A new Thomas The Tank Engine-themed park has opened in Shinmisato, Japan. Thomas Town Shinmisato – a joint venture between HIT Entertainment and Pleasurecast, the attractions division of Bandai Namco – is a 772sq m site located within the Lala Port Shinmisato shopping mall. The park boasts five-themed zones, with a Thomas dark ride, Cranky the Crane play structure, a museum, an education area and a café. Frank Foley, general

The Miami Science Museum has received planning permission for its new US$275m (£172m, 188m euro) home. Museum Park Miami will be a 40-acre park designed for both “active and passive recreation”, with two museums – The Miami Museum of Science and the Miami Art Museum – as well as lawns, public gardens, fountains and pools. The new museum has been designed by British firm Grimshaw Architects, with an aquarium designed

The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) is to open its new location in New York on 22 September. The new 14,000sq ft space, located in a former machine shop, was designed by Maya Lin and will boast multiple exhibition galleries, interactive display kiosks, a multipurpose auditorium/classroom, a research centre and a space for multidisciplinary public programmes. MOCA’s core exhibition is called “With a single step: Stories in the making

Southampton City Council (SCC) has unveiled the latest designs for the new Sea City Museum Project, which is set to form part of the wider development of a new Cultural Quarter for the city. The first phase of the Sea City Museum scheme, which has been designed by London-based architects Wilkinson Eyre, is scheduled to open to the public in 2012 to mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of

The Mary Rose warship at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is to be withdrawn from public view on 20 September in order to allow construction work to start on a new £35m museum at the Hampshire attraction. A special programme of events and activities will be provided during the temporary closure of the historic Tudor warship, which will remain out of view until 2012. The existing Mary Rose museum located elsewhere at

Exhibition design group Event Communications has been appointed to develop the interpretive design for the planned £18.5m visitor centre at the Giant's Causeway tourist attraction in Northern Ireland. Event will work closely with The National Trust - which manages the world heritage site - on the project which will include scoping, shaping and implementing the interpretative plan for the Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast World Heritage Site. Steve Simons, executive

UK-based Lazenby Design has been appointed to design the new Evolution Museum in Athens, Greece. Scheduled to open in 2010, the 4,000sq m museum will be located at the city’s Attica Zoological Park. The museum will house both outdoor and indoor exhibits, including immersive prehistoric environments, creature models, palaeontology displays and animated interpretive AV exhibits. The museum will chart the history of the planet from early organisms through the dinosaur

Camden Council has turned down a planning application for a £135m extension to the British Museum in London, UK. The proposed development, designed by architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP), had secured the support of English Heritage but had angered a local conservation group, Bloomsbury Conservation Area Advisory Committee (BCAAC). RSHP's plans included a new 1,000 sq m (10,760sq ft) building at the rear of the museum, replacing the

A new visitor centre has opened at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum's Blists Hill Victorian Town. The centre forms part of a £12m redevelopment of the town, which has been funded by Advantage West Midlands and The European Regional Development Fund. The building was designed by specialist architectural practice Nash Partnership of Bath with support from Osbornes Architects and was constructed by Mansell Construction Services Ltd. As well as the different

Southampton City Council in the UK has appointed architects to design its new £15m Sea City Museum attraction. London-based architects Wilkinson Eyre won the contract to design the attraction, which will be located in the council’s Civic Centre, previously occupied by Southampton’s magistrate courts and police headquarters. The museum is intended to provide access to and interpretation of the city’s maritime heritage, and will include an exhibition on the Titanic,

A new recycling-themed visitor attraction is to open in Wrexham later this year. Commissioned by Waste Recycling Group (WRG) and designed by Mather & Co, the facility – which will be attached to the Bryn Lane recycling plant – will be a bilingual (English and Welsh) interactive centre for schools and colleges, as well as other interested parties. The site will feature interactive displays, role-play games, a CGI film showing

Drayton Manor theme park has been given approval to build further accommodation in the visitor attraction's surrounding parkland near Tamworth in Staffordshire. The 150-bedroom hotel will comprise a 90-cover restaurant and a 60-cover brasserie, as well as a café, a banqueting suite and a creche. A planning application submitted to Lichfield District Council in 1997 was approved earlier this year, but final authorisation by Government Office West Midlands has only

Australia-based JVPlay has announced plans to develop a 69-acre resort in Sydney, New South Wales, boasting a 250-room four-star hotel and indoor and outdoor waterparks. JVPlay, a supplier of amusements, custom themed environments, architectural design, project management services, business planning and feasibility studies to the leisure industry, is currently seeking investors for the scheme, which is to be called The Great Reef Resort. Phase one of the project will see

The designers for China's new cultural center located in the heart of the city of Shenzhen, southern China, have been selected and will form part of the city's Crystal Island project. The Office for Metropolitan Architecture, in partnership with Shenzhen-based architects Urbanus, were awarded first place in the design competition and will now push forward with their creation of the Shenzhen Creative Center. The centre will be situated within 20-hectare

Architect David Chipperfield has been commissioned to design a new gallery for the Jumex Foundation’s Coleccion Jumex in Mexico. The Coleccion Jumex is run by Jumex, a fruit juice company, and features contemporary art from around the world. The new 4,000sq m gallery will double the site’s exhibition space and will be host to 2,000 pieces of art from the collection. Work is expected to being in March next year.

