Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) have unveiled the first detailed designs for a new mixed-use district set to bring life to a brownfield urban site in Prague. The lot, located next to Masaryk Railway Station, has stood derelict for several decades. City planners organised a design competition, won by ZHA in 2014, to return the area to active use with a new business and cultural zone. The project will create a

Marks Barfield Architects, the creators of the London Eye, have been tasked with designing a cable car across Chicago that will become an “iconic attraction” for the city. Chicago-based theatre impresario Lou Raizin and real estate investor Laurence S. Geller are behind the ambitious scheme, called The Chicago SkyLine, which has been designed in collaboration with US architects Davis Brody Bond. Speaking at a city event, Raizin and Geller outlined

Latvian wellness consultancy Inbalans Group is working together with Moscow-based international development company Griffin Partners and Jurmula City Council to develop a substantial wellness community in Latvia's Kemeri National Park. The wellness community, located just west of the capital of Riga, will include a five-star hotel with a 1,500sq m (16,146sq ft) spa, due to open in 2018, as well as a wellness clinic comprised of multiple historic buildings with

The potential of VR has won the attention of global studio NBBJ, who this week announced a business partnership with tech startup Visual Vocal to incubate and develop a VR productivity platform that will initially be exclusive to them, before being made available to other architects. The firm claim they are the first design studio to support a VR startup inside their own offices. "NBBJ's decision to launch Visual Vocal

German designers Toni Egger and Felix Tarantik are creating mobile saunas inside the aluminium shells of Swiss ski lift gondolas. The four-person Saunagondel can withstand extreme weather conditions and, with a footprint of two by two metres, is small and lightweight enough to transport from place to place. The sauna is fitted with custom-made silver fir wood interiors and a 4.5 kW electric heater that can reach temperatures of 100

New York’s The Four Seasons restaurant, which on Monday was awarded the Design Icon Award at the James Beard Foundation Awards, will soon close its doors ahead of a move to a new location. The restaurant’s operators have been unable to negotiate an extension to their current lease, and have chosen to leave their home of over 50 years inside Mies van der Rohe’s landmark Seagram building in Manhattan. The

Minnesota’s Bell Museum of Natural History has broken ground on a new US$79.2m (€69m, £54.7m) complex near the State Fairgrounds on the University of Minnesota’s Minneapolis campus. To be renamed the Bell Museum and Planetarium, a 120-seat domed planetarium and theatre will be one of the main new features, in addition to expanded galleries and a host of interactive exhibitions. Minneapolis-based architecture firm Perkins+Will have created the box structure, which

The global foresight manager at international architecture and engineering firm Arup has told CLAD that closer collaboration between architects, designers, developers and investors is essential if the buildings of the future are to successfully boost our health and wellbeing. Josef Hargrave said the increasingly sophisticated demands we make of our buildings necessitate a more holistic approach in how they are designed and developed. “We’re moving from a world where building

Velas Resorts is opening a new location on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula in November that will include a 20-room, 19,375sq ft (1,800sq m) spa and hydrotherapy facility. The US$150m (€130m, £103m) Grand Velas Los Cabos is the fifth property for the family-owned and operated company, and will include 306 suites with private terraces and personal plunge pools as well as five restaurants and a 16,370sq ft convention centre. The two-level spa

MVRDV’s design for a cultural hub in Zaandstad, Holland, featuring a concert hall, cinema, arts space, dance studio, library and architecture centre, has been given the green light by the municipality. The project, called The Cultural Cluster, can now be pushed forwards into the next stage of design. The Dutch architects have completed the preliminary design phase, which visualises a raised cubic volume with variously coloured silhouettes of traditional Zaan

Santiago Calatrava will design a pavilion inspired by a falcon in flight for the Dubai World Expo 2020. The National Media Council of the United Arab Emirates has selected the Swiss-Spanish architect to create its expo showpiece, which will represent the nation to the 25 million visitors expected to attend the architecture festival. Calatrava’s wing-shaped structure is expected to cover up to 15,000sq m (161,500sq dt) in the centre of

Canadian practice Diamond Schmitt Architects have released design details for a new arts complex in Texas inspired by the legendary 1950s pop star Buddy Holly. The Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences will be located in the city of Lubbock, where the singer was born. The multi-purpose centre will be a new home for rock concerts, operas, ballets and touring Broadway shows, as well as large-scale social and

After nearly two years of legal wrangling, George Lucas looks to have given up on Chicago as a viable option for his Museum of Narrative Art, with the filmmaker’s wife saying they were “seriously pursuing” alternative locations. With more installments than his famous Star Wars films, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art saga reached a significant landmark in February when a judge ruled in favour of legal action taken by

The developers of Rogers Place, a forthcoming multi-use arena and stadium for Canadian ice hockey franchise the Edmonton Oilers, have released new images showing construction progress. Work on the CA$600m (US$470m, €410m, £325m) venue – located in downtown Edmonton, Alberta – started in March 2014 and is scheduled to be finished in time for the start of the 2016-2017 National Hockey League (NHL) season in October. The new images, released

