The Kengo Kuma-designed V&A Museum of Design Dundee, Scotland’s first dedicated design museum, is set to open its doors in less than a month. Opening on 15 September 2018, the V&A Dundee will be the lauded Japanese architect’s first building in the UK. The structure is now complete and new stills from released drone footage, taken by Rapid Visual Media, show its contours and sculptured outline off to the wider

American architectural practice Cooper Robertson have made a swathe of in-house promotions, including the appointment of a new director of architecture. The architects, noted for their museum and cultural work, have name Erin Flynn as director of architecture. Flynn has an extensive 20-year background in cultural and museum architecture as a project leader on notable commissions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Fowler Museum at UCLA Planning

The first ever museum dedicated to telling the story of American comedy has opened in Jamestown, New York, US. JRA provided complete master planning, design, project management and art direction for the 37,000sq ft (3,400sq m) National Comedy Center, which took seven years to complete at a cost of around US$50m (€43.2m, £38.6m). As well as featuring 50 exhibits exploring comedy history – from vaudeville to viral memes – the

Construction work has now begun on the £300m (US$393m, €336m) renovation of Borough Yards in London – a series of Victorian-era railway arches that sit near to the River Thames, Tate Modern art gallery and world-famous foodie haunt Borough Market. Due for completion in 2020, Borough Yards will feature five mixed-use buildings that will house a workspace, retail units, gallery, restaurants, cinema and creative spaces. The brick-built railway viaducts will

Architecture and design practice Sam Jacob Studio will give London’s Cartoon Museum "greater flexibility" in displaying its collection, having been appointed to design its new home. The museum, which showcases a collection of cartoon and comic art dating back as far as the 18th century, was founded in 2006 and is "dedicated to preserving the best of British cartoons, caricatures, comics and animation". Following a 25-year lease deal agreed with

Amos Rex, a new art museum in Helsinki, is set to open in August 2018, following the refurbishment of the Lasipalatsi Building in the centre of the Finnish capital. The €50m (US$58m, £44.7m) project, designed by Finnish architects JKMM, will house 2,200sq m (23,600sq ft) worth of gallery space created beneath the remodelled public Lasipalatsi Square. The new gallery’s roof, meanwhile, is formed of numerous domes, which contain angled rooflights

Tate St Ives is the only leisure building to find its way onto the shortlist for the 2018 RIBA Stirling Prize for the UK’s best new building. The Cornish museum – designed by Jamie Fobert Architects with Evans & Shalev – is one of the six projects today (19 July) revealed to be in the running for the prestigious prize. The other nominees include student housing, an office building, a

New York-based developer Two Trees Management has opened a disused sugar factory redevelopment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, turning the site into a waterfront park. With landscaping from James Corner Field Operations and a street extension conceived by Shop Architects, the project aims to keep true to the site’s heritage, with remnants from the former Domino Sugar Factory – the space’s previous occupant – interspersed around the park. Part of the park’s

W Hotels Worldwide has announced the 2020 opening of W Nashville in Tennessee, US, which will incorporate the city’s rich musical heritage into its design and ethos. Architecture and design firm Rockwell Group has been commissioned to carry out the project, with a brief to incorporate the “rich culture and musical legacy of Nashville into every aspect of the property.” As well as a live venue, the hotel lobby will

A new attraction set to house more than 100,000 Bob Dylan artefacts will open in Oklahoma in 2021, with architects Olson Kundig to design the exhibition space. There is already a Bob Dylan Archive situated in the University of Tulsa’s Helmerich Center for American Research at Gilcrease Museum. However, the archive, which includes never-before-seen memorabilia featuring unrecorded song lyrics is not open to the public but is instead only open

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York State has announced the next stage of its expansion ambitions by unveiling the design for a bold, freestanding new building. International architects OMA have created the plans for the 29,000sq ft (2,700sq m) North Building extension, which will house parts of the museum’s world-renowned art collection and important visitor amenities. The building is envisioned to have a wraparound promenade that visually and

Jerusalem's Terra Sancta Museum will open the doors of its brand new archaeology wing to the public tomorrow (27 June), hosting a new exhibition showcasing more than 300 artefacts from the time of Herod the Great to the sixth century. The museum, which tells the story of the Christian presence in the Holy Land, has launched the new wing, which debuts with The House of Herods: Life and Power in

Asian real estate corporation New World Development has officially launched its “most ambitious” project to date: a museum-retail complex in the heart of Hong Kong's US$2.6bn (€2.2bn, £1.9bn) Victoria Dockside. The K11 Musea will form a high-end experiential retail, art, cultural and dining destination, and anchor the Tsim Sha Tsui harbourfront’s 3 million sq ft (278,700sq m) art and design district. Ground has now broken on the project and it

A major artwork by Mark Wallinger and architects Studio Octopi has been launched in the English district of Runnymede, celebrating the legacy of Magna Carta. Called Writ in Water, the architectural piece is a historic monument, remembering the time and place, over 800 years ago, that feudal barons forced King John to seal the charter – a founding moment in shaping the basis of common law across the world. The

