The new managing director of hospitality interior design practice RPW Design has encouraged designers and hospitality operators to infuse their projects with more distinct personalities. Ariane Steinbeck, who joined the London firm in December, told CLAD that despite the abundance of new hotel and spa offerings being developed, true diversity is hard to find. “Consumers face a difficult choice between all the different brands that aim to serve a specific

The transformation of a former industrial site in Danish city Roskilde into a new home for rock and roll will be complete by April this year, CLAD has learned. The Danish Rock Museum, the headquarters of the annual Roskilde Rock Festival and the Roskilde Festival Folk Music School will soon all be housed in one new complex, called Ragnarock. The facilities will be located inside renovated factory buildings with new

Visitors to the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London this May will be able to explore a garden pavilion inspired by nature and fabricated by robots in front of their eyes. The Elytra Filament Pavilion – created by experimental architects Achim Menges and Moritz Dörstelmann in collaboration with engineers Jan Knippers and Thomas Auer – will launch a special Engineering Season at the museum. The installation will explore the

International architecture practice Sasaki Associates have unveiled an ambitious masterplan for the largest mixed-use development in Southeast Asia: an island-based metropolis in Malaysia called Forest City. The studio – whose previous work includes waterfront parks and river walkways in Chicago and Los Angeles – have envisioned “a compact and walkable metropolis with a variety of civic, cultural and recreational amenities set in a lush, tropical landscape with unparalleled ocean views.”

Los Angeles’ 1932 Sixth Street Viaduct has officially closed ahead of its forthcoming demolition, allowing work to begin on a replacement which will better connect the city’s eastern and western districts and create a new large-scale arts and leisure realm. US practice Michael Maltzan Architecture have designed the US$449m (€411.2m, £311.2m) “transformative infrastructure project”, which centres around a 3,500ft (1,000m) long, ten-arch ‘Ribbon of Light Bridge’ spanning the Los Angeles

The Museum of Modern Art in New York has announced Mexican design practice Escobedo Solíz Studio as the winner of its annual Young Architects Program (YAP). The design competition, now in its 17th year, challenges the winner to develop an innovative and sustainable design for a temporary outdoor installation providing shade, seating and water at MoMA’s sister institution, MoMA PS1, in Long Island City. Escobedo Solíz Studio’s winning project, Weaving

Both London’s Science Museum and Natural History Museum have confirmed they are in preliminary discussions about opening satellite sites as part of the multi-billion pound Old Oak Common redevelopment in west London. The 30-year Old Oak development plan – conceived as the UK’s largest regeneration project with around 1.35sq km (0.52sq miles) of available space – will include a litany of new leisure projects including a possible new 40,000-capacity home

Richard Meier & Partners have completed their first major hotel project – the new Seamarq Hotel in South Korea. Located in the city of Gangneun, where it faces the country’s East Sea, the hotel has been rebuilt as part of a regional regeneration scheme in preparation for the 2018 Winter Olympics in nearby PyeongChang. The 52,830sq m (568,700sq ft) area contains two main structures – a hotel tower and a

US sports architects HOK and Spanish practice TAC Arquitectes have won the tender to design a new multi-sports arena for Barcelona FC. The duo were chosen by the jury ahead of five other contenders, including MAKE, Dominique Perrault Architecture and Wilkinson Eyre. Among other sporting facilities, the New Palau Blaugrana will feature a basketball court, an ice rink and a new home for the club’s football academy, FCB Escola. The

David Rockwell’s design studio have revealed the first renderings of the “playfully sophisticated” Los Angeles hotel they are creating for boutique operator Dream Hotels. The 179-room Dream Hollywood Hotel, located on the city’s Selma Avenue, will open in Q2 2016. The building’s architecture and design – created by the Rockwell Group – celebrate the mid-century modern architecture of Hollywood and LA and are partly inspired by the work of Austrian-American

A Dutch architectural collective has proposed an iconic landmark for the Southern Gulf region: a city located inside a decommissioned oil tanker. The concept, called The Black Gold, imagines the storage tanks within the ship being adapted to house hotels, restaurants, museums, shops and apartments, while the base floor of the vessel could be used for big cultural event-based uses, such as concerts. The double steel walls would ensure a

Sports giant Nike has launched a 3.2m sq ft (297,000sq m) expansion of its world headquarters in Oregon to add sporting facilities, mixed-use space and new offices. The architecture of the expansion is inspired by human movement, speed, plus the strength and energy of competition. A large beacon serves as the centrepiece of the new campus, featuring a sculpture of Nike’s namesake, the winged Greek goddess of victory. Open green

A former sand extraction station in the Bahamas is to be transformed into a luxury private island featuring bars, restaurants, sports facilities and an exclusive spa and wellness sanctuary. The Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve – located 65 miles (104.5 km) east of Miami, Florida – has been launched by MSC Cruises, who have partnered with ecologists and the government of the Bahamas to create a US$200m (€182.7m, £139m) “flourishing

