George Lucas’ legacy project – the US$300m (€220m, £179m) Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (LMNA) – has revealed that Beijing-based MAD Architects has been selected as principal designer for the project, while Chicago-based Studio Gang will work on the landscape. In addition, VOA Associates, based in Chicago, will serve as the executive architect and lead the implementation of MAD’s design. Pending approval by the Chicago Plan Commission, Lucas' 95,000sq ft

Tayto Park – one of Ireland’s most popular tourist attractions – has had a planning application for a €25m (£19.8m, $33.6m) expansion and world-class roller coaster approved by the local council. Meath County Council granted permission to develop a new entrance, car parking and visitor facilities as well as the roller coaster and additional new rides. The wooden roller coaster, to be designed and built by US wood-coaster specialists Gravity

Aberdeen City Council is looking for construction firms to carry out a £30m (US$50.9m, €37.8m) revamp of the Scottish city’s art gallery. The local authority’s approved plans include the construction of a new rooftop gallery and the extension of the gallery’s iconic war memorial. “It's great to see the next step towards expanding the Art Gallery has been taken,” said council chair Dustin Macdonald in a statement. The council has

London's Imperial War Museum (IWM) has marked the centenary of World War One with the reopening of its museum following the completion of the first phase of a larger £40m (US$68.3m, €50.5m) revamp of the entire facility. Opening to the public tomorrow (19 July), the first phase of the IWM's refurbishment was made possible with £6.5m (US$11.1m, €8.2m) in funding form the Heritage Lottery Fund (HFL) and £5m (US$8.5m, €6.3m)

De Matos Ryan – a London based architectural firm – has been granted planning permission to go ahead with a £4.1m revamp of The York Theatre Royal, UK, while nearby Newcastle's Theatre Royal is also getting a makeover, albeit behind the scenes. After a large fundraising effort, the York project is now set to move forward with an onsite start date of March 2015 and a provisional completion date of

Rome’s long-awaited €250m, (US$340m, £198m) Cinecittà World theme park – designed by multiple-Oscar-winning production designer designer Dante Ferretti – will finally open its doors to the public on 24 July after a decade of delays. Conceived as Italy’s take on Universal Studios, Cinecittà World comprises 20 attractions, including roller coasters, dark rides and a flight simulator. Incorporating elements of science fiction, Bollywood, spaghetti westerns and many other themes from more

Despite Germany’s attempt at crushing Brazil’s spirits in the 2014 Fifa World Cup, the nation's love of football has not been completely kicked to the wayside as plans have been unveiled for the world’s first Football Entertainment Centre to be built in Rio De Janeiro, allowing Brazil’s football legacy and love affair with the beautiful game, to continue. To be constructed in the form of a giant football which will

The Mall of the World – a giant indoor ‘city’ under construction in Dubai – will have its own version of Oxford Street and Broadway, as well as galleons, waterfalls, a theme park, wellness district and a host of other leisure activities and attractions. The ‘city’, which has a giant retractable dome, is Dubai’s vision for a climate-controlled leisure district, including luxury hotels with more than 20,000 bedrooms, shops, entertainment

The trend for new theme parks in China has continued with the announcement of the US$1.6bn (€1.2bn, £934m) Poseidon Ocean Kingdom in Harbin, Heilongjiang. Scheduled to open in July 2016, the park – backed and funded by the Malaysia-based KWZone Group – will be themed around stories of the Greek sea god Poseidon and will cover 1sq km (0.4sq m). Taylor Jeffs of US-based GGE, which is designing the visual

London’s AT Design Office has released designs for a floating city in the China Sea, and the plans look set to become reality as China's government looks to maximise its tourist footprint. Space is a premium on any continent, especially so in China and the proposed floating city would be built to appeal to tourists and residents alike, offering an array of attractions and plenty of green space. Commissioned by

Concept images have been released for the planned AU$428m (US$402m, €295.7m £235m) WA Museum in Perth, Australia. Planned to be built by 2019 and opened in 2020, the facility’s first conceptual image of the interior shows a blue whale skeleton hanging overhead. Backers have also produced the results of a year-long project looking at the scope, cost and delivery details before a tender phase of development. The new facility will

A planned super city in South Korea that will cost an estimated US$275bn (€202bn, £160bn) will include a host of leisure features including a theme park, casinos, luxury hotels, a 50,000 seat concert hall and a medical-themed ‘healing town’. Dubbed ‘City8’, the giant metropolis will create an estimated 930,000 new jobs and aims to attract 134 million tourists annually. Other features for the proposed city – to be built on

Glasgow Science Centre’s ill-fated tower is set to reopen in the Scottish city more than four years after visitors were last allowed to use it. The 127m (416ft) rotating tower – which offers a 20-mile view of the Glasgow area on a clear day – has spent more than 80 per cent of its existence closed since opening in 2001, having been plagued by a number of structural problems making

