Dubai has revealed its legacy plans following the 2020 World Expo, announcing plans to turn the site into a multi-use urban leisure district following the six-month event’s conclusion. More than 80 per cent of the HOK-Arup masterplanned expo site will be reused after the international event closes, with a new community-led development called District 2020 repurposing the site under the government’s legacy scheme. Anchored by 65,000sq m (700,000sq ft) of

Dutch design practice UNStudio has completed a vast leisure complex in Hangzhou, with a pair of sinuous towers providing a dramatic new landmark for the Chinese city. The 400,000 sq m (4.3 million sq ft) Raffles City development – nine years in the making – has been conceived as a lively vertical neighbourhood and transit hub for the Qianjiang New Town district, featuring apartments, a Conrad hotel, restaurants, shops, sports

Dubai developer Nakheel has unveiled a pipeline of new leisure developments across the emirate, collectively worth AED4bn (US$1.08bn, €908m, £806.8m). The company used last week’s Cityscape Global real estate convention as a platform to announce the new projects, which are all phased additions its previous leisure schemes. These include a luxury high-rise beachfront residential complex on Palm Jumeirah; a residential, mall, hotel and health resort at Discovery Gardens; a unique

Games developer and broadcasting giant Blizzard Entertainment has transformed a legendary Los Angeles television studio into a major eSports arena. The popularity of eSports competitions – in which opposing players compete at video games played online, often with thousands of digital spectators following the action – has grown at a huge rate in the last decade. The Blizzard Arena has been conceived to take advantage of this growing popularity. Located

The University of Birmingham has officially opened an indoor sports centre, designed by British architecture studio Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, with the ambition “to provide future generations of the city’s athletes with world-class sports facilities.” The centre, which is open to students, academics and the public, includes the city’s first Olympic-standard swimming pool and a range of sports halls and gyms, laboratories, testing facilities and a large climbing wall. The building

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, together with Astir Palace Vouliagmeni SA, will spend €100m ($US119m, £88m) to transform the iconic Astir Palace into the Four Seasons Astir Palace Hotel Athens. Due to open in early 2018, the resort will be the first Four Seasons in Greece. The 1960s hotel is undergoing extensive upgrades, with interiors by designer Meyer Davis, and, when complete, it will include 300 bedrooms and a wellness

Real Madrid football club has announced plans to create an interactive football experience centre as part of a major development in Zhuhai, China. Business conglomerate the Lai Sun Group is behind the development – an integrated tourism and entertainment project called Novotown – which will, in its second phase, feature the world-first Real Madrid experience. Utilising advanced technologies, entertainment elements and football, visitors will be able to experience a number

Heatherwick Studio’s latest completed building, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) has been unveiled today (15 September) ahead of its public opening next week on Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront. The museum – the largest in the world dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora – is housed in 9,500sq m (102,000sq ft) of custom-designed space, carved out of the city’s monumental historic Grain Silo Complex

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has officially approved plans to transform Paris into an Olympic Park for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games – a decision which will see sporting events take place against the spectacular backdrop of the city’s historic buildings, streets and landmarks. The Champs Elysees and the River Seine are among the 38 Olympic and Paralympic venues spread across the French capital, while beach volleyball will be

Foster + Partners’ plans to reinvigorate the famous Snowdon Aviary at ZSL London Zoo have received planning approval from Westminster Council. The Grade II listed structure, designed by Cedric Price with Frank Newby and Lord Snowdon in 1962, was the first aviary in Britain that gave visitors a ‘walk-through’ experience, bringing them closer to the birds in their natural habitat. The attraction was recently added to Historic England’s Risk Register

British exhibition designers Casson Mann will team up with Parisian architects Atelier Philéas to create a new Centre of Franco British Relations in Ouistreham, France. Located on Sword Beach, facing the English channel, the attraction will explore and celebrate the shared social history and culture of the two countries, and the influence each has had and continues to have on the other. The design team were chosen ahead of 132

Celebrity chef Nobu Matsuhisa and his business partners Robert De Niro and Meir Teper are continuing to expand their Nobu Hospitality lifestyle brand in Europe, with plans to open a new hotel and restaurant in Barcelona, Spain. The trio have partnered with Selenta Group, a Spanish real estate and hotel company, to transform and co-manage the city’s Gran Hotel Torre Catalunya into the Nobu Hotel Barcelona – “a powerful stage

The striking new home for Spanish football side Atletico Madrid is ready to host its first match, with construction finally completed on the 68,000 capacity Wanda Metropolitano stadium. The club has invested a reported €300m on the new ground – which replaces the Vicente Calderon Stadium, its home of over 50 years – in order to propel them to the sport’s elite level. Spanish architecture practice Cruz y Ortiz were

International architects OMA have been selected by the Dutch government to transform a former prison into a cultural and civic space for Amsterdam. Bijlmerbajes was built in the southeast of the capital in the 1970s, and in the intervening decades the complex’s six linked towers have become a city landmark. As Amsterdam has expanded in all directions, they have gradually become the geographic centre of its newest urban districts. The

