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

Architects Woods Bagot are transforming an abandoned sugar factory in Zhuhai, China, into a cultural, tourism and leisure park that celebrates the city’s industrial heritage and welcomes visitors with a sweet tooth. The Hongqi Zhen Sugar Factory was opened in the 1960s and became a key pillar of Southern China’s sugar plantation and processing industry. However, the industry eventually fell into a decline and the complex closed its doors in

French architect Elizabeth de Portzamparc has revealed to CLADglobal how she wanted to “glorify 21 centuries of architectural history” with her Roman museum in the French city of Nîmes, which opens today (2 June) in the shadow of a real-life Roman amphitheatre next door. The Musée de la Romanité de Nîmes has been designed as a striking, fluid building that forms a contemporary counterpoint to the neighbouring Arena of Nîmes.

The Orange County Museum of Art (OCMA) is to move to a new home in Costa Mesa, California, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne and his studio Morphosis. Groundbreaking for the new building will take place in 2019 within the Segerstrom Center for the Arts complex – the county’s largest centre for arts. The projected opening has been announced for 2021. With nearly 25,000sq ft (2,300sq m) of exhibition

Japanese studio Moriyuki Ochiai Architects have designed a cluster of vibrant, polygonal tea houses that double as a new “sanctuary for stargazing” for budding astronomers. Surrounded by rolling hills in the town of Bisei, Okayama Prefecture, the ‘Constellation of Stargazing Tea Rooms’ has been conceived for visitors who wish to participate in traditional tea ceremonies, watch concerts and plays, and, at night, sit back and look up at the stars.

A disused petrol station adjacent to the BBC's former headquarters will be transformed into an arts and culture space as part of a multi-million pound regeneration of London's White City. Starting in Q3, members of Elephant magazine will curate a series of shows at the redeveloped site – now called Elephant West – which will feature exhibitions and performances from emerging young artists. Architects Liddicoat and Goldhill have designed the

The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) will open its new campus, designed by David Chipperfield, to the public on Saturday (19 May). To celebrate its 250th anniversary year, the RA – one of the world’s oldest and foremost artist and architect-led institutions – commissioned the renovation of its historic central London home, adding 70 per cent more public space and revealing many of its hidden secrets for the first time.

Work has been completed on the new Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (MFAH), designed by Steven Holl Architects. The School – the only museum-run institute in the US with programmes that serve students of all ages, from 3-year-olds to adults – is a major component of the museum’s 14-acre redevelopment, masterminded by Holl, which is currently the largest cultural project under construction in

Design initiative Young Architects Competitions (YAC) has announced the winners of an ideas contest for the transformation of a remote Italian fortress into "one of the most atmospheric centres of contemporary art in the Mediterranean". Italian studio Simposio have secured first prize for their proposal to carefully integrate new cultural and hospitality buildings into the rocky landscape of Favignana, an isle in the Southern Sicily that is home to Santa

London's Design Museum has been named the winner of the European Museum of the Year Award. Moving to its new £85m (US$115m, €96.4m) home in Kensington's former Commonwealth Institute Building in 2016, the museum was reimagined by architecture firm OMA, along with Allies and Morrison and interior designer John Pawson. Since moving, the museum has become an "inspiring, socially-aware museum", according to the awarding judges, who also acknowledged the museum’s

The shortlisted designs for a new art museum in Adelaide have been officially released, offering a first glimpse at what the likes of Adjaye Associates, BIG, Diller Scofidio + Renfro have in mind for the planned South Australian Landmark. Intended to revitalise the site of the former Royal Adelaide Hospital (oRAH), Adelaide Contemporary will be a sister museum to the Art Gallery of South Australia, combining exhibition, research and education

New York's Museum of Modern Art has named Rob Giampietro as its new director of design, with the former Google man taking charge of the institution's design output. A member of MoMA's newly-formed creative team, Giampietro will help to "extend MoMA’s identity as a dynamic and progressive cultural institution physically rooted in New York City, with a global reach and impact on modern and contemporary art and design." Working closely

