The Chinese mainland has its first Hard Rock Hotel, complete with a huge vinyl mosaic, hundreds of red guitars hanging from the walls and a golden dragon made from drumsticks and 1,680 cymbals. Hong Kong practice CL3 Architects, led by William Lim, were commissioned by developer Mission Hill Properties to design the Hard Rock Hotel Shenzhen, combining the brand’s trademark references to rock and roll with local design flourishes. Vibrant

Design initiative Young Architects Competitions (YAC) has joined forces with the Italian government to launch ‘Art Prison’, an ideas contest for the refurbishment of a fortress on a remote island in southern Sicily. The fortress of Santa Caterina stands over the peak of Favignana, an isle in the Mediterranean Sea. It was once a prison but has stood abandoned for more than a century. Over time, it has become a

The Global Wellness Institute has released its first report on wellness real estate and communities, Build Well to Live Well. The organisation estimates that the global wellness real estate market was worth US$134bn (€108bn, £94bn) in 2017, and projects it will grow six per cent a year, to US$180bn (€145bn, £126bn), by 2022. The US is the largest market, worth US$52.5bn (€42bn, £37bn), followed by China, Australia and the UK,

One of Scandinavia’s best-known design studios, Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, have joined global firm Perkins+Will in a strategic partnership. In a joint statement, the two practices said the move will allow Perkins+Will to diversify its global talent, expand its cultural and civic practice and reinforce the caliber of its design portfolio, while Schmidt Hammer Lassen will be able to expand into new geographic markets, grow its client base, “and apply

German architect Ole Scheeren has completed the much-anticipated Guardian Art Center on the doorstep of Beijing’s historic Forbidden City. The building is a hybrid cultural institution, featuring museum galleries, conservation facilities, restaurants and a hotel. It also claims to have the world’s first custom-built auction house. The centre’s lower portion is a series of nested stone volumes that echo the scale and materiality of the adjacent traditional hutong courtyard houses,

A design team led by Norwegian practice Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter has won an invited competition to create a vast cultural hub, topped by a timber tower enclosed in glass, next to Oslo’s historic railway station. The project, called Fjordporten, will be the largest mixed-use complex in Norway. It has been conceived to revitalise the area around the main train station and offer travellers “new spatial and qualitative experiences.” The base

A design team led by Norwegian practice Reiulf Ramstad Arkitekter has won an invited competition to create a vast cultural hub, topped by a timber tower enclosed in glass, next to Oslo’s historic railway station. The project, called Fjordporten, will be the largest mixed-use complex in Norway. It has been conceived to revitalise the area around the main train station and offer travellers “new spatial and qualitative experiences.” The base

Architects Chad Oppenheim and Arthur Casas have collaborated to create a dynamic hotel nestled between dilapidated 1950s apartment buildings on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach. The Emiliano Rio has a distinctive façade of sculptural weatherproof panels which can be opened and closed from the bedroom balconies, resulting in a constantly shifting elevation. “Through these simple yet powerful spatial manipulations, the hotel optimises its beneficial attributes while subverting its negative forces,”

Dutch architects MVRDV have added to their extensive list of future projects after winning an international design competition for a major mixed-use complex in Moscow’s city centre. The scheme, called Silhouette, will consist of luxury apartments of various configurations and sizes, a sports centre, flexible workspaces, an events space and a public sky deck. The design of the 52,000sq m (560,000sq ft), 78m (256ft) tall building is inspired by the

A series of theme parks has been announced, to open in Mexico, with the first coming to Mexico City later this year at a cost of MX$550m (US$29.4m, €24m, £21.1m). Coming to the municipality of Iztapalapa on the east side of the Mexican capital, entertainment investment firm Grupo Diniz are behind the franchise, called Kataplum. Covering 27,000sq m (290,000sq ft), theme park attractions will be split into three areas covering

Luxury wellness hotel operator Six Senses will open its first city hotel in Singapore this year as part of a restoration of two buildings in the heart of the city-state’s Chinatown. Six Senses Singapore is split across two buildings within walking distance of each other, Six Senses Duxton and Six Senses Maxwell, and will celebrate local Singapore culture and history while adding a touch of playfulness to the heritage properties,

After transforming a historic Scottish bank building into a bar, architecture studio Jestico + Whiles have unveiled their latest hospitality conversion project: a steak and gin restaurant built within Manchester’s Victorian-era Corn Exchange. Conceived as a hidden speakeasy serving 60 types of gin, Alston Bar & Beef will see diners must enter via a discrete entrance into a modest lobby, which is decorated by a large hand-painted mural created by

One of the Asia Pacific’s most flexible stadiums will open this Sunday (19 January) in Perth, Australia, with an open day welcoming fans into the 60,000 capacity landmark. The AU$1.6bn (US$1.2bn. €1bn, £925m) Optus Stadium – collaboratively designed by architecture firms Hassell, Cox and HKS – is owned by the state of Western Australia and can accommodate athletics, cricket, football, Australian rules football, rugby league and union, and huge concerts

