Conrad Smith, the co-founder of architecture studio ReardonSmith, has died suddenly after suffering a heart attack. Confirming the news, the studio’s co-founder Patrick Reardon spoke of his sense of shock and loss. “Conrad touched all our lives as an extraordinary colleague, business partner and a dear friend; he was an exceptionally talented architect but, above all, a very special person,” Reardon said. “We will all miss him in so many

A collection of some of Thailand’s finest contemporary art has found a new home at a new museum in the city of Chang Mai, which boasts an eye-catching mirrored façade. The exterior of the newly-opened MAIIAM Museum of Contemporary Art is clad with thousands of small mirrored tiles that reflect light; creating an atmosphere of lightness and occasionally giving the building the illusion of invisibility. Architects (all)zone were inspired by

Ben van Verkel and his firm UNStudio have won one of the largest urban projects in Western Europe: the redevelopment of Amsterdam’s Oosterdokseiland island. The 225,000sq m (2.4 million sq ft) scheme, located to the east of the city’s main station, will see the practice create a social hub designed to “encourage encounters” between the public and workers in the district. In total, 72,500sq m (780,300sq ft) of space will

US National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise the Washington Wizards is creating a new training facility that will double as a concert venue and events arena. While competing teams in Brooklyn, Chicago and Toronto have previously merged practice venues with residential accommodation, the Washington team claims it is the first in the NBA to actively create a mixed-use leisure facility. According to The Washington Post, the plans outlined by the Wizards

Spa operator Raison d’Etre will open a two-storey, 4,600sq m (49,514sq ft) LivNordic Spa at the Katara Beach Club in the Katara Cultural Village in Doha, Qatar. Set to open in Q1 2017, the Katara Beach Club by LivNordic Spa & Wellness will be on two club floors, with the ground floor for men and the first floor for women. Designed by Gillian Docherty of Studio HBA in Dubai, the

The Coop Himmelb(l)au-designed Museum of Contemporary Art and Planning Exhibition (MOCAPE) has opened in Shenzhen, China. The megastructure consists of two institutions, a modern art gallery and an architecture-focused meeting and exhibition space, connected by a shared plaza, multi-use conference rooms, exhibit space, auditoriums, a library and lobby. The two institutions are united beneath a transparent facade, which creates a vast column-free space for exhibiting art in the museum section

The Japanese government has approved a 150bn yen ($1.5bn, €1.3bn, £1.1bn) contract allowing work to begin on Kengo Kuma’s 2020 Tokyo Olympic Stadium. Construction is scheduled to begin in December. The government-funded Japan Sport Council (JSC), which is overseeing the project, estimates that construction will be completed at the end of November 2019 – five months behind the original schedule. New Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said she would closely monitor

Four of the six winners of this year’s Aga Khan Award for Architecture are leisure projects. The prestigious prize, which is given every three years, celebrates designs that improve quality of life and address the needs and aspirations of communities in which Muslims have a significant presence. A shortlist of 19 projects – derived from over 300 submissions – was considered by a Master Jury, with each building investigated by

Three architecture studios have been shortlisted in the design competition to create a Science Island for the Lithuanian city Kaunas. SMAR Architecture Studio, SimpsonHaugh and Partners, and Donghua Chen Studio will now negotiate with Kaunas City Municipality, which will decide the design concept it wants to proceed with. Each of the winners will receive an honorarium of €15,000 (US$16,800, £13,000.) The centrepiece of the 44 acre Science Island – the

The Six Senses Zil Pasyon resort, located on the private island of Felicite in the Seychelles, has opened. Designed by the Six Senses Architecture and Design team along with Richard Hywel Evans of London-based Studio RHE, the resort features contemporary architecture and interiors, and has been designed to “embrace the untouched picturesque landscape of the island,” the company said. It features 28 one-bedroom pool villas and two two-bedroom pool villas

The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London has won the Rosa Barba International Landscape Prize; one of world’s leading awards for landscape architects. The park's designers, Hargreaves Associates, were named the winners of the €15,000 accolade following the decision of a jury chaired by James Corner; one of the creator’s of New York’s High Line elevated park. The competition was organised by the Architects’ Association of Catalonia and the Catalan

Here are some of the stories that appeared on CLAD this week, from West Elm's first hotel brand to a Serpentine Galleries' Zaha Hadid retrospective. Monday • Jiangnan Global Harbor, one of the world’s largest leisure-led retail schemes, has officially opened near Shanghai. Read here. • Stadiums and arenas built for events such as the FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games should all be temporary, according to South African architect

The architecture of the ancient Greeks has inspired the reinvention of Canada’s largest public square, the project’s design director has told CLAD. Andrew Frontini, a design director at global architecture studio Perkins and Will, was speaking after the practice won Canada’s top architecture accolade, the Governor General Award, for their renovation of Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto. Frontini said the concept of the project was inspired by the traditional Greek

