A former ski village in Sheffield, UK, will be reinvented as a sports attraction after a £22.5m (US$30.2m, €25.5m) plan was announced to breathe new life into the site. Working in partnership with Continuum Attractions, Sheffield City Council will resurrect the 48-acre (194,000sq m) site as a sports, leisure and entertainment venue under the Extreme brand. The first phase of the plan will see the restoration of the disused ski

The seventh proposed stadium for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar will be constructed using shipping containers and will be completely demounted and rebuilt elsewhere after the tournament. The design of the Ras Abu Aboud Stadium – which will have a capacity of 40,000 and host matches up to the quarter-finals stage – has been officially revealed today (28 November), with World Cup organisers saying “it will change the

Australian architecture studio Group GSA have won a design competition to create an information hub for the ski resort hosting events during the 2022 Winter Olympics. The Four Seasons Town Reception Center will welcome spectators to Fulong Four Seasons Resort – the Olympic venue located 90km (56 miles) northwest of Beijing in the city of Chongli, Hebei province. Fulong is a master-planned, year-round community featuring 37 ski trails – the

Everton’s long-running quest to build a modern stadium has taken a major step forward, with the English club formally signing an agreement to lease land for the ground at Bramley Moore Dock. The lease, secured by club subsidiary Everton Stadium Development Limited, is conditional upon gaining planning consent for the proposed new stadium and securing funding for its construction. The deal will run for a period of 200 years at

Architects HawkinsBrown have completed an elegant timber pool hidden among the trees for a school in the English county of Surrey. Swimmers using the 25m, six-lane competition pool can view the surrounding woodland through a series of windows integrated into the building’s timber frame. The architects used off-site fabrication methods to create the facility for Freemen’s School in the village of Ashtead, which replaces a previous pool building destroyed by

Four international design firms are combining to create a new stadium for US baseball team The Oakland Athletics, better known as the A’s. Snøhetta – whose large-scale leisure buildings include the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art expansion in California – will collaborate with stadium specialists HOK, US studio Sasaki Associates and local firm Studio T-Square. Together, the partners will design a new

The University of Warwick is building a £49m (US$64.6m, €54.9m) sports and wellness hub in a bid to become the “most physically active higher education campus” in the UK by 2020. Set to open in 2019, the hub will include one of the largest gyms in higher education, spanning 16,684sq ft (1,550sq m), as part of the university’s mission to get “everyone active every day”. With 300 stations, it will

A ‘performance resort’ and spa are coming to master-planned wellness community Lake Nona, outside of Orlando, Florida, in 2020. The Lake Nona Resort is due to break ground in 2018 and will include a 45,000sq ft spa and fitness campus with in-depth indoor and outdoor programming for all ages and levels. Designed by Miami-based Arquitectonica, the eight-storey Lake Nona Resort will be located along the southern shore of Lake Nona,

The Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia, has become the first sports stadium in the world to achieve platinum certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). With a highly advanced stormwater management system and enough solar panels to power nine NFL games, the new home of the Atlanta Falcons and MLS team Atlanta United scored a record 88 points in its rating by the US Green Building Council (USGBC).

The Oakland Raiders have broken ground on a $1.9bn (£1.45bn, €1.62bn) stadium in Las Vegas which is due to become their home from 2020. During a glitzy ceremony attended by celebrities, politicians and players last night (13 November), Raiders owner Mark Davis and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell shovelled the dirt to kick off development of the 65,000-capacity, glass-domed stadium – designed by sports architects Manica. The groundbreaking ceremony took place

The winners of this year's international architectural awards for sports and leisure facilities have been announced at a ceremony during the 25th IAKS Congress. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and International Association for Sports and Leisure Facilities (IAKS) presented the prizes last night (7 November) at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany. The IOC/IAKS Award was created to celebrate exemplary buildings and complexes that integrate sensible sustainability

