Ground has broken on the latest project of Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron: a new home for the National Library of Israel. The new building – which will replace the library’s current 1950s home, described as “outdated and barely serviceable” – is located in Jerusalem’s National District adjacent to Israel’s parliament building. When it opens in 2020, it will protect, preserve and showcase the country’s cultural and intellectual books,

US National Football League (NFL) franchise the Miami Dolphins is racing to complete a US$450m renovation of its stadium before pre-season begins in August 2016. The club is working with sports architects HOK to construct a new open-air rooftop canopy, which is designed to amplify crowd noise and cast 92 per cent of fans in shade from the fierce south Florida heat. The square roof will be supported by distinctive

Beijing-based innovators MAD Architects have designed a flowing, translucent installation for the 2016 Milan Design Week in the famous courtyard of the city’s university. The sculptural piece, called Invisible Border, forms a rippling canopy descending across the Cortile d’Onore courtyard from a loggia to the ground, establishing a shelter for people to gather, socialise and contemplate their surroundings. “Architects usually create borders by defining spaces – what is inside and

Architecture and development practice Swisatec have outlined plans for Africa’s “most environmentally friendly estate” – a car-free leisure village in Cape Town. Blue Rock Village will be a 40-hectare extension to an existing water ski resort, and has been envisioned as “a pioneer for an exciting new standard of living.” The project is worth an estimated R14bn (US$900m, €790.5m, £631m) and construction will begin in August this year. In addition

Danish studio AART Architects have been named the winners of an international competition to design a new extension for the Viking Age Museum in Oslo, Norway. The firm were chosen ahead of 11 rivals to create a “new signature, forward looking setting” for one of the country’s most popular museums – which exhibits a number of Viking Age boats and artefacts – after the judges unanimously approved the bold, circular

The founders of Dutch architecture studio MVRDV have today (12 April) added five new partners as part of a management reshuffle intended to nurture the practice’s “intellectual and creative continuity, organisational growth and stability.” Frans de Witte, Fokke Moerel, Jeroen Zuidgeest, Wenchian Shi and Jan Knikker join founding trio Winy Maas, Nathalie de Vries and Jacob van Rijs as partners. As part of the reshuffle, the studio – which has

Daniel Libeskind yesterday (11 April) publicly revealed for the first time that he has been developing a Kurdistan Museum in Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region. The Polish American architect spoke out about the secretive, long-gestating project during an appearance at Bloomberg Design Week in San Francisco. The project was commissioned by the prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani – who approached Libeskind seven years ago

Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto has designed an immersive installation called Forest of Light for Milan Design Week. A darkened space is illuminated by towering cones of light that respond to visitors’ movements. Fog and specially-composed sounds add an atmospheric effect, and mirrored walls have been installed to create the illusion of an infinite landscape, where the conical spotlights form countless abstract trees. “People meander through this forest, as if lured

Sports architecture firm HOK have designed a “first-of-its-kind” training and sports medicine centre for National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise the Atlanta Hawks. The privately-funded facility will be the first NBA training centre to be co-located with a sports medicine centre, which will home Emory Healthcare. Emory will have the naming rights to the 90,000 sq ft (8,361sq m) facility, which will be built in the Brookhaven region of Atlanta. Ground

Spa, fitness and lifestyle consultancy WTS International (WTS) has debuted its latest venture, the newly-opened EOS Wellness facility in Kuala Lumpur's St Mary Residences. The project has been completed in conjunction with Eastern & Oriental Berhad (E&O), a Malaysian lifestyle property development group. E&O is introducing EOS Wellness as part of a broader strategy to nurture a wellness pillar to complement its core property development business. WTS was responsible for

Santiago Calatrava’s futuristic tower design for Dubai will ‘be a notch taller’ than the Burj Khalifa, according to its developer Emaar Properties. The real estate giant hosted an event in the city on Sunday (10 April) to officially unveil the project, now named as ‘The Tower’, two months after Calatrava was named as the winner of an international design project for the commission. According to reports in Dubai, the structure

Construction will begin in the next few months on Australia’s first man-made surf park after planning approval was granted for the Melbourne project. Perth-based company Wave Park Group has partnered with architects MJA Studios – who recently unveiled their plan to transform an abandoned sports stadium into an enormous outdoor wave pool near Perth – for the facility, which will be called Urbnsurf. “Surfing is a sport enjoyed by millions

The Center for Architecture in Portland, Oregon, is to launch the first major US exhibition on international architecture studio Snøhetta and their work around the world. Named Snøhetta: People, Process, Projects, the exhibition will explore the practice's culture and design philosophy and follows on from a similar event held last year at the Danish Architecture Centre in Copenhagen. It will be launched on 17 April 2016 to kick off Design