The Brisbane Transit Centre – often cited as the Australian city’s ugliest building – is to be demolished to make way for a metro station and leisure district, dominated by an entertainment area from architects Populous. The project was confirmed in last week’s Queensland State Budget 2018-9, with deputy premier and treasurer Jackie Trad pledging that “the western gateway to the city will be totally transformed.” When complete, the new

Environmental artist Christo has completed his latest mammoth temporary structure: a 20m stack of barrels floating in Hyde Park’s Serpentine Lake. The London Mastaba, Christo’s first outdoor public work in the UK, is formed of 7,506 horizontally stacked barrels on a floating platform. Together they rise up to create a flat-roofed shape with sloping sides that first originated thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia. Construction began in April by JK

Ground has broken on a new museum in Winnipeg that will be the largest single gallery space in the world devoted to Inuit art, culture, and history. Designed by Michael Maltzan Architecture, the 400,000sq ft (37,000sq m) Inuit Art Centre (IAC) is an addition to the existing Winnipeg Art Gallery, created by Canadian architect Gustavo Da Roza and opened in 1971. The new additions will be connected to the main

Japanese multimedia art collective teamLab will open a unique Digital Art Museum on Thursday (21 June), permanently showcasing all of their dynamic interactive installations for the first time. The studio have partnered with the Mori Building Company to build the 10,000sq m (107,600sq ft) attraction, called ‘Borderless’, which will exhibit more than 50 interactive artworks across five zones. There are no divisions between the pieces, which extend beyond their rooms,

Cirque du Soleil, the world renowned acrobatic circus, is increasing its presence in the attractions industry by launching its own brand of family entertainment centre (FEC). Parent company Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group revealed that the iconic performance troupe inspired the design and concept of the FEC, which will offer immersive, creative and active experiences for young children and their families. Called Creactive, it will now be rolled out to

Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects have won the international design competition for the Chengdu Natural History Museum in Chengdu, China. The studio’s design, created in collaboration with the China Southwest Architectural Design and Research Institute (CSWADI), swayed the jury panel. It was selected ahead of submissions from Zaha Hadid Architects, Sutherland Hussey Harris, Nihon Sekkei, Valode & Pistre and FUKSAS. Located in the eastern part of the city, the 62,700sq m

Anticipation is rising ahead of a 12 July launch date for a brand new James Bond visitor attraction nestled snugly inside a mountain peak in Sölden, Austria. The state-of-the-art facility, called 007 ELEMENTS, promises to immerse visitors in an environment that will make them feel like secret agents themselves. Described as a cinematic installation, the new attraction will be housed in a purpose built structure designed by local architect Johann

Mexican architect Frida Escobedo's Serpentine Pavilion will open in Kensington Gardens, London on Friday (15 June). Escobedo’s courtyard-based design harnesses a “subtle interplay of light, water and geometry” and is inspired in part by the domestic architecture of Mexico, the Prime Meridian line at London’s Royal Observatory in Greenwich, and British materials and history. The pavilion features a black steel frame, with stacks of cement roof tiles making up the

Kengo Kuma and Associates, in collaboration with OODA, have won a competition to redevelop an abandoned industrial slaughterhouse in Porto into a public complex featuring a museum, library and performance spaces. The Matadouro building was once an important urban landmark. However, it was closed and abandoned almost 20 years ago and has gradually become disconnected from the city as new buildings – including a speedway and a stadium for FC

London mayor Sadiq Khan has set out a £1.1bn vision for East Bank at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park – a brand new masterplan for the former ‘Olympicopolis’ cultural scheme. The waterfront site has been redesigned by architects Allies and Morrison, O’Donnell + Tuomey, and Camps Felip Arquitecturia, following detailed public consultation. Envisioned as “a new powerhouse of culture, education, innovation and growth,” the project was first planned to secure the

St Louis' Gateway Arch has undergone a redevelopment, with architecture studio Cooper Robertson expanding and renovating the museum beneath the record-holding structure. Sitting in the shadow of the Eero Saarinen-designed arch – the tallest structure of its kind in the world – a total of 4,200sq m (45,000sq ft) of new museum area has been added to the west of Saarinen’s underground original, which has itself been renovated and reconfigured

A design team led by US studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Australian architects Woods Bagot has won the international design competition for the Adelaide Contemporary art museum. Intended to revitalise the site of the former Royal Adelaide Hospital (oRAH), the attraction will be a sister museum to the Art Gallery of South Australia, combining exhibition, research and education spaces with a public sculpture park and community meeting place. It

Herzog and de Meuron have completed their latest cultural project: a museum and arts complex spread inside a walled compound of heritage justice buildings on Hong Kong Island. A dramatic light show marked the opening of the Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts on 25 May, with 150 guests in attendance, including the administrative region’s chief executive Carrie Lam. Over twelve years, the Swiss architects have carefully restored 16