French architect Manuelle Gautrand has been awarded the 2017 European Prize for Architecture, becoming the first woman to receive the prestigious accolade. The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies and The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture – which jointly present the prize – praised Gautrand and her eponymous practice “for making special places and distinct spaces that celebrate ordinary life in our complex urban cities and our

A new NZ$30m (US$22m, €18m, £16.5m) luxury spa and wellness centre in Rotorua, New Zealand, will incorporate Maori culture in its design. Due to open in late 2019, the Wai Ariki Hot Springs and Spa will be set on Rotorua’s lakefront and is being developed by Pukeroa Oruawhata Group. The facility will form just one element of the wider health and wellness vision for the group’s 11-hectare site, and will

A Gothenburg warehouse will be transformed into a 16,500sq m (177,600sq ft) mixed-use hub, with Dutch architects MVRDV on design duties. Working in collaboration with BSK Arkitekter, the practice will convert the multi-storey industrial structure into Magasin 113 – “a lively cultural development with both private and public functions.” The project is located in the heart of Frihamnen RiverCity – the largest urban development project in Sweden, and indeed Scandinavia

A new leisure development next to London’s Tower Bridge is set for completion this month, featuring an Ivy restaurant and a brand new theatre established by acclaimed director Nicholas Hytner. Designed by architects Squire and Partners, One Tower Bridge has a prominent riverside location on Potters Fields Park, adjacent to the Grade I listed Tower Bridge. The masterplan – conceived as a “lasting new piece of the city”, which articulates

The International Well Building Institute (IWBI) has officially launched the WELL Community Standard – designed to help set up a new global benchmark for healthy communities. A rating system centered on human health and wellness, the new standard takes into consideration evidence-based research and has been developed through consultation with physicians, scientists and public health professionals, as well as architects, city planners and engineers. The programme builds on the principles

A major adventure resort offering a wide variety of physical, thrilling and wellness activities, a 100-bedroom hotel and 400 luxury lodges on a 480-acre (194-hectare) Welsh site will be project managed by AECOM. Afan Valley Adventure Resort will offer a mix of healthy and exhilarating pastimes, including water sports, mountain biking, survival training, trampolining, surfing and zorbing, in response to rising demand for British holidays with a stronger emphasis on

The future of the Expo 2020 site after the international event closes in April 2021 will be revealed next week, with a “reputational, social, physical and economic” legacy plan. The development proposals will be unveiled during the annual Middle East real estate exhibition, Cityscape Global, which takes place 11-13 September at the Dubai World Trade Centre. It will be the first time the vision for the project has been made

Almost 2,000 people have attended a private opening event for the Little Ceasers Arena; a 20,000-capacity sports and entertainment venue located in the heart of Detroit. Politicians, athletes, media personalities and business and civic leaders attended the event on Tuesday (5 September) to take a first look at the hotly-anticipated venue – the new home of National Hockey League (NHL) franchise the Detroit Red Wings and National Basketball Association (NBA)

Dubai development giant Nakheel is preparing to unveil a range of leisure projects worth more than AED3.2bn (US$871.2m, €727.5m, £666.9m) at the forthcoming Cityscape Global 2017 conference in the emirate. The company will launch six new residential, retail and hospitality developments for four of its communities in Dubai – including one of its its best-known locations: the tree-shaped Palm Jumeirah. Nakheel chair Ali Rashid Lootah said: “The Nakheel name is

Hospitality giant Hilton has announced an agreement with real estate firm Ithaafushi Investment to manage its new-built resort in the Maldives. Spanning three islands on the South Male Atoll, the Waldorf Astoria Maldives will be the second hotel in the Maldives for Hilton and will join 10 other Waldorf Astoria properties which are already open, or currently under development in the Asia Pacific. While few design details have been released,

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has launched a competition seeking “inspiring and innovative” ideas for the reuse of surplus gasholder bases – huge containers storing natural gas – across the UK. Once prominent across Britain, in recent years the numbers of gasholders in active use have dwindled. Now the National Grid Company, which manages the land they are built on, plans to dismantle them and find a new

The long-delayed and even longer-awaited Louvre Abu Dhabi has finally been given its launch date, with the Jean Nouvel-designed cultural institution opening to the public on 11 November. A string of setbacks dating back by more than decade have delayed the AED4.3bn (US$1.2bn, €1bn, £914m) project, which anchors the under-development Saadiyat Cultural District – where one day the Zayed National Museum designed by Foster and Partners and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi

Construction has begun on a 75,000sq m (807,300sq ft) green-terraced, mixed-use building located in Amsterdam’s Central Business District – the latest leisure project from Dutch architects MVRDV. The studio’s design for developer OVG Real Estate – which was selected by the Municipality of Amsterdam in 2015 following an international competition – includes shops, bars, restaurants, cultural facilities, apartments, offices and a sky bar spread across a sprawling forested man-made valley.