Imperial War Museum North (IWMN) in Manchester has selected German architects Topotek 1 as the preferred design team to develop the external spaces of the museum. According to Jim Forrester, IWMN director, Topotek's scheme was chosen due to the fact that it best addressed a complex brief and complemented the Daniel Libeskind-designed building. Topotek's design includes "contemplation zones", a new quayside walkway with access across the water frontage; a landscaped

The new Ohio Statehouse Museum has opened to the public at the historic Statehouse building in downtown Columbus, Ohio, US. The 5,000sq ft (460sq m) museum is housed in a purpose-build space within the Statehouse and includes a number of galleries and exhibits telling the history and stories of the state of Ohio. Galleries include the Great Ohioans Exhibit, presenting recipients of the Great Ohioan award on a large touch

The Science Museum in London, UK, is to undergo a £100m modernisation. Designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects, the designs for the revamp are intended to match with wider plans for the South Kensington area, and will boast a new glass feature called the Beacon on the Exhibition Road façade is intended to "present an exciting new image of the Science Museum as a dynamic and engaging place to visit". The

Boris Johnson's latest initiative to improve the lives of Londoners aims to boost the number of volunteers in the capital. Johnson said: "Volunteering is good for individuals and great for London in tough economic times. By giving your time, whether a one-off few hours or a regular commitment, we can both help to make the capital a more civilised, pleasant place and reap the rewards of putting something back into

The Jewish Museum London, in Camden Town, is set to reopen to the public in November 2009, after having undergone a £9m redevelopment of its facilities. The revamp, funded partly by a £4.3m grant from the Heritage lottery Fund, has resulted in the museum tripling in space in order to accommodate its collections, which are currently housed at two separate sites in Camden Town and Finchley. Five new galleries have

The Oceanarium at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, US, reopened to the public on 23 May, following the completion of an extensive US$50m (£31.4m, 35.8m euro) refurbishment scheme. More than three million gallons of saltwater were drained from the attraction as part of the nine-month project, which included the recoating of all five pools, routine maintenance to animal habitats and the installation of new heating, cooling and animal life-support systems. A

A design competition to transform the 1.33-mile, fire-damaged Southend Pier in Southend-on-Sea has been launched by the borough council. In collaboration with the Landscape Institute and the Royal Institute of British Architects, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council has created a design brief with the intentions of re-establishing the pier as a "must-see destination for all visitors". The council wants to transform the Grade II-listed pier, built in 1830, into a cultural destination

Swansea Council has announced that plans for the restoration of Mumbles Pier in South Wales are to move forward, after it was recommended that a development framework for the area be adopted. An extensive public consultation has been held to gather the opinions of local residents on the proposed £39m mixed-use scheme, which is designed to transform the historic site into a visitor and tourist attraction. Proposals for the pier

The US$300m (£193.5m, 220m euro) Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago, US, has opened to public this week. The 24,500sq m (264,000sq ft) extension, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano has increased the museum's floor space to more than a million square feet, making it the second largest art museum in the US. The three-storey extension, which is covered by a sun-shade system allowing natural light to

Lakeland Motor Museum at Holker Hall in Cumbria will be relocated to a new purpose-built premise at Backbarrow near Newby Bridge. Former Blue Mill carton packaging sheds have been redeveloped to provide a larger display space for the museum's 30,000 exhibits, which tell the story of more than 100 years of motoring history. A new exhibit on all aspects of road transport history will now be presented, while existing displays,

Merlin Entertainments has unveiled plans for a £12.5m upgrade of the London Eye in a bid to improve customer experience and to 'future-proof' the attraction in the lead up to the London 2012 Olympics. The wheel's 32 capsules will be removed one at a time in order to undergo work to install new, environmentally-friendly heating and ventilation systems, while one of the upgraded capsules will also feature ceiling-mounted TV screens

A new visitor attraction, based on the English Premiership football club Manchester United, has opened at The Venetian Macao-Resort-hotel in the Chinese special administrative region of Macau. The £1.5m, 1,000sq m indoor attraction was designed by UK-based MET Studio. The walk-through attraction offers guests a number of interactive stations as well as exhibits portraying the history of the club. Facilities at the attraction also include a large retail area.