Sports architects Frieder Roskam, Bill Stonor and Geraint John are among the first inductees to the newly established IAKS Hall of Fame for leisure architects. Launched to mark the 50th anniversary of IAKS (International Association for Sports and Leisure Facilities), the Hall of Fame honours architects, designers and those working in leisure for their services to architecture and facility development. In total, 12 people – most of them architects – were named

Heatherwick Studio has revealed the first details of its plan to develop a disused coal yard in King’s Cross into a large-scale public space and mixed-use destination. The Coal Drops buildings at King’s Cross station in London were built in the 1850s to receive freight arriving from the north of England by train. They were later used for warehousing and light industry before being abandoned in the last century. In

The 72,000sq ft (6,689sq m) Governors Island European-style hydrotherapy spa planned for New York has gained approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission to proceed, bringing it one step closer to construction. The Governors Island project, located a short ferry-ride away from Manhattan and Brooklyn, includes three landmark buildings designed by architecture firm Rogers & Poor. The buildings, which were once used as officers’ quarters, date from the early 1900s, and

A planned garden installation in a Chinese sculpture park will let visitors wander the grounds over, under and around huge stacks of flowers. The Chinese architects behind the design, Studio Pei-Zhu, plan to build their garden around an abandoned two-storey concrete frame in a bid to “attach new content and meaning to ordinary worthless things.” The structure – in Quanzhou National Art Park in the province of Fujian – is

David Chipperfield is seeking legal action over “defects” in the construction of his Museo delle Culture (Mudec) in Milan. The museum had its soft opening on 27 October. On the same day David Chipperfield Architects posted a statement on their website making clear the firm's anger at how the project has been handled. The company said: “The Milan City Council is opening the doors of the museum despite David Chipperfield

Planning permission has been granted for the largest phase of the £200m (US$305m, €278m) redevelopment of the iconic Lord’s cricket ground in London. Work can now begin on the South-Western Project – the second phase of a wider masterplan raising the ground's overall capacity to more than 30,000. The existing Tavern and Allen stands will be demolished and rebuilt as a single 5,200 capacity structure designed by sports architects Populous.

A Beijing and Vienna-based architecture studio say they want to create a city for 20,000 people made entirely from bamboo. The company, Penda, have invented a new structural system which uses pieces of bamboo, bound with rope, to create hotels, homes, bridges, floating structures and public space. As additional bamboo canes are connected, the structure expands and can carry increasing loads without the need for a single piece of steel

Miami Beach’s legendary Saxony Hotel, originally designed by Art Deco architect Roy F. France in 1948, has been transformed by (and named for) Argentine real estate developer Alan Faena, and is set to open next month. With what promises to be stunning interiors designed by filmmaker Baz Luhrmann and his wife, Academy Award-winning costume designer Catherine Martin, The Faena Hotel Miami Beach will also include a 22,000sq ft (2,044sq m)

A New York-based architectural design firm have proposed an innovative new way of integrating public green space in an urban context: by making it float. Studio MMK entered their vision for a ‘floating forest’ in a competition to design a new public and cultural space in one of Seoul’s most historic streets. In their plans for the development, 23 pagoda trees appear to hover a little way above the traffic-filled

A Colorado, US, hotel which inspired Stephen King's The Shining has announced plans to open a horror-themed museum at the establishment, with some of the biggest names in horror backing the ambitious US$24m (€21.7m, £15.7m) project. Led by Denver-based design firm MOA Architecture, the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park will be home to the 43,000sq ft (4,000sq m) interactive museum, which will also feature a horror film archive and a

Locals in Brighton, UK, have taken their first proper look at Marks Barfield Architects’ Brighton i360 vertical cable car, following the removal of the structure’s jacking tower. Standing 162m (531.5ft) high on Brighton beach, the i360 will be the UK’s tallest visitor attraction outside London when it is completed in in summer 2016. It has been designed and engineered by the team behind the London Eye. With the tower structure

Moscow’s radical urban regeneration programme has taken another step forward following the announcement that Sergey Skuratov Architects have been selected to design a large leisure and residential complex opposite the Kremlin. Describing the site of the project in the capital’s Sofiyskaya Embankment, Skuratov said: “It’s a wasteland overgrown with weeds, forgotten by residents, concealed from the glances of passers-by and completely separated from the city life still flowing around it.

