Work has started on the M+ Museum West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD), Hong Kong, following a ground breaking ceremony. Designed by Herzog and de Meuron in partnership with TFP Farrells and Ove Arup & Partners Hong Kong, the museum's ground breaking was marked by the burial of a commemorative time capsule containing contemporary and local items, ready to be rediscovered in a century. The M+ Museum, with a floor space

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has given a grant of £7.8m (US$11.8m, €10.4m) to ‘The Sill’ a new visitor centre for Hadrian’s Wall and Northumberland National park. The most recent plans for ‘The Sill’ were announced in October 2014, outlining that the project needed at least £11.2m (US$17.9m, €14.3m) to get it off the ground. The HLF grant will help to secure the future of the project, while other donations

The opening of a planned visitor centre in Falkirk, Scotland, has been delayed for further expansion after visitor numbers to the Kelpies doubled original expectations. Work on the development has already started nearby artist Andy Scott’s giant horse-head sculptures, which are at the centre of the Helix parkland project. The sculptures debuted in April 2014, with more than 680,000 people visiting by September and an estimated 950,000 to visit in

The Broad, a new contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, US, is set to open to the public on 20 September 2015. The US$140m (€123m, £91.6m) museum is being funded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, founders of the The Broad Art Foundation whose assets total US$2.6bn (€2.2bn, £1.7bn). Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) in collaboration with Gensler, the museum has been dubbed “the veil and vault”, referring

FIGMENT, an arts festival that takes over Governors Island in New York City every summer has announced two winners for its 2015 City of Dreams pavilion competition. First started in 2007, FIGMENT acts as a forum for the creation and display of participatory and interactive art. Since then, it has grown in size and public support and is now a major art event in cities across the USA over the

Work has started on a £25m (US$37m, €33m) community and leisure centre in Harrow, North London. Planning was granted back in 2010 for the project, which seeks to create a 5,000sq m (53,820sq ft) centre, acting as a ‘cultural embassy’ for Harrow’s community. London and Barcelona-based Mangera Yvars Architects is the firm behind the project. The practice originally set out to provide a space where people of any faith could

Two parties are vying for the right to develop the Queen’s Wharf site in Brisbane, with the scheme being hailed as the ‘best integrated resort in Australia’. Echo Entertainment Group (EEG) – working in conjunction with Chow Tai Fook Enterprises and Far East Consortium International Limited – is up against Crown/Greenland: a group headed up by casino tycoon James Packer, Crown CEO, and Chinese development firm Greenland. The two groups

The Smithsonian Institute is in discussions with a view to opening its first location outside the US. The 40,000sq ft (3,700sq m) Smithsonian gallery would be part of the Olympicopolis educational and cultural quarter being developed at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London. In September 2014, London mayor, Boris Johnson, launched a design competition for the new £400m (US$650m, €503m) educational and cultural quarter and nearly 1,000 design

A massive aquarium is at the centre of plans for Casablanca, Morocco, to lure in tourists and locals with a new MAD300m (US$34.8m, €30m, £23m) facility. To feature a variety of aquatic life – including dolphins, sea lions, penguins and sharks – the 15,000sq m (161,500sq ft) aquarium would be built at the Casablanca Marina. The Casablanca-based Al Manar Development Company (AMDC) is behind the plans, which have been inspired

Launching in April, an online crowdfunding campaign is looking for £250,000 (US$383,425, €336,544) to make outdoor swimming in London’s Thames a reality. Plans for an outdoor swimming pool, known as the Thames Baths, have been in the works for a while. Originally designed for a competition “London As It Could Be Now” in early 2014, architecture practice Studio Octopi came up with the initial outline for the project. The practice,

The £80m (US$121m, €104.4m) Jurassica dinosaur attraction proposed inside a limestone quarry in Dorset, UK, could generate £20m (US$30.3m, €26.1m) for the local economy every year, according to the charity behind the planned attraction. If the plans go ahead, the attraction is estimated to bring in 960,000 visitors annually. The subterranean geological park – backed and supported by Sir David Attenborough, the Eden Project's Sir Tim Smit and science writer

Saudi Arabia’s Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) – in collaboration with colleges of excellence at the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) – will train 10,000 young Saudi people in architectural heritage to help professionalise the sector and boost domestic tourism. The ambitious training programme would see the students trained over the next five years in preparation for joining engineering and contracting offices and firms in the Kingdom. In

The field of architects competing to design the revamp of the Sydney Modern art gallery in New South Wales, Australia, has been narrowed down to five architects for stage two of the competition. The final five shortlisted architects are Tokyo-based Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA; Kengo Kuma & Associates - also from Tokyo; Perth’s Kerry Hill Architects; Mumbai-based Rahul Mehrotra Architects; and Melbourne’s Sean Godsell Architects. “Our vision

Minnesota Children’s Museum has revealed new renderings for its US$28m (€24.1m, £18.4m) expansion, designed to reimagine existing galleries, plus add new amenities and engaging activities for visitors. The expansion will increase the museum’s size to around 74,000sq ft (6,874sq m) and will include new interactive exhibits for children. Additional exhibits will include expanded air and water play space, as well as a new obstacle course comprising a four-storey climbing structure,

