer, Terra, is putting $10m (€8.5m, £7.6m) towards the North Shore Park transformation with plans to create an environment that will enhance the neighborhood and “bring the North Beach community closer together”. The park project

The latest CLADglobal news roundup video is now live. In this broadcast, we look at OOPEAA’s floating urban swimming pools, explore Margot Krasojevic’s tidal powered, energy saving hotel and discuss AECOM’s new stadium in Cameroon for the upcoming 2019 Africa Cup of Nations football tournament.

Architects Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) and city transformation company Sidewalk Labs, owned by Google’s holding company Alphabet, have teamed up to create a “prototype for a modular paving system which aims to make streets reconfigurable, safer and more accessible to pedestrians, cyclists and tomorrow’s self-driving vehicles”. Currently on exhibition in Toronto, The Dynamic Street is made up of a series of hexagonal modular paving slabs that can be picked up,

Three concepts have been shortlisted as finalists for the 2018 Radical Innovation Award, a hospitality design award that calls for the “best and brightest” concept ideas. Italian practice Network of Architecture (noa*) have been shortlisted for their striking concept – a hotel designed especially for single or separated parents and their children. With a proposed location in Sirmione, on the south coast of Lake Garda, Le Colline Incantate (the Enchanted

A redeveloped football stadium designed by Italian architectural practice Iotti+Pavarani in Pisa, Italy will blend into its Tuscan surroundings and sit low, so as not to disrupt the skyline of the city, according to the architects. Paolo Iotti, partner at the firm, told CLADglobal : “The architectural intention is to define a ‘new landscape’ establishing strong synergies with its context rather than creating a self-contained object of ‘design’; our main

Amos Rex, a new art museum in Helsinki, is set to open in August 2018, following the refurbishment of the Lasipalatsi Building in the centre of the Finnish capital. The €50m (US$58m, £44.7m) project, designed by Finnish architects JKMM, will house 2,200sq m (23,600sq ft) worth of gallery space created beneath the remodelled public Lasipalatsi Square. The new gallery’s roof, meanwhile, is formed of numerous domes, which contain angled rooflights

The Hotel Lutetia, originally opened in 1910 as the first luxury hotel on Paris’ Left Bank, has opened once again after an extensive renovation by architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte. Now owned by Set Hotels, the Hotel Lutetia features a new Spa Akasha with a holistic approach based on four elements. The 700sq m spa is bathed in natural light and includes six treatment rooms. Design features include lalique vases, marble walls

Tate St Ives is the only leisure building to find its way onto the shortlist for the 2018 RIBA Stirling Prize for the UK’s best new building. The Cornish museum – designed by Jamie Fobert Architects with Evans & Shalev – is one of the six projects today (19 July) revealed to be in the running for the prestigious prize. The other nominees include student housing, an office building, a

Atelier Chang have designed brightly coloured pods for a 'minimalist luxury' glamping resort near Suncheon in South Korea. The SJCC Glamping Resort consists of 16 living units, with an onsite restaurant and reception. The units are manufactured off-site and connected to the mains electricity and water supply; they feature a living area, two bedrooms and a kitchen and bathroom. They are made from a lightweight steel frame, covered with an

Adriaan Vorster, formerly a partner at international design practice SSH, has been appointed as director for architecture, Africa at global architecture company AECOM. A professional architect of 18 years, Vorster has 10 years’ experience at a strategic, managerial and business leadership level. Beyond this, Vorster has spent 15 years in the delivery of healthcare campuses in the UK, North America, the Far East and the Middle East. His work in

The Florida Keys will get a new luxury hotel in early 2019 with the opening of Isla Bella Beach Resort. Located on Knights Key in Marathon, Florida, US, at the threshold of the iconic Seven Mile Bridge, Isla Bella will include a 4,000sq ft spa. Set on 24 acres of tropical landscaping, the 199-bedroom resort is being developed by Pritam Singh & The Singh Company and will be the first

Jean-Michel Wilmotte, the architect behind the renovation of L’Hôtel Lutetia, Paris has said that in redesigning the famous Left Bank hotel it was “imperative to preserve and enhance its identity”. The hotel was originally built in 1910 by Le Bon Marché creators the Boucicaut family to accompany that department store. It closed in April 2014 to begin its renovation process after Wilmotte had won the competition to redesign it. The

New York-based Studio Libeskind have completed their first venture into China – a museum in the Hubei province’s capital city of Wuhan. Working in collaboration with the City of Wuhan and Vanke, the largest property developer in China, Studio Libeskind has designed the museum to function as a public hub with a fully landscaped plaza for locals to use. The museum’s upwards bowed central structure nods to ships sailing up

New Zealand's government has suspended NZ$25m (US$17m, €14.5m, £12.3m) financing for a convention centre in Wellington, New Zealand, with the plans on hold until Sir Peter Jackson can reach an agreement with the city over his proposed movie museum project. The country's government had agreed the financial package to help pay for the NZ$165m (US$111.6m, €96m, £85.6m) development, which would also feature Jackson's museum, however, the Ministry of Business, Innovation

Airbnb has offered an exclusive meet and greet with Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, which will include a visit to his under-construction Tokyo Olympic stadium. Five guests were given the opportunity to book the rare experience on a ‘first come, first served’ basis, with the places quickly snapped up. The lucky few will begin their special ‘Airbnb Experience’ with a tour of Kuma’s studio in Tokyo’s Aoyama neighbourhood. The architect will

The Preidlhof Hotel and Spa in South Tyrol, Italy, has unveiled a Dream Well Suite, which has won this year’s Innovation Award at the European Health and Spa Awards. Guests staying in the Dream Well Suite at Preidlhof can awaken to a slow-starting bird concert and sunbeams finding their way through treetops, or fall asleep to a sunset at a small mountain lake. Daniel Lathan at Sonami AG – who

Finnish architects OOPEAA have won a competition to design and create floating sea pools for public use in coastal cities and towns around the world, with the first to be rolled out in Oulu in the north of Finland. Following a pilot project in Helsinki in 2016, city development and investment group Töölö Urban ran the competition in April 2018 to commission a firm to design the Allas Sea Pools.

The Buffalo Museum of Science in Buffalo, New York, has celebrated the opening of its new digital planetarium, following the redevelopment of its Kellogg Observatory. The observatory, which reopens to the public for the first time in nearly two decades, has undergone major renovations. Part of the museum's history for close to a century, the observatory – along with its historic Lundin telescope and rooftop area – have undergone an