Danish architecture practice Dissing+Weitling have designed a 7.6km (4.7 miles) elevated bicycle route – billed as “the longest in the world” – in the heart of the Chinese city Xiamen. The ‘cycling skyway’ has been built in order to decrease traffic congestion and promote greener and more sustainable forms of transportation, as well as more active and healthy lifestyles. It was designed and completed in only six months. The route

Torontonians have flocked to the city’s beach in record numbers to experience the unveiling of eight brand new Winter Stations installations along the shoreline of Lake Ontario. The creators of the attractions, who were chosen in a design competition, were tasked with designing “playful” structures – based around the beaches’ lifeguard stations – capable of drawing people into the chilly outdoors to interact with the icy environment. The installations include

Frank Gehry, the classical music-loving architect behind the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles has completed his latest concert hall: the intimate oval Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. The single-room facility, which took four years to build and opened on 4 March, is housed within a four-storey building designed by architect Richard Paulick in the 1950s to store sets for the Berlin State Opera. Designed as a modular 360-degree

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has given Chelsea FC the green light to build a new £500m (US$612.9m, €579.1m) stadium on the site of Stamford Bridge. Khan said he was satisfied with the 60,000-capacity stadium’s “high-quality and spectacular design”, which was approved by Hammersmith and Fulham Council in January. As part of Chelsea’s submission, the Premier League club has committed to investing £12m in community activities, such as employment

Gabriela Carrillo has been named as Woman Architect of the Year 2017 at the Women in Architecture awards, with Rozana Montiel winning the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture. Both architects were praised by the judges for having “demonstrated excellence in design and a commitment to working both sustainably and democratically with local communities”. Carrillo, the co-founder of Mexican practice TALLER Mauricio Rocha + Gabriela Carrillo, has worked on a

FC Barcelona is aiming to capitalise on the growing thirst for football in China by developing a training academy in the mould of its legendary La Masia in Haikou. The Spanish football giant has formed a partnership with Mission Hills Group, which builds golf resorts, to develop its 26th overseas academy. With seven pitches, the facility will be able to accommodate 1,000 boys and girls aged six to 18-years-old. For

The Delta Development Group has signed an initial agreement to drive forward plans for a Dutch-inspired theme park and leisure destination near Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The scope of the project has also widened to include plans for on-site hotels providing up to 4,000 rooms. Delta signed the deal with the City of Haarlemmermeer, a large suburb south of Amsterdam and the municipality where Schiphol Airport is located. Concept drawings

Here are some of the stories that appeared on CLAD this week, from Apple’s leisure-filled new HQ to the winners of the 2017 Pritzker Prize. Monday • Bill Bensley has taken inspiration from an unlikely combination of themes for a new JW Marriott resort in Vietnam. Read here. • Too many visual renderings of future architectural projects “do not correspond at all to the real world” because of a lack

A husband-and-wife design team have transformed their own beachfront holiday home into a new resort; the first of a new brand of “ultimate wellbeing destinations.” Soo K. Chan, the founder of SCDA Architects, and hospitality designer Ling Fu, have used holistic design and environmental practices to create Soori Bali in Indonesia. The revamped resort will feature 48 private pool villas and residences, a cantilevered platform jutting over the Indian Ocean

British street artist Banksy has returned with his latest politically-minded project: a nine-room hotel located next to the controversial barrier wall separating Israel from the Palestinian territories. The Walled Off Hotel, located in the Israeli-controlled part of Bethlehem, has been opened as both a genuine business venture and a piece of protest art. Work by Banksy and other artists, a themed bar and interactive exhibits all feature. The hotel directly

Canadian architects Lemay have won an international competition to redesign the corniches of Morocco’s Casablanca coast and create a leisure-filled seaside promenade. The contest was launched by real estate agency Casa Aménagement in June 2016, with the intention of prompting a design that can become “a landmark destination in Morocco.” The project is intended to enhance a 5km stretch of Casablanca’s dramatic cliffside pathways and roads, creating “a layered sensory

Hyperloop One, the Los Angeles firm racing to realise Elon Musk’s dream for a high-speed transport system powered by magnetic levitation, is considering building a network in India. A major long-term goal for Hyperloop One is to “create a fifth mode of transport that will connect distant cities to form dynamic and efficient economic super-regions” – a vision which has major connotations for the leisure industry. It is already exploring

The Eden Project in Cornwall has been granted planning permission to build a new 109-bedroom on-site hotel. Accessibility, energy-efficiency and sustainability are the key features of the design, by architectural studio Tate Harmer. In order for the £8.5m (US$10.4m, €9.9m) hotel to blend into the surrounding countryside, and with the Eden Project’s famous two plant-filled biomes, its two blocks will be clad with prominent timber poles. Existing features in the

