In response to a lawsuit aiming to halt development of George Lucas’ legacy project on Chicago’s waterfront, a revised proposal for the Lucas Museum – which includes a scaled-back building design with more green space – was unveiled during a federal court hearing on 10 September. The new designs force Friends of the Parks – the nonprofit group suing in an attempt to halt development on the Chicago waterfront –

Owner and operator Minor Hotel Group, in partnership with Dubai developer Nakheel, is developing a 500-guestroom Avani hotel in Dubai, set to open in 2018. Avani Deira Dubai Hotel will be located in Deira Islands, a waterfront entertainment, tourist and residential destination being developed in alignment with Dubai Vision 2020, a strategic roadmap with the objective of attracting 20 million visitors per year to Dubai by 2020. Deira Islands comprises

Plans for the world's first revolving glass observation pod in the centre of Bath, UK, have been unveiled, with design by SRA Architects. The £5m (US$7.7m, €6.9m) plans would see the rotating 65m-tall (213ft) ‘AquEye’ built on the city’s Pulteney Weir Island next to the historic Pulteney Bridge, according AquaEye founder Nicholas Stubbs. The structure, made up of two long masts and an observation pod would swing out over the

A popular Snarkitecture-designed exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, drew to a close this week, attracting almost 200,000 visitors in just two months. The temporary interactive exhibit, entitled BEACH, was installed in the museum’s famous Great Hall and made from a mishmash of construction materials and an ocean of 750,000 recyclable plastic balls. “We had around 182,000 visitors total,” a spokesperson for the National Building Museum told

Wellness design firm A.W. Lake has launched Uberwell – a wellness design, technology and trend blog – intended to keep hotel and commercial property owners, developers and operators at the forefront of the wellness trend. “Recently valued at US$3.4tn (€3tn, £2.2tn) dollars, wellness has gone mainstream,” said Adria Lake, owner and managing director of A.W. Lake. “Spanning across generations and market demographics, the wellness consumer is anyone and everyone who

Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) is working with Japanese architecture and engineering firm Nikken Sekkei to submit a fresh bid for the Tokyo Olympic stadium project after their first design was dropped in July. A new design-and-build competition for the stadium, which is set to host events during the 2020 Olympic games, was launched on 1 September 2015, with a much shorter design and construction schedule. Revised guidelines will cap the

PGAV Destinations have been appointed by Oklahoma’s Tulsa Zoo to develop a new US$16m (€14.3m, £10.4m) Asian animal exhibit slated for launch in 2017. Known as Lost Kingdom, the new exhibit will be realised through the renovation of existing buildings, repurposing of structures and development of brand new facilities. Covering 20,000sq m (215,000sq ft), the PGAV-designed exhibit is inspired by Asian cultures, featuring animal habitats, guest attractions and a dining

Barcelona FC officials have announced that 14 design teams are in the running to play a part in the €600m (US$670m, £436m) redevelopment of the club’s iconic Nou Camp stadium. The competition is for two separate overhauls of facilities at the Nou Camp. These would comprise alterations to the main stadium and the redevelopment of the nearby Palau Blaugrana – an arena owned by the La Liga club. For the

Architects Populous have won a major design competition to create the NC Dinos Baseball Park in Changwon City, South Korea. The collective of architects, designers and technical experts will now lead design of the 22,000-seat NC Dinos Baseball Park, near Busan in the south of the country, with a construction value of US$100m (€90m, £65m). Working with local partner Haeahn Consortium, a key feature of the Populous design is the

Antoni Gaudí's Casa Vicens in Barcelona, Spain, is to be turned into a museum celebrating his work. It will open during the second half of 2016. The house was built in 1889 and is a UNESCO-listed World Heritage site. Gaudí, who lived from 1852 until 1926 is the best known practitioner of Catalan Modernism – a style centred in Barcelona and expressed mainly through architecture. Casa Vicens is the first

Luxury Scottish resort Portavadie has opened its 1,991sq m (21,431sq ft) spa and leisure centre, part of a further £10m (€14 m, US$15.5m) development to the property. The spa and leisure centre includes four treatment rooms and six swimming pools, including a children’s splash pool, a 16m (52ft) indoor pool, outdoor spa pools, and a 9x9m (30x30ft) heated outdoor infinity pool. It also includes two Scandinavian saunas, a steamroom, Precor-equipped

Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron have unveiled new designs for the £500m (US$770m, €688.5m) redevelopment of Chelsea Football Club’s Stamford Bridge, which will see the old stadium demolished and a new 60,000-capacity home for the Premier League champions built in its place. The images, not yet officially released to the press, were presented at a public consultation held by the Premier League club, with Herzog & de Meuron working

A US$400m (£262m, €359m) Vietnamese theme park and leisure complex has been conceptualised and masterplanned by leisure consulting company International Theme Park Services (ITPS). Construction is already under way in the popular tourist destination of Halong Bay. ITPS collaborated with Wyatt Design Group and Hetzel Design on different aspects of the 140-hectare (345 acre) project. It's being built by Da Nang-based Sun Group Corporation, one of Vietnam’s leading hotel and