Parisian billionaire and philanthropist François Pinault, is taking over a historic commercial building in Paris to showcase his €1.2bn (US$1.4bn, £950m) modern art collection to the public. Pinault, who once ran a fashion empire including Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Puma and Balenciaga before handing the reigns over to his son François-Henri in 2001, follows the likes of Louis Vuitton and Prada in opening public museums to store their collections. “It

A new crowdfunding initiative is paving the way for party-loving investors to buy a stake in their very own Ibiza nightclub designed by artist Lluís Güell. The club, called Alter Ibiza, is set to open this July this year on the beach resort of San Josep. Replacing a former club, the new venue will transform the building’s existing basement into “a spectacular large space filled with split columns, marble staircases

Global entertainment designers Forrec have acquired Toronto-based Scott Torrance Landscape Architects as part of a strategic expansion of their portfolio. The practice – who create theme parks, water parks, resorts, mixed-use destinations and visitor attractions for brands such as Universal Studios, Legoland and BBC Worldwide – said the move reflects their drive to “help lead the next wave of landscape architecture design and build on our roots of offering Toronto

The winners of the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Restaurant Design Awards were announced at a ceremony on Monday evening (2 May) in Chicago. Design studios Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Demian Repucci Design and Land and Sea Dept were judged to have created the best restaurant designs or renovations in North America in the past three years. The first two practices tied for first place in the category for restaurants with

Detroit may become the next US city to enter a franchise into Major League Soccer (MLS) as part of a US$1bn (£685.2m, €866m) investment plan devised by two National Basketball Association (NBA) owners. Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores and Cleveland Cavaliers boss Dan Gilbert announced plans to build a 20,000-seater stadium in the downtown area of the city. The development – which is being designed by architecture studio Rossetti –

Tickets are now on sale for the world’s tallest and longest slide, which will open inside Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit London tower on 24 June 2016. Known simply as The Slide, the attraction is a collaboration between artist Kapoor and designer Carsten Höller. The 178m (590ft) helter skelter, designed with Bblur Architects, will start 76m (249 ft) above the ground and includes transparent polycarbonate sections allowing riders to look at

Hospitality specialists WATG Architects are designing a 160-bedroom Bellagio Shanghai, set to open in early 2017. With a “hip and cool” urban setting, the hotel’s architecture aims to capture the essence of the old and new Shanghai with a modern, tempered interpretation of Art Deco. The hotel will include a five-treatment-room Zen spa with separate male and female wet rooms with sauna and steam, relaxation lounge, indoor pool with tepidarium,

Architecture studio Waind Gohil + Potter Architects (WG+P) have transformed the ground floor and basement of an abandoned mansion block to create a bespoke gym in London. The gym, operated by boutique fitness studio Core Collective, features exposed concrete and masonry, ambient and interactive lighting, refined acoustics and several social spaces. WG+P have also added a cafe, shop, restaurant, juice bar and public art programme “to provide a truly unique

Museum news featured heavily on our site this week, with exciting projects around the world reaching various significant milestones. Today (29 April), MVRDV’s flamboyant golden Denmark Museum of Rock Music opened in the Danish city Roskilde and international architecture studio Snøhetta released new images of their 10-storey addition to the SFMOMA in San Francisco. Earlier this week, David Chipperfield’s Nobel Center and museum received the green light from Stockholm City

A new £2m (US$2.9m, €2.6m) football centre which consists of 10 3G five-a-side pitches has been opened near the site of the old BBC Television Centre in Shepherds Bush. Designed by LK2 Architects, the 11,800sq m (127,014) Hammersmith Park Football Centre includes space to build more pitches, and a community-focused pavilion with a cafe, bar, changing rooms and space for a number of cycle racks. PlayFootball – the organisation which

Denmark’s Museum of Rock Music opens today (29 April) in the city of Roskilde, marking the latest building from Dutch architecture studio MVRDV. The museum is as striking as you’d expect from the designers of Rotterdam’s famous curved Market Hall. The design channels Mick Jagger, David Bowie and other flamboyant figures from the history of rock music with a textured, spiky golden facade and plush deep red interiors. “The building

Four Seasons has opened a hotel in Bogota, Colombia that takes its design inspiration from the surrounding mountains. The 64-bedroom Four Seasons Hotel Bogota includes a spa with five treatment rooms, including an oversized couple’s suite, as well as relaxation lounges, steamrooms and a spa shop. Houston, Texas-based Rottet Studio created the design aesthetic, drawing inspiration from the mountains surrounding the city. Pattern, texture and craftsmanship combine in the lobby,

Architecture firms Cubo and jaja, along with a team consisting of VMB, Schul, Søren Jensen and Mogens Morgen, have been named winners of a competition to revitalise a 15th century castle on the Danish island of Funen. The medieval Nyborg Castle – the site where Denmark’s first constitution was signed in 1282 – will feature a new exhibition wing and visitor centre, as well as bridges for visitors to approach