Hungary’s government has finalised and approved plans to create a new museum quarter, significantly inflating the previous budget by around three times to HUF200bn (US$710.3m, €643.3m, £464.3m). The cultural quarter known as Park Budapest, has been designed by multiple architects narrowed down from more than 500 anonymous applications. The Museum of Ethnography will be built in line with plans by French architecture practice Vallet de Martinis DIID Architectes, while Japanese

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will officially open its Snøhetta-designed 235,000sq ft (21,800sq m) extension on May 14, 2016. The creation of a new 10-storey gallery building will triple the museum’s exhibition space, allowing it to house SFMOMA’s vast collection of art, sculpture and photography. The new structure will sit alongside the museum’s existing 225,000sq ft (20,900sq m) building, designed by Mario Botti. Speaking exclusively to CLADmag

German architect Volker Staab has beaten 40 international rivals in a competition to expand an iconic art museum in Berlin. He has designed a new 6,700sq m (72,000sq ft) extension for the Bahaus-Archiv and Museum für Gestaltung, which houses the world’s largest collection of crafts and fine arts from the Bahaus artistic movement. His design incorporates a series of underground galleries and a delicate fire-storey glazed tower; described by one

Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities has said it is reviving ambitious US$150m (€136m, £97.8m) plans to develop 'the world’s first underwater museum', which will showcase the submerged ancient ruins of Alexandria. Announced by minister of antiquities Mamdouh al-Damaty, the plans have been in the works for more than seven years after the government decided to turn the ruins, which date back to 365 AD, into a tourist attraction. According to Youssef

Next Architects have opened a new bridge that doubles as a habitat for local bats in a Dutch town called Monster, part of a green regeneration to bring nature to the waterway. As well as allowing locals to cross the meandering Vlotwaterling River, the 25m (82ft) concrete and wooden structure is also fitted with grooves on its underside that act as an ideal roosting place for the bats. The company’s

The New York architects working to create the Lowline – the world's first underground park – have launched a scaled down version of the project as a test bed. The Lowline Lab, launched this week by RAAD Studio, will act as a research laboratory, enabling the team to explore which plants grow in the darkened conditions. The experiment has been funded through the Kickstarter crowd funding platform. When complete, the

SITE Santa Fe, one of the most respected contemporary arts venues in the US, will undergo a radical expansion overseen by New York firm SHoP Architects. The museum – which runs year-round exhibitions, artistic residencies and educational programmes to foster avant-garde art – has occupied a former warehouse in the Santa Fe Railyard since its opening in 1995. SHoP’s planned renovation and expansion will dramatically increase SITE’s size. The studio’s

Consett Leisure Centre, a new £44m (US$68 E61) complex which combines educational establishment, Consett Academy, with a new leisure centre – to be shared by students and the public – has opened in County Durham in the UK. Financed by local government body Durham County Council, the two venues occupy a new single building – designed by Seymour Harris Architecture – and located in the heart of Consett on the

Over 3,000 people have attended the topping-out ceremony for the Bjarke Ingels-designed Lego House, a visitor attraction made to resemble a giant stack of Lego bricks. Local citizens and Lego employees in the Danish town of Billund were invited to tour the construction site now the keystone brick has been set in place. According to the Lego Group, the completed experience centre will open to the public in the second

Global theme park and attractions operator, Merlin Entertainments, which is number two in the world to Disney, has revealed plans to build a Legoland in Shanghai. The US$300m (£194m, €265m) Legoland Shanghai is a joint venture between Merlin and Chinese investment firm China Media Capital. The popular Lego-themed attraction has been making headway in the Asian market in recent years, with Legoland parks under construction in Japan and South Korea,

An expert in the field of architecture and heritage has said that Microsoft’s HoloLens will play a huge part in the future of the sector. Speaking at CyArk’s annual summit, Adrian Ferrier – who heads up product development in visual intelligence solutions for California-based mapping company Trimble Navigation – envisioned an exciting future. He said when applied to the world of architecture, engineering and construction, the HoloLens device can extend

Japanese architecture practice Kengo Kuma & Associates has revealed radical designs for the new Museum of Indigenous Knowledge, to be built in Manila in the Philippines. The museum will cover 4,000 years of history, enabling visitors to experience the cultural and religious heritage of the islands’ indigenous peoples, starting from the Neolithic age. The design has turned traditional museum architecture on its head by creating a jungle-inspired building inside an

Scandinavia’s largest library has opened in Aarhus, as the high-profile regeneration of the Danish city’s historic harbour-front continues. The 30,000sq m (323,000sq ft) building, called Dokk1, has been designed by schmidt hammer lassen architects; the international studio responsible for the RIBA award-winning University of Aberdeen New Library. Dokk1's higher levels are contained with a polygonal structure, which the architects intended to create an impression of rotation and movement. The unconventional

The Musée de l'Homme (Museum of Mankind) has reopened in Paris after undergoing a €90m (US$103m, £66.9m) interior redevelopment. The relaunch comes six years after the institution closed and almost ceased to be amid uncertainty about its future under former President Jacques Chirac. The new design by Bordeaux-based Brochet-Lajus-Pueyo, in conjunction with architectural studio Emmanuel Nebout, takes note of the original design, retaining certain elements while increasing entry of natural

Construction work at Barra Olympic Park, the main competition cluster for the Rio 2016 Olympics, is now 92 per cent complete. In its latest update on building progress, Rio de Janeiro’s city government announced that 12 venues across the two main Olympic Parks – Barra and Deodoro – are now “nearly complete”, compared with six venues last month (September 2015). In Barra, finishing touches are being made to the athletes’