V&A Dundee, Scotland’s first design museum, will open to the public on Saturday 15 September 2018, it has been revealed. New images of the Kengo Kuma-designed building have been released to coincide with the announcement, as have details of the museum’s inaugural exhibitions. Standing at the centre of the £1bn (US$1.3bn, €1.1bn) transformation of the city’s waterfront, once part of the docklands, V&A Dundee has been designed to evoke the

Canadian rapper, producer, actor and entrepreneur Drake is turning his attention to the restaurant business. The rapper, singer and songwriter is opening a high-end restaurant and sports bar in his hometown of Toronto, in a development on the corner of Yonge and Wellington Street. Called Pick 6ix and run by Drake’s OVO brand and record label, the restaurant is due to open in the very near future, with an official

Danish architects COBE and Norwegian beer maker Lervig have unveiled plans for a major waterfront visitor centre and brewery in Stavanger, Norway. Located on a former industrial pier, the 11,000sq m (118,400sq ft) building has been conceived as “a unique attraction for locals and visitors”, with a harbour bath, roof garden and street-food market all incorporated into the mixed-use scheme. COBE have described the design concept as “part architecture, part

Kengo Kuma’s extensive pipeline of public projects just got even longer, with his firm winning an international competition to design an aquatics centre on an artificial quay in Copenhagen’s harbour. The municipality has selected Kengo Kuma Associates to create the 5,000sq m (53,800sq ft) Danish Water Culture Center, ahead of four other shortlisted teams – BIG, 3XN Architects, AART Architects and ALA Architects. The project will be built on Christiansholm

The £1bn ($1.38bn, €1.12bn) project to rebuild Chelsea Football Club’s Stamford Bridge stadium in London has overcome its final hurdle, after a motion was passed preventing a local family from blocking the proposed plans. The Crosthwaite family, whose house is the closest residence to the ground, took out an injunction under their ‘right to light’, stating that a redeveloped East Stand would restrict daylight coming into their home. But at

Hotel and resort operator Starwood is set to open and operate a hotel under its St Regis luxury brand in the heart of Hong Kong. Scheduled for a 2019 launch, the 129-bedroom hotel will be located in the historic Wan Chai district, a commercial and retail hub close to Victoria Harbor. The interiors of the 25-storey St Regis Hong Kong – which is owned by China Resources Property – will

A team of academic researchers, landscape architects and artists have come together to look at how nature in cities affects mental wellbeing. Researchers at King's College London, landscape architects J & L Gibbons and art foundation Nomad Projects have used smartphone-based technology to assess the relationship between nature in cities and mental wellbeing in real time. Not surprisingly, they found that being outdoors, seeing trees, hearing birdsong, seeing the sky

A science museum in Suzhou, China, is to act as the centrepiece of a new cultural district in the city, with the design celebrating nature while highlighting the role of industrial development. Taking inspiration from its surroundings, the 600,000sq ft (56,000sq m) Suzhou Science & Technology Museum is inspired by the Chinese expression of "shan sui", which means “union of mountain and lake”. Forming an infinity loop, the Perkins+Will-designed building

The creative director of Gucci has opened a restaurant, museum and gift shop dedicated to the luxury fashion house – in a 14th-century Florentine palace. Alessandro Michele decided to open the attraction, called Gucci Garden, as a fun and accessible introduction to the brand and “a hypnotic territory that alters the state of consciousness and perception". The attraction spans three floors within the Palazzo della Mercanzia, which previously housed a

Marriott International has secured a deal to open and manage a 337-room luxury hotel in Japan’s second-largest city, Osaka. Designed by architect Tadao Ando, the 27-floor property will be operated by Marriott’s subsidiary W Hotels Worldwide. Scheduled to open in 2021, the property is owned by real estate giant and house builder Sekisui House and will be the first-ever W-branded hotel in Japan. Facilities will include a large Away Spa

Katherine Lo, daughter of Langham Hospitality Group chair Ka Shui Lo, has transformed the group’s Eaton brand into Eaton Workshop – a global lifestyle business including a wellness component. Lo used her background in activism, anthropology and film to create Eaton Workshop, which includes four distinct parts: hotel, house, media and wellness. The first hotel is set to open in Washington DC early this year, with locations to follow in

Architect Theoni Xanthi has told CLADglobal how her team's vision for the national archaeology museum in Cyprus was inspired by “the materials that gave birth to Cypriot and Mediterranean culture”. The partner at Greek studio XZA Architects is leading the design of New Cyprus Museum – a project the firm won the project in a two-stage international competition held last year. Housing the nation’s treasures, the €49m (US$58.7m, £43.6m) building

A host of luxury leisure amenities have been revealed for the latest high-profile tower designed by architect Rafael Viñoly for New York. Global real estate firm Bizzi & Partners Development are overseeing the creation of the 88-storey, 912ft tall luxury condominium skyscraper, called 125 Greenwich Street, which is situated a block from the Santiago Calatrava-designed Oculus in Lower Manhattan. Viñoly – who is best-known for the Walkie Talkie in London

Former US president Barack Obama has provided an update on his Presidential Center, promising to “create a campus for active citizenship in the heart of Chicago’s South Side”. The design, which was unveiled in May last year, has been created by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects in partnership with Interactive Design Architects (IDEA). According to Obama and his wife, Michelle, the US$350m (€293m, £259.5m) Presidential Center – which is now