John Burgess, managing director of Sydney Zoo and founder of Sydney Aquarium, has announced plans for an AU$36m (US$25m, €22.3m, £16.3m) second zoo in Sydney, with the new facility set for the city’s western suburbs after securing funding for the development through private fundraising. Working in partnership with Allen Partners and Sturt Capital Partners, Burgess will develop the plans initially unveiled by NSW premier Mike Baird in March. ASPECT Studios

After drawing the ire of the Egyptian government when it created a replica sphinx last year, a Chinese theme park in Shijiazhuang has added to its collection, creating a 1:1 replica version of Paris’ Louvre Pyramid. Not sharing quite the same iconic locale, the replica Louvre Pyramid – the original of which first opened in 1989 – sits in the overgrown field of the unique amusement park/movie set in Shijiazhuang,

The Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science has closed its doors for the first time in more than 50 years ahead of its US$275m (€212m, £168.5m) move to a new location in downtown Miami in early 2016. The new three-storey, 250,000sq ft (32,225sq m) facility – currently under construction in a prominent location on the Miami waterfront alongside the city’s 40-acres Museum Park and Perez Art Museum Miami –

South Korea’s government is planning to fast track the development of a W93.4bn (US$78.9m, €70.8m, £51.8m) national aviation museum, according to the country’s Ministry of Transport A competition will be held in October this year to choose the architect and the museum will open some time in 2018. The transport museum will be built on the site of the Gimpo International Airport, just outside Seoul, and will celebrate South Korea’s

Starwood’s Le Meridien hotel brand will open in Batumi, the brand’s first property in the Republic of Georgia, in 2018. The 110-room newly constructed hotel will be located in the Batumi Tower, a mixed-use development designed by the Hausart Project that features a unique integrated Ferris wheel on the 27th floor. The eight air-conditioned cabins of the Ferris wheel each can hold 40 people. The tower – reported to be

French designer Philippe Starck has created the first “inflatable” building in Montpelier, France, by cladding health and fitness club with fluourine-based EFTE to create a bubble-like façade housing health and fitness facilities over five floors. Opening on 11th September, the Le Nuage club includes a fitness studio and gym, swimming pool, café, children’s area, hairdressers and beauty salon. Starck furniture has been used throughout the stylish and striking interior, with

Croatian-Austrian design collective numen/for use have unveiled a new installation at Aut. Architektur und Tirol museum in Innsbruck comprised of a series of interactive, explorable, stitched safety nets. The temporary exhibition, which closes on 10 October, uses elastic strings tethered to the ceilings and walls of the exhibition space, forming a fluid tunnel for intrepid visitors to traverse through. The architect’s design uses dispersed structural support to allow for an

Hoskins Architects will design a new Rosewood hotel at Edinburgh's former Royal High School, a historic landmark building on Calton Hill in the centre of the Scottish capital that has stood vacant for almost 50 years. The neoclassical, listed building was originally designed by architect Thomas Hamilton and completed in 1829. The plan to invest more than £75m ($115m, €102m) to restore and convert the property is led by Duddingston

The first phase of Sydney’s new linear park, inspired by New York’s High Line, has opened to the public for the first time. The AU$15m (US$10.5m, €9.3m, £6.9m) first phase of the Goods Line in central Sydney, designed by Aspect Studios and Choi Ropiha Fighera (CHROFI), opens up a new pedestrian and cycle network from the Australian city’s railway square and ultimo neighbourhood to the iconic Darling Harbour. The eco-friendly

Architect Kengo Kuma has unveiled plans for his first project on US soil – the expansion of Portland’s much-loved Japanese Garden. Expected to cost US$35m (€31.2m, £22.7m) raised largely from donations, the designs for this project will preserve the existing gardens while adding new buildings, including a ‘cultural village’ of several buildings organised around a central courtyard. Work is about to get underway and completion is slated for early 2017,

Alaska’s Anchorage Museum has announced plans for a US$17.5m (€15.7m, £11.2m), 25,000sq ft (2,300sq m) expansion to create new spaces for its permanent art collection. Designed by Anchorage-based McCool Carlson Green, the Rasmuson Wing is being privately financed by Ed Rasmuson, members of the Rasmuson family and the Rasmuson Foundation who own the Rasmuson Centre which the museum is a part of. The development will add a storey on to

Singapore-based real estate and investment company Rowsley – controlled by billionaire Peter Lim – has acquired a 75 per cent stake in Hotel Football in Manchester, the hotel project driven by a quintet of Manchester United legends. In a statement, Rowsley said it will pay £29.1m (US$64.1m, €39.7m) to acquire a 75 per cent shareholding in each of the Hotel Football-related businesses – the 133-bedroom hotel; Cafe Football, a 120-seat

Landscape architects James Corner Field Operations have designed a new park for downtown Miami to be constructed beneath an elevated rail line. Working with non-profit group Friends of The Underline, James Corner Field Operations have developed the vision and masterplan for a 10-mile-long (16km) park and urban trail. The scheme makes use of an under-used area of land below a portion of Miami's MetroRail – a rapid-transit system that opened

Brazilian architect and designer Guto Requena has completed a new interactive light facade around the Hotel WZ Jardins in São Paulo. Award-winning architect Guto Requena, creative director of Estudio Guto Requena, recently completed the new facade for the Hotel WZ Jardins as a research project exploring the ‘Hacked City’. The concept explores how we can bring positive changes to cities, their public spaces and architecture by plugging in poetic and