ARM Architecture have begun work on a AU$150m (US$101m, €91m, £77m), two-year renovation of the Sydney Opera House that will better equip it for performances, enhance its acoustics, improve accessibility and create a safer working environment. The project is part of the 10-year Decade of Renewal capital works programme, via which AU$275m (US$185m, €167m, £142m) of investment will transform the Opera House ahead of its 50th anniversary in 2023. The

The final retail and dining offerings are due to open next month the vast American Dream leisure, entertainment and retail complex in the US state of New Jersey, which opened in October having broken ground in 2004. Developed by Triple Five Group and designed by Gensler, the destination covers 3,000,000 sq ft (280,000sq m), with over 450 stores and 15 attractions. According to Don Ghermezian, president of American Dream, this

China's HE Art Museum has postponed its planned opening in March due to ongoing concerns regarding the coronavirus outbreak in the country. The museum, in Shunde, Guangdong Province, is a private, non-profit art institution, devoted to collecting and exhibiting Chinese and global contemporary art. The 16,000sq m (52,500sq ft) facility was designed by Tadao Ando, and was due to hold a ceremony to mark its opening on 21 March 2020.

The Seattle Asian Art Museum will reopen this weekend after a $56m (€51m, £43m) renovation and expansion of its historic 1933 Art Deco building by LMN Architects. The project, which has taken 12 years from planning through design and construction, was the first major renovation of the 64,250sq ft (6,000sq m) facility since it was constructed. Most notably, preservation work has been carried out on the building and its Art

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has chosen a team led by Axiom Space with design by Philippe Starck to create a commercial space station that will host professional astronauts and private explorers. The decision follows a solicitation process that will see the Axiom-led team granted access to a node of the International Space Station (ISS) to which it will be able to attach for construction a new habitable

Atari has announced that it is working with GSD Group and film producer Napoleon Smith III to build a series of video game-themed Atari Hotels in the US. The hotels will draw on the history of video games and the iconic Atari brand to create "fun and unique" places to stay. Initial renders for the first planned location, which will break ground in Phoenix, Arizona, later this year, show the

OF Studio have won a competition run by Emaar to create a new "landmark structure" on a 6,300sq m (67,800sq ft) plot within the 5.6 million sq m (60.3 million sq ft) Dubai Creek Harbour waterfront development. Participants were briefed to submit proposals that would respect the culture and climate of Dubai, but also expose children and families to new worldviews. OF Studio's LAND-MARK proposal was conceived to be a

Around 10,000sq ft (930sq m) of new galleries, designed by OMA, will be unveiled on 6th June as part of a phased reopening of the Denver Art Museum 's newly renovated, Gio Ponti -designed Martin Building. The work is part of a project led by Machado Silvetti and Fentress Architects to update elements of the museum and to reunify its campus. By horizontally bisecting the museum’s original Stanton Gallery, OMA

The Buhais Geology Park Interpretive Centre, with a Hopkins Architects design inspired by fossilised sea urchins, has opened in the United Arab Emirates. The centre is part of the new Buhais Geology Park, which is located on the al-Madam Plain approximately 30mi (50km) from the city of Sharjah. Although now desert, the site used to be a seabed and has an abundance of marine fossils from over 65 million years

Europe's first Legoland Water Park – and the first to open in a non-Legoland destination – will open at the Gardaland resort close to Lake Garda, Italy, on 28 May. The park, which was announced last year, will cover 15,000sq m (160,000sq ft) and will be constructed, in part, from millions of Lego bricks. Aimed at families with children, it will be home to several different themed lands, as well

A team led by Schmidt Hammer Lassen (SHL) is one of two left in the running to create a new library in Skien, Norway, with a hybrid design that will allow visitors to experience the work and influence of Henrik Ibsen. The Ibsen Library is being established to drive increased social involvement and democratic participation in the region, to become a visitor attraction and to honour the legacy of the

Avanton, a London-based property developer, has announced potential plans to create an alligator farm and enclosure inside a Grade II-listed Victorian gasholder on the city's Old Kent Road. The enclosure would form the centrepiece of a housing and office development worth a reported £230m (US$300m, €270m). The structure's tanks would be converted to become a habitat, while part of the 160ft (49m) iron frame would be glazed to create a

Jora Vision have created a masterplan and concept designs for a new Russian theme park inspired by the literary poems and fairy tales of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin. Pushkin is considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. His fairy tales, which centre around an imaginary land called "Lukomorye", have entertained children for hundreds of years. Now, Svetoch LLC, a company based in

Plans for the £337m ($438m, €394m) Museum of London, designed by Stanton Williams, Asif Khan and Julian Harrap Architects, have been submitted to the City of London Corporation. Described as "one of the biggest cultural projects happening in Europe", the museum has been in development since 2015, with the Stanton Williams and Asif Khan-led team announced in 2016 and the designs revealed earlier this year. The facility is to be