Toledo Zoo in Ohio is entering the final stages of a three-year, US$25m (€21.5m, £16.4m) renovation of its aquarium, which has seen the interior of the historic facility completely renovated. The aquarium, which first opened in 1939, was closed in 2012 for the renovations. The new development has almost tripled the amount of water inside the aquarium. The aquarium’s new saltwater Pacific Reef holds 90,000 gallons of water – nearly

Global design firm PGAV Destinations, which won accolades for Chimelong Ocean Kingdom last year, has announced a completely different type of project. Following on from the blockbuster Chinese theme park comes a change of pace, as the practice starts work on California wild animal rescue centre Big Bear Alpine Zoo. PGAV has been commissioned to redesign the facility, which is being relocated to a nearby site. The zoo originally opened

George Lucas has said that his proposed legacy museum to be built on the Chicago lakefront could end up going to Los Angeles, after the project met with opposition from an open space campaign group. Last year Lucas picked Chicago over both San Francisco and Los Angeles, with Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti strongly pushing for the museum to come to his city. In November, a federal judge put a

The City of Miami has approved US$9m (€7.8m, £6m) in tax subsidies for the upcoming US$430m (€371m, £283m) SkyRise tower – an entertainment complex topped by a 1,000ft (304m) observation tower. Located next to the American Airline Arena and Miami’s Bayside Marketplace, the tower itself is expected to be the second-tallest observation tower in the US, after Las Vegas’ 1,148ft (350m) Stratosphere Tower. Also set to be included is a

The Gateway to Science Center in Bismarck, North Dakota, is planning a new US$40m (€34m, £26.3m) facility to expand its target audience from children to people of all ages. Overlooking the Missouri River, the new space will morph the centre from a hands-on children's facility to one that benefits visitors young and old. Scheduled to open in Q1 of 2017, the 65,000sq ft (6,000sq m) facility will sit on a

Plans to convert a 1926 art deco cinema in London into a luxury residential development have been rejected by Kensington & Chelsea Council, following a firm word from London's favourite fictional detective. Squire and Partners’ plans for the site has been in the works since 2007, when planning permission was originally granted. However, the 'Save Kensington Odeon' campaign brought the development to a standstill following its most recent plea, which

Ole Bouman, previously the head of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, has been named as the director of the upcoming Shekou Design Museum in Shenzhen, China. The new Design Museum is a joint collaboration between the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and China Merchants Property Development Company, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based conglomerate China Merchants Group (CMG). Bouman, who has a deep interest and involvement with all things architecture and design,

The Museum of Fine Arts, in Houston, Texas, has unveiled its US$450m (E381m, £297m) expansion plan to carry it through to 2019. The masterplan – by Steven Holl Architects – will see a redevelopment of the 14-acre (56,600sq m) campus to include new buildings, gardens and a top floor restaurant. Plans include a 164,000sq ft (15,200sq m) gallery to showcase the museum’s collection of 20th and 21st century art, as

Manchester-based architecture firm Buttress has seen off stiff competition from Heneghan Peng and Austin-Smith Lord to win the design contract for a £21m (US$32m, €27m) museum in Blackpool Winter Gardens. The Blackpool Museum will document the town’s rise as the world’s first working class Victorian seaside town and celebrate its contribution to pop culture. As part of the plans, the close to derelict Pavilion Theatre – which is part of

A new state-of-the-art planetarium dome being built in the Indian city of Thiruvananthapuram has been forced to delay its grand opening after design flaws forced the under-construction Kerala State Science and Technology Museum (KSSTM) to scrap previous plans. Originally planned to open later this month, Priyadarshini Planetarium will now debut in April. “In the original design, 48 poles had to be angled at precisely 15 degrees to hold up the

Final plans for Europe’s largest museum development have been revealed with new renderings released for the HUF75bn (US$277m, €235m, £183m) cultural quarter known as Park Budapest in Hungary. Following the judge’s selection, which was narrowed down from more than 500 anonymous applications, the Museum of Ethnography will be built in line with plans by French architecture practice Vallet de Martinis DIID Architectes, while Japanese firm Sou Fujimoto Architects has designed

A 17.6km (10.9mile) long cycleway will be built in Jiaozhou, China, designed by architecture and design firm Mecanoo. The Golden Ribbon cycling route will be funded by the World Bank and is the result of research on ‘innovation in mobility’ by the University of Shandong. The cycleway has been designed for “connectivity, comfort and experience”, while encouraging the use of bikes to improve public health, air quality and the environment.

The world’s first Museum of Science Fiction is coming to Washington DC, with a preview facility currently in the works before a full-scale museum opens in 2018. Set to launch by the end of 2015, the US$3m (€2.5m, £2m) Preview Museum will cover 4,000sq ft (371sq m) and will act as an area to test concept exhibitions and offer a glimpse into the process of building the final full-scale facility.