From the rise of lifestyle sports to climate change – the leading challenges facing sports architects and developers have been revealed at the launch of the International Association for Sports and Leisure Facilities (IAKS) Congress and FSB 2017 trade show in Germany today (7 November). Over the next three days, FSB 2017, the international trade fair for amenity areas, sports and pool facilities, will see 650 companies from 45 countries

Architecture practice Bear Stadiums and Italian timber manufacturer Rubner Holzbau have joined forces to produce wooden sports venues that can be built quickly and cost-efficiently. The two companies claim their modular, mid-capacity “stadiums of the future” can be assembled in just six to eight months and are totally green. The project was conceived for Italy’s smaller sports clubs beginning to move up the ladder of the professional game. The proposed

The Rolling Stones have officially opened one of the largest indoor stadiums in Europe, Paris’s U Arena. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and co ended their latest world tour with three sold-out shows at the stadium, built in the heart of the French capital’s La Défense district, close to the landmark Grande Arche. Designed by Pritzker-winning architect Christian de Portzamparc, the arena forms a distinctive horseshoe shape – the ‘U’ of

English football club Fulham FC has revealed fresh details of how it plans to create a new “leisure destination for use on match and non-match days” at the club's Craven Cottage stadium. Global sports architects Populous have created a proposal for the club that its chair, Shahid Khan, claims will “transcend the customary standards of football grandstands” by “blending history and the contemporary like no stadium in the land or

Canadian architects Lemay and US studio CannonDesign have created a striking, transformable arena in the city of Laval, Quebec, billed as “the most popular new sports destination in the region.” Place Bell is the new home of hockey team Laval Rocket – an American Hockey League (AHL) franchise – and features a 10,000-seat arena. It also boasts a 2,500-seat Olympic speed and figure-skating arena and a regular, 500-seat skating rink,

Funding has been approved for a 27,500-seater stadium designed to bring Major League Soccer (MLS) to Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville’s Sports Authority has approved a $225m (£171m, €191) bond resolution, solidifying funding before the proposal goes to the Metro Council for final approval in November. Concept designs from global architecture firm HOK show the stadium covering 500,000sq ft (152,400sq m) at The Fairgrounds site in the capital of Tennessee. The renderings

3XN Architects have released new visuals showing the forthcoming home of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne, Switzerland. The studio won the competition to design the 25,000sq m (270,000sq ft) project, called Olympic House, in 2014, and construction began last year on the shores of Lake Geneva. The new headquarters will bring together 600 employees currently working in disparate offices throughout the city. There will be public facilities on

The city council of Derby, UK, has unveiled ambitious plans for a new swimming and leisure facility designed by international design practice FaulknerBrowns Architects and overseen by project managers Mace. The proposals include a ten-lane, 50m swimming pool; a leisure water area for families; a learner pool; a gym; fitness studios; a sauna; steam rooms; a café and a soft play area. The adaptable main pool will contain two booms

Fulham FC have appointed global sports architects Populous to lead the redesign of the Riverside Stand at the club’s London home, Craven Cottage. In his programme notes for the Championship match against Hull City on 13 September, Fulham FC chairman Shahid Khan pledged that the project will “transcend the customary standards of football grandstands” by including riverside pubs and restaurants, event facilities, green spaces and public access to a river

Scottish football club Celtic has been granted planning permission in principle for a hotel and museum complex to be built adjacent to the 47-time Scottish Premier League (SPL) champions’ home ground in Glasgow. First revealed in February, the £18m (US$24m, €20m) plans, which were submitted to Glasgow City Council for approval, also include a new ticket office and retail store, with the development to come up outside the main stand

Sports and leisure architects Populous have announced the opening of a new office in Tokyo as the firm continues its global expansion. The decision to establish an office in Japan expands Populous’ global footprint to 15 branches worldwide, including six in the Asia-Pacific region. The organisation now has more than 500 employees around the globe. “Japan offers a wealth of opportunity with its strong culture, burgeoning sports scene and as

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

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

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

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