New details have been revealed about the immersive, game-themed Super Nintendo World, which is due to open at Universal Studios Japan in Tokyo this summer. The theme park land has been conceived for visitors to feel as if they are playing inside their favourite Nintendo video games and will feature Nintendo’s well-known worlds, characters and adventures. Technology and design will be used to blend the physical world with a digital,

The Grand Egyptian Museum, designed by Heneghan Peng Architects, has finally been given an opening date, with one of the year's biggest cultural openings now scheduled to open in the final quarter of 2020. Construction of the museum began in 2006 but was delayed by the 2011 revolution in Egypt. Around 90 per cent of construction work is now complete, though, and all of the planned artefact transfers to the

Minnesota Zoo is raising money to create a treetop walkway on an old monorail track and to repurpose a former IMAX theatre for use as an adventure hub. The plans are part of a capital investment request and – the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune newspaper reports – have been developed as an alternative to acquiring new or exotic animal exhibits as a means to attract visitors. The $11m (€9.9m, £8.4m), 1.3mi

The new Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture in Washington State, designed by Olson Kundig, opened towards the end of last year, providing more space and flexibility, a more transparent layout and improved climate control. The building was actually completed in October, but information from the architects has just been made fully available. The 105,000sq ft (9,800sq m) building, which is 66 per cent larger than the old building,

Art collective teamLab, working with Sands Resorts Macao, are set to open a museum of immersive digital artworks in Macau, China, this February. teamLab SuperNature Macao is based on the collective's SuperNature concept, through which they create a world of interactive artworks aimed at blurring the boundaries between people’s bodies and art. The new attraction will be located at the Venetian Macao hotel in an expo hall covering an area

The historic Belgian city of Bruges has been illuminated with a 2km (1.2mi) walk-through lighting and visual experience for the festive "Wintergloed" (Winter Glow) season, using atmospheric light installations from Painting with Light (PWL). The company was commissioned by Bruges Plus, the organisation responsible for the city's cultural events, and has designed a series of ephemeral lighting and projection-mapped installations in six different areas, each inspired, according to PWL, by

The highly-anticipated St. Louis Aquarium, designed by PGAV Destinations, has opened its doors at the city's Union Station, a former train station and National Historic Landmark that has been converted to become a mixed-use entertainment destination. Among Union Station's features are its Grand Hall, which features original terrazzo flooring, green-glazed terracotta bricks and stained glass windows, and the St. Louis Union Station Hotel, which still offers some of the station's

Studio Studio Studio, a new interdisciplinary collaboration lab founded by Edoardo Tresoldi, have created a 26m (85ft)-high pavilion from cork and mesh with intimate spaces and narrow paths that visitors can explore. Gharfa is part of the Diriyah Oasis temporary creative district in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. Tresoldi aimed to create "a theatrical world where technique, reality, and illusion are all intertwined." Mesh has been used to sculpt

Hassell and OMA have completed construction of the New Museum for Western Australia, which houses museum exhibitions, event spaces and public areas in a newly unified group of old and new buildings. Located in Perth, the facility combines four heritage-listed buildings with a newly created volume, tripling the size of the museum. Inside, there are eight new galleries, a 1000sq m (10,800sq ft) special exhibitions gallery, multipurpose spaces for programs,

Herzog & de Meuron have won a competition to design a new museum complex on China's Grand Canal with the aim of the reflecting the river's importance in Chinese culture and to create a new gathering place. Situated in the city of Hangzhou at the junction of the Grand Canal and the Hanggang River, the museum will be surrounded by water on three sides. it will cover an area of

The Contemporary Calgary art gallery is set to reopen next month following the first phase of a $92m (€83m, £71m) transformation and expansion of its home at the former Centennial Planetarium, carried out by Gibbs Gage Architects and KPMB Architects. Known for its brutalist architecture, with an imposing concrete dome atop the main structure, the building is having its existing spaces renovated and a new wing constructed. The first phase

Plans for a £175m (US$228.7m, €205.7m) indoor tropical waterpark and spa in Manchester, UK, will have to wait until March for approval, with the local council set to consider the proposal in March 2020. Therme Group and developer Peel L&P initially submitted plans in July 2019 for public consultation, with a planning application to Trafford Council following last month. The plans foresee a 28-acre resort that includes a 700,000sq ft

Construction of a new pavilion at the Seattle Aquarium, designed by LMN Architects, looks set to go ahead after the city council approved a US$34m (€30.7m, £25.8m) contribution towards funding. Designs for the US$113m (€102m, £85.8m) 50,000sq ft (15,240sq m) Ocean Pavilion project were unveiled in 2017. It will see a 325,000-gallon (1.5-million-litre) martini glass-shaped tank built to house sharks, stingrays, and schooling and reef fish from the South Pacific's