SantaPark, the award-winning Lapland attraction and “official home” of Father Christmas, is nearing completion on 37 luxury accommodations and bistro-style restaurant and bar. The €20m (US$22m, £17m) Arctic TreeHouse Hotel development – which is scheduled to open on 19th November at the theme park in Rovaniemi, Finland – has been designed by fledgling Helsinki architecture firm Studio Puisto. The rooms boast panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows facilitating views of forest and Arctic surroundings as

Danish architects COBE have won a competition to transform Cologne’s old industrial harbour into a lively and sustainable neighbourhood with a huge waterfall and a landmark public pool. The pool will collect rainwater and waste heat from the district and becomes a new attraction in the city. For more than a decade city authorities have been discussing how the 35-hectare area should be developed. In February 2016, the City of

The new leadership of London's Serpentine Galleries have announced they are expanding the art museums’ famous pavilion programme and launching a Zaha Hadid exhibition focusing on the late architect’s design notebooks. In their first joint press conference, newly-appointed CEO Yana Peel and artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist announced “an exciting new chapter” in the development of the Serpentine, with a new emphasis on technology, partnerships, innovation and accessibility. A new

Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Science Center has detailed plans for its US$21m (€18.7m, £16.1m) Science Pavilion to include 14,000sq ft (1,300sq m) of new exhibition space. Designed by Indovina Associates Architects, the three-storey building will be built around the existing Omnimax Theater with the pavilion facing out over the Ohio River. In addition to temporary exhibition space, the extension will feature nine STEM learning labs and a top-floor space capable of hosting

A senior executive at Spanish football club Atletico Madrid has lifted the lid on progress being made on its new 66,000-capacity stadium, which will include a fanzone, museum and videomapping facade. Javier Martinez, the club’s managing director, global business development, said he wanted the stadium to be among the “top five experiences” in terms of football stadiums in Europe. He gave delegates at the Soccerex Global Convention in Manchester a

Guests will be able to purchase the furnishings and artwork found in the custom-designed hotels being launched by international furniture retailer West Elm. The company has announced a move into the travel and hospitality industry with the launch of a new design-focused hotel brand, in which every boutique hotel will be tailored to reflect the mood and identity of its host city. Developed in partnership with hospitality management company DDK,

London's Design Museum has announced a host of star names from the worlds of architecture and design will help open its new home in Kensington with a special exhibition called Fear and Love - Reactions to a Complex World. Fashion designer Hussein Chalayan and architect Neri Oxman are among the contributors providing eleven newly commissioned installations that will explore a spectrum of issues that define our time, “including networked sexuality,

Acclaimed artist Marina Abramovic has presented Lord Norman Foster with a golden replica of his brain. The British architect received the unusual sculpture – derived from a 3D scan of his brain – as part of an awards ceremony at Campus Biotech in Geneva. Foster is one of the 2016 recipients of the Scopus Award – the highest honour conferred by the Friends of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem –

Dutch construction firm Bright Buildings is creating a transparent swimming facility with a retractable roof and walls that will produce "an attractive transition from indoor to outdoor activities.” The company, which specialises in building “daylight structures”, is building the new 1,000sq m (10,000sq ft) health and swimming complex for Dutch holiday park Eiland van Maurik. The park’s operators want to encourage more guests to use its pool facility, and to

King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands has officially opened the Voorlinden Museum – a modern, minimalist new home for the art collection of industrialist Joop van Caldenborgh. Situated in the southern town Wassenaar and designed by Dutch practice Kraaijvanger Architects with Arup, the museum has parallel symmetrical walls that allow the interior to open to the environment. The simple exterior includes a white colonnade to support the roof and a façade

Plans are underway to recreate William Shakespeare’s iconic Globe Theatre around the world using nothing but scaffolding and re-purposed shipping containers. The original Globe was built by Shakespeare in 1599 in the London borough of Southwark as a theatre in the round, which allowed huge crowds get as close as possible to the onstage action. The theatre was destroyed in 1644, but a replica was created in 1997 using the

Stadiums and arenas built for events such as the FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games should all be temporary, according to South African architect Ruben Reddy. Talking at the Soccerex Global Convention in Manchester, Reddy told delegates that the structures should be designed so that they can be deconstructed and the materials used to create other civic buildings such as hospitals and school. He used his native South Africa as

Jiangnan Global Harbor, one of the world’s largest leisure-led retail schemes, has officially opened near Shanghai. The 500,000sq m (5.3 million sq ft), five-level project is located in the city of Changzhou, within the prosperous Jiangsu province. Designed by architects Chapman Taylor, the scheme has a vast Art Deco-inspired atrium with giant LED screens and musical fountains; 60,000sq m (645,800sq ft) of space dedicated to bars, restaurants and cafés; and

The new California home of US National Basketball Association franchise the Sacramento Kings has become the first indoor sports venue to achieve LEED Platinum certification. The US$507m (£336m, €476m) Golden 1 Center, which will host its first preseason fixture on 10 October, is the highest-scoring stadium ever certified by the US Green Building Council – the body that oversees the LEED system. It is also among the top three per