The National Aquarium in Baltimore has unveiled plans to reinvent the city’s waterfront, creating an urban wetland and pier-side conservation area for the local community. The reinvention of the area around the aquarium will create a free, accessible, environmental public space, developed in partnership with Baltimore city organisations. The central tenet of the project is to encourage community engagement with the environment, build a vision of a sustainable future and

A new 60,000-capacity stadium, a velodrome and a tennis complex will be built if Budapest wins its bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games. The City Council for the Hungarian capital has approved the list of venues, which include seven cluster and five stand-alone arenas within the city. Most of the Games events have been earmarked for the new athletics stadium – which will be scaled down to 15,000 seats

Luxury restaurant brand the Ivy Collection is to open a new brasserie located next to London’s famous Tower Bridge. The new Ivy will become the first flagship restaurant of the One Tower Bridge development – a mixed-use scheme, masterplanned by architects Squire and Partners, featuring apartments and 80,000sq ft (7,400sq m) of leisure and cultural space. While architectural details have not yet been released, One Tower Bridge developer Berkeley Homes

The foundation dedicated to conserving the work of legendary French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent has revealed two new museums dedicated to his life and career will open in France and Morocco in 2017. The Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent will showcase part of its vast collection of accessories, haute couture garments, sketches, collection boards, photographs and objects collected by Saint Laurent between 1962 and 2002. “To this day, this

The Hive – Wolfgang Buttress’ award-winning multi-sensory pavilion – is to be given a new home within London’s Kew Gardens. The structure was the centrepiece of the UK’s entry at the six-month long 2015 Milan Expo, where it attracted more than 3.3m visitors and was awarded the BIE Gold Award for Architecture and Landscape. It will be displayed at Kew – a UNESCO World Heritage Site containing 132 hectares of

New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has unveiled revised US$445m (€407.3m, £310.6m) plans to redevelop and expand the facility, with plans by Diller Scofidio + Renfro streamlining the museum experience to work better for both visitors and curators. The expansion of facilities, expected to be complete by 2020, will increase gallery space by 30 per cent – an increase of 40,000sq ft (3,716sq m) to 174,000sq ft (16,165sq m).

Uber is quite literally propelling itself into new transportation markets with the advent of its new helicopter service, UberChopper. Eager to expand into forms of transport beyond its usual car service, Uber has been experimenting with helicopters, boats and even rickshaws in recent years. UberChopper has been offered at several high-profile leisure events in the last six months, including the Cannes Film Festival and the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival,

The foundation stone for David Chipperfield’s Mughal Museum building in Agra, India, has been laid near the eastern gate of the Taj Mahal. The museum – which will be dedicated to the history and culture of Northern India's Mughal dynasty – will accommodate 5,200sq m (55,972sq ft) permanent and temporary exhibition space, according to Chipperfield’s studio. The first rendering for the museum suggests it will be formed by a series

Aspiring young British costume and set designers have been encouraged by film and theatre director Sam Mendes to submit their own designs for his hit musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Mendes – who has won Academy and Olivier accolades for his work – has launched the The Young Theatre Designer Award, which challenges entrants aged 13-21 to bring Roald Dahl’s famous story of Charlie Bucket, Willy Wonka and the

The new home of the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) will officially launch to the public on Sunday (31 January) with an all-day open house. Designed by architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R), the project integrates a pre-existing 48,000sq ft (4,459sq m) art deco building – the former 1939 printing plant of the neighbouring UC Berkeley – with a new 35,000sq ft (2,251sq m)

Lifestyle brand Virgin Hotels will open its first California location in Palm Springs in late 2018. The hotel will feature 150 bedrooms, multiple restaurants, a rooftop terrace and pool, and a spa – likely similar to its first spa location in Chicago, where clients can completely customise treatments. Designed by local architect Chris Pardo, the hotel will be located in the heart of downtown Palm Springs and surrounded by historic

A facility billed as “the largest bouldering gym in the world” has opened in Austin, Texas after two years of construction. The 50,000sq ft (4,650sq m) facility, called the Austin Bouldering Project, was designed by Dylan Johnson of DJA Architects, with interiors created by local studio Lilianne Steckel and realised by general contractor LaBelle Construction. The developer was Texan company 3423 Holdings. The gym features 23,000sq ft (2,100sq m) of

Tree-loving Italian architect Stefano Boeri has lined up his next forest-inspired project: a resort property in China’s Guizhou province. The Cachet Hotel Group has announced Boeri will partner with acclaimed local artist Simon Ma to build the centrepiece of Cachet Wanfeng Valley – its first resort development in Asia. The group has unveiled renderings of the pair’s design for a striking “lifestyle destination” with trees on every terrace. The building

The exhibition designers of Singapore’s recently relaunched National Gallery have laid out the idea behind the concept – a walk through time using the medium of art to tell the story of Singapore and southeast Asia. The gallery, which opened its doors to the public at the end of last year, was a collaboration between several architects and design studios. Working closely with its studio in Paris and with architect