Employment within the UK creative industries sector – which includes museums, galleries and architecture – has increased five times faster than the national average since 2011, according to the latest figures published by the Department for Culture Media and Sport. The Creative Industries: Focus on Employment report builds on the findings of the Creative Industries Economic Estimates published in January this year which revealed the creative industries contribute more than

Redevelopment plans for London’s Crystal Palace have hit a wall as negotiations with the site's investors – Chinese ZhongRong Group and Bromley Council – have taken significantly longer than expected. Speaking to the Architects’ Journal, Green Party spokesman in Crystal Palace Tom Chance said: ‘We understand that the negotiations are stuck in a catch 22 situation – that the council wants more detail on the plans before they sign off

Wuhan, the capital city of central China, could be the home of the world’s tallest pair of buildings by 2018, as part of an ambitious mixed-use scheme. Chetwoods Architects, a UK based firm, have submitted proposals for the world’s tallest towers and are awaiting final approval from Wuhan’s mayor. The new Phoenix Towers, standing at 3,280ft (1 km) tall, would take up seven hectares of a yet-to-be developed 47 hectare

A huge 200,000sq ft (18,580sq m) aquarium will open in late 2015 as part of a US$175m (€128m, £103m) entertainment complex in Arizona, US, with work to start in August later this year. A part of the Odysea in the Desert leisure complex, OdySea Aquarium will cover 16 acres of land and will sit over two floors, accommodating up to 15,000 visitors daily and creating around 250 permanent jobs. The

China’s latest piece of ‘duplitecture’ – architectural replicas of tourist areas and attractions around the world – will be a CN¥10.8bn (US$1.7bn, €1.3bn, £1bn) recreation of Queenstown in New Zealand, alongside imitations of Davos in Switzerland and a Scottish-style town. The planned ski resort will be built with a “Queenstown-type feel” and will sit near another “mini-Queenstown” which will feature a scenic man-made blue lake, ski fields, a forest train,

Dubai city officials and architect Fernando Donis are at loggerheads following the unveiling of plans for a unique new attraction in Dubai. Donis, a Mexican architect, won the Dubai Municipality competition to design a new public monument in 2009 and now, five years later, new images have been released of the redesigned structure. The “Dubai Frame” will be 150m (492ft) tall and 100m (328ft) wide, with a walkway between the

A safari park set to replace Dubai Zoo is scheduled for a 2015 opening, according to park officials. Plans to replace Dubai’s current zoo have been on the cards for nearly a decade, with plans going back as far as early 2005, while the project has been scrutinised, reworked and revised for a method of relocating around 1,000 animals from their existing habitats. Dubai Municipality is carrying out the 120

Developer Almacantar, alongside Rafael Viñoly Architects, has gained planning permission for a £450m (US$755m, €554m) mixed use development scheme to be built in London’s Marble Arch. Westminster City Council has approved a bid to demolish the 1967 skyscraper currently standing on the site, with plans to replace it with two new towers, designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects, overlooking Hyde Park. The first tower – 17 storeys in height – will

The San Francisco 49ers American football side has released a raft of new details ahead of the scheduled opening of the team’s new US$1.2bn (€881m, £715m) Levi’s Stadium, including a new museum dedicated to the team. As the project nears completion, the team has revealed details of a 20,000sq ft (1,858sq m) 49ers Museum, which will be open daily and will give fans the chance to use a pass-and-kick simulator,

The world’s second richest man, Carlos Slim, is poised to open a four-storey underground aquarium in Mexico City at a cost of approximately MX$250m (US$20m, €14.6m, £11.9m). The 37,700sq ft (3,500sq m) Inbursa Aquarium is home to 5,000 marine animals (eventually to increase to 10,000) and features 230 different species (to increase to 307) of sea creatures, split across twelve different ecological zones through its 48 showrooms and five big

The Southbank Centre, London, is to receive funding from Arts Council England to carry out part of the much need conservation project across the site. The £16.7m grant will fund the repair and maintenance of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and the Hayward Gallery. Starting in 2015, the project will begin to address an accumulated backlog of £24m worth of repairs. Arts Council England will meet 70 per cent

Niall McLaughlin Architects (NMA) and Purcell have won a competition to build a new national museum for religion and religious art at Auckland Castle, County Durham. Auckland Castle, considered to be the third most historically-significant ecclesiastical complex in Europe, is in the process of being transformed into a major visitor attraction by its owner, businessman and philanthropist, Jonathan Ruffer. Shortlisted for the 2013 Stirling Prize, NMA will be heading up

In an exclusive interview with AM2, Jamie Christon, MD of Chester Zoo, UK, has revealed the masterplan for the attraction’s second wave of expansion which will follow the completion of the zoo’s Islands project in December this year. Islands will open to the public in May 2015. The 111 acre (50 hectare) zoo has earmarked an additional 389 acres (157.4 hectares) of space for its second wave of development. Christon

The Babcock Galleries at The National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard have opened to the public following a £4.5m renovation. The opening coincides with the centenary of the First World War, with the Galleries house to host a new permanent exhibition which explores 100 years of life in the Navy and the personal stories from those who served at sea. The project, led by architects Purcell