Mia Kyricos, founder of strategic advisory firm Kyricos & Associates, told an audience at the World Spa & Wellness Convention in London that wellness communities grew by 19 per cent from 2013 to 2015, and are worth an estimated US$29bn (€27.5bn, £23.6bn) in Europe and US$48bn (€45.6bn, £39.1bn) in North America. Kyricos moderated a panel on wellness communities that also included Steve Nygren, president of Serenbe wellness community near Atlanta,

Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta have today (1 March) been selected as the winners of the 2017 Pritzker Architecture Prize. The award – widely regarded as architecture's highest accolade – honours a living architect or architects “whose built work demonstrates a combination of talent, vision, and commitment, and who has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment.” The three architects, originating from Olot, in

The Silo Hotel – a luxury property located within Heatherwick Studio’s re-imagined Cape Town grain storage facility – opens today (1 March). The hotel is built in the grain elevator portion of the silo complex, occupying six floors above what will become the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA). It has 26 guest rooms, including one bedroom penthouse, that are all more spacious vertically than horizontally due to the

The studio of French architect Stephane Malka have unveiled the latest iteration of their ‘parasitic architecture’ concept, with an ambitious plan to graft extensions, bow-windows and loggias to one of Paris’ lacklustre and poorly-performing 1970s buildings. The project, called Plug-In City 75, will transform an apartment block in the French capital’s 16th arrondissement by ‘plugging in’ custom-made prefabricated elements to the outside of the structure. Old windows, bad insulation and

One of Thailand’s largest hotel and property development companies has announced plans to expand Bangkok’s famous Dusit Thani hotel and develop a new US$1bn (€948.3m, £808.2m) landmark in the heart of the metropolis. The Dusit Thani company has today (1 March) signed an agreement with the quasi-government Crown Property Bureau to extend its lease for the land where its popular hotel stands. It can now develop the site over the

Those eagerly anticipating the colonisation of the Moon will be delighted to know they’ll be able to get a dose of culture 384,400km away from Earth’s atmosphere, after artists Julio Orto and Joey Cannizzaro proposed The Museum of Contemporary Art on the Moon, or MoCAM as it would be known. Offering fantastic views of Earth, the duo have already purchased a 20 acre plot of land on the Moon, located

AECOM, the architectural firm behind the Rio 2016 Olympic Park masterplan, has pledged to help the Brazilian government achieve its “legacy goals” despite the widely-publicised pictures showing the development damaged and desolate. Just a few months after the conclusion of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, images surfaced of a looted Maracana Stadium with unkempt pitch, a closed Deodoro sports precinct and a US$20m (£16.1m, €18.9m) golf course that is struggling

A joint venture between Canadian studios HCMA Architecture + Design and NFOE et Associés Architectes have won a design competition to create a striking circular aquatics centre in Laval, Quebec – designed to create an experience of “swimming within a forest.” The competition jury had called for submissions imagining the new Complexe Aquatique de Laval as a vital civic centre, subtly integrated into the site’s woodland ecosystem. Tucked into an

Apple is about to open its new US$5bn (€4.7bn, £4bn) headquarters in April, with the Foster + Partners-designed project in California to include a dedicated visitor centre for tourists and a new theatre named after company co-founder Steve Jobs. Sir Jony Ive, design chief for Apple, played a significant role in the project, working with Foster + Partners to realise the project in a hands-on capacity. The doughnut-shaped futuristic campus,

Wanda Hotels & Resorts will become the first Chinese hotel management company to export one of its brands overseas, following an agreement to open a Wanda Vista property in Istanbul, Turkey. The company will act as the hotel operator, while Turkish development firm Mar Yapi will fund the project. It will be located close to the city’s busiest shopping district and a five-minute drive from Ataturk International Airport. Wanda Vista

Serie A football club AS Roma has moved a step closer to achieving its own stadium after striking a deal with city officials. The Italian team has been trying to develop the 52,000-capacity Stadio Della Roma for a number of years, but has faced several delays. The delays were compounded when the anti-establishment Virginia Raggi of the 5-Star Movement became the city’s mayor last year and began pushing for design

A state-of-the-art attraction themed around the National Football League (NFL) in the US will open in New York City in November under the leadership of former New York Cruise Lines CEO Danny Boockvar. The NFL Experience, which is being created by Cirque du Soleil and the NFL, will feature high-tech displays, interactive media and a 350-seat 4D theatre that will be play 20-minute films immersing visitors on the sidelines or

Too many visual renderings of future architectural projects “do not correspond at all to the real world” because of a lack of diversity among the people depicted occupying these buildings. That is the view of Eric de Broches des Combes, the founder of visualisation studio Luxigon, who has told CLAD “there’s sometimes a preconceived idea about who should and shouldn’t appear in renderings from the people who commission the images.”

Design competition organiser Blank Space has partnered with government authorities in New York to seek a feasible long-term strategy for the city’s response to driverless cars. “Entrepreneurs, innovators, designers, engineers, architects and futurists” are invited to enter The Driverless Future Challenge and pitch concrete design solutions for the cities of the future, which “will be populated with robotic cars chauffeuring their dozing or web-surfing occupants around town.” “The challenge seeks