Landscape architects West 8 have revealed their first clear-cut plans for a new 120 acre Houston Botanic Garden set to open to the Texas public in 2020. The firm have released details of ‘Botanic Beginnings’, the first phase of their 120-acre masterplan for the site, which will be developed over the next three decades on a site located a short distance outside downtown Houston. The Garden, conceived as “Houston’s next

A new cultural destination in London, celebrating Japan and funded by its government, has announced its public opening date. Called Japan House London, the new attraction will offer visitors authentic Japanese encounters when it opens on 22 June, with the best in the nation's art, design, gastronomy, innovation and technology. Almost every aspect of the new space has been derived “from source” in Japan. Japanese interior designer – Wonderwall principal

Architecture firm Purcell will create an extension to the historic home of the University of Manchester - Manchester Museum, after winning planning and listed building consent last week. The design team have imagined a contemporary new entrance and two new galleries, which will double the capacity of the museum – part of a wider development plan as it seeks “to become the UK’s most imaginative, inclusive and caring museum.” Purcell

Public artist and designer Steed Taylor has completed the largest continuous street mural in the world, spanning the full length of Downtown West Palm Beach in Florida. The mile-long ‘road tattoo’ is called Genii Loci, or ‘the protective spirits of a place.’ Local people were invited to paint parts of the mural – which takes the form of interweaving three-colour Celtic knots and emphasises the power of community. The north

International architects Snøhetta have designed a new planetarium and a visitor centre for Norway’s largest astronomical facility by studying the night sky for design inspiration. Nestled in the dense forest of Harestua, 45km north of Oslo, Solobservatoriet is the largest solar observatory North of the Alps. Its original observatory was built by the University of Oslo for the total solar eclipse of 1954, and a satellite tracking station was established

The Prime Minister of Lebanon, Saad Hariri, has announced plans for a new museum of antiquities, which will be designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. The Beirut Historical Museum will be constructed in the capital’s downtown area, running from Martyrs Square to the waterfront. Funded in part by the state of Kuwait, it will house archaeological artefacts from a host of civilisations, from the Bronze Age onwards. Exhibits will include

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has released the first design images for a new Seoul Cinematheque – a complex celebrating the visual arts to be built in Chungmuro, the heart of South Korea’s domestic film industry. Opening in February 2021, the venue will show non-commercial, independent, artistic, and classic films across four theatres, including one on the rooftop, with capacities ranging from 150 to 300. The project will be built on

International architects OMA have completed their latest addition to fashion house Prada’s arts complex in southern Milan, on the site of a former gin distillery. Torre is a nine-level, 60m (197ft) high tower with a facade that alternates between glass and white concrete surfaces. Devoted to “the development of a new typology for the exhibition of art” at Fondazione Prada, the structure’s different levels each have different spatial parameters, due

British architects HawkinsBrown have won planning and listed building consent for their regeneration of a complex of Victorian-era mill buildings in Yorkshire to form an arts-led leisure district. Their 130,000sq ft (12,000sq m) masterplan for the Rutland Mills project will deliver studio space for artists, designers and musicians; restaurants; event and gallery space, a retail zone; a hotel; and several areas of public realm. The mixed-use district will be sited

Montreal’s contemporary art museum has unveiled the design for its new home, after selecting the winning proposal from a hard-fought architecture competition. Quebec studios Saucier+Perrotte Architectes and GLCRM & Associés Architectes unanimously swayed the judges with a vision described as “luminous and relevant”. The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (MAC), located in the city’s Quartier des spectacles, is one of Canada’s most important national museums, dedicated exclusively to the promotion

The Dutch municipality of Den Helder has today (12 April) announced MVRDV as the winners in a competition to design a new public installation on the city’s northern dike representing the connection between city and sea. The design, called SeaSaw, is a viewing platform that takes the shape of an infinite loop, with visitors able to walk across it in either direction. Den Helder is located on the country’s northernmost

Bjarke Ingels Group are designing a hotel next to their forthcoming Audemars Piguet watchmaking museum in the village of Le Brassus, Switzerland. As with that subtly spiralling attraction – which is due to open in 2019 – the new project, Hotel des Horlogers, will be integrated into the topography of the landscape. Five zigzagging room slabs will expand into a gently sloping exterior path, leading directly to the museum and