Memphis Zoo in Tennessee, US, is preparing to launch its new US$22.3m (€19.5m, £15.7m) Zambezi River Hippo Camp at the end of this month, bringing together a collection of animals in the immersive setting of an African fishing village. Created by Ace Torre of zoo specialists Torre Design Consortium, the experience covers 16,000sq m (174,000sq ft) and mimics a river walk through a remote camp. Starring two female hippos with

Besiktas – one of the best supported football clubs in Turkey – has opened the doors to its new 42,000-capacity stadium. The €110m (£88.2m, US$125.2m) Vodafone Arena was unveiled by the club alongside Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and former president Abdullah Gul last night (10 April). Turkish firm DBArchitects designed the Vodafone Arena alongside local architect Metin Demir. After playing home matches around the country

Timber skyscrapers can improve our built environments and urban experiences, according British practice PLP Architecture and researchers from Cambridge University. To give credence to this theory, the architects and academics have joined forces with engineers Smith and Wallwork to present mayor of London Boris Johnson with conceptual plans for an 80-storey, 300m high wooden mixed use tower integrated within the Barbican arts centre in the capital. The use of timber

Four young American entrepreneurs are building a unique, crowdsourced ski resort on Utah’s Powder Mountain with arts and culture at its core. The collective, called Summit, are overseeing the construction of a new ski village on the site of a mountainside ranch, which will feature restaurants, cafés, artisan stores and artists’ workshops. The village will also house the headquarters of the Summit Series community – a movement formed by the

The on-again off-again merger of Starwood Hotels & Resorts and Marriott International looks set to go ahead after shareholders of both companies voted en masse for the proposed deal. Marriott's cash-and-stock acquisition of Starwood, valued at US$12.41bn as of Thursday (7 April), will create the world’s largest hotel company. Holders of more than 97 per cent of Marriott shares and 95 per cent of Starwood shares voted in favour of

The competitive nature of property developers has benefitted the sustainability of buildings, with rival firms fighting to be “the greenest, the biggest and the best.” That’s the view of Patrick Bellew, founder of environmental design consultants and building services engineers Atelier Ten, who has spoken exclusively to CLAD about how architects are reshaping the ways buildings interact with the environment. He said: “In the early days, we worked with universities

Dutch exhibition designers Kossmann.dejong have created a show celebrating the “spectacular” interior designs of the Amsterdam School of architecture in the early 20th century. The exhibition, called Living in the Amsterdam School: Designing for the Interior 1910-1930, will open in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam tomorrow (9 April). The Amsterdam School – which grew out of international Expressionist architecture – is famous internationally for the progressive buildings its followers produced,

Sports and entertainment architecture studio Populous – designers of the London 2012 Olympic Stadium – will advise on venue design for Paris’ 2024 Olympic bid. The firm will collaborate with international engineering firm Egis to draw up plans for 38 Olympic and Paralympic facilities. Together, they will design new permanent and temporary buildings and ensure existing venues in the French capital are ready for the scale and needs of Olympic

The practice founded by pioneering architect Zaha Hadid, who passed away last week at the age of 65, have invited people to celebrate her life, pay their respects to her family and sign books of condolence at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London, which she designed. The venue’s Magazine restaurant will be open between 2pm and 7pm GMT on April 7 and 8 to host those wishing to pay tribute.

Dutch architects MVRDV have announced an eye-catching temporary installation for Rotterdam: a giant staircase leading from the plaza outside the city’s central train station to the top of an adjacent historic building. Called The Stairs, the 29m (95ft) tall, 57m (187ft) long installation will be open from 16 May to 12 June 2016. It has been commissioned as part of an event called Rotterdam celebrates the city, which marks the

Global experience design and production agency Thinkwell Group have appointed former Walt Disney Imagineering executive Diane Michioka as their new vice president of production. Michioka, who has more than to decade of experience working in short and long-term strategic project planning, show producing, and creative team management, will have a key role in assisting the business development team with client relations and proposal development, as well as guiding, strategizing, and

The development of the new Western Australian Museum building in Perth has reached a significant milestone, with a design team led by international architects OMA now in negotiations to oversee the project. Multi-disciplinary practice Hassell and British constructors Brookfield Multiplex have joined Rem Koolhaas’ studio to design and build the museum, which will house the state’s scientific and cultural collections. The design team overcame competition from firms including Foster +

British designer Thomas Heatherwick will be presented with a lifetime achievement prize at the 2016 Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards on 22 April. The founder and design director of Heatherwick Studio – which has undertaken diverse projects including the cauldron for the 2012 London Olympics and a Bombay Sapphire gin distillery in Hampshire, UK, and has designed the highly controversial Garden Bridge in London – is being recognised for his “ingenuity,

An expensive and long-awaited cultural centre and metro station created by French architects Patrick Berger and Jacques Anziutti on the site of a historic Paris marketplace has been officially unveiled. The design at Les Halles is known as the Canopy due to its enormous umbrella-like glass roof, which comprises 18,000 pieces of glass supported by 7,000 tonnes of steel. Construction on the €1bn (US$1.42bn, £806.7m) project, funded by the City