Newmarket’s £14m (US$17.1m, €15.7m) UK National Horse Racing Museum has opened to the public more than 25 years on from its original inception. Celebrating more than 350 years of sporting history, exhibition designers Mather & Co are behind the plans, which gained Heritage Lottery funding in 2012 worth £4.25m (US$5.1m, €4.7m), with funding also coming from Forest Heath (£1.3m), Suffolk County Council (£1m), the Wellcome Trust and a number of

New designs for the controversial Casement Park development in Belfast have been unveiled after opposition from local residents halted original plans. Ulster Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) has put forward designs for a reduced size arena to quell concerns raised by locals about the quality of their lives being impacted on matchdays. The body has also put forward a “sustainable transport strategy”, which includes coach travel and park-and-ride options, to improve

Professionals involved in the development of sporting arenas should investigate the merits of technology such as augmented reality and virtual reality in terms of how they could enhance the spectator experience. That is the view of Pascal Vuilliomenet, vice president for innovation and technology transfer at the EPFL Research institute in Switzerland and co-curator of the Olympic Museum’s new exhibition on past, present and future stadium design. "We can project

Footballing trio Rio Ferdinand, Mark Noble and Bobby Zamora have launched an innovative urban regeneration model designed to use sport and leisure to bring new life to communities. The Legacy Foundation was formed to build new developments in the UK with high-quality social, affordable, rented and privately-owned homes. Community and sporting facilities are central to the project and are the main hook to raise aspirations, wellbeing and quality of life

Olympic stadiums and facilities should be protected with their own cultural heritage listing, a leading member of the International Association for Sport and Leisure Facilities (IAKS) has argued. Speaking at the Olympic Museum’s new stadium design exhibition in Lausanne, Dr Miranda Kiuri, who is also an architect and researcher at the University of Liege, called on UNESCO to introduce a new listing category for stadiums that have a strong cultural,

The design and engineering of Olympic stadiums is the focus of a temporary exhibition opening today (13 October) at The Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. Stadiums: Past and Future explores the facilities cities have built to host the Games – from the Olympia in Ancient Greece through to modern architectural icons such as Frei Otto’s Munich Olympic Stadium and Herzog and de Meuron’s Bird’s Nest in Beijing. Curated by Geraint

Spanish football giant Real Madrid has agreed a deal with the local council to redevelop its Santiago Bernabeu stadium, and the surrounding area. The La Liga club’s president Florentino Perez made the announcement alongside mayor of Madrid Manuela Carmena, delegate of sustainable urban development Jose Manuel Calvo and council president of Madrid’s Chamartin district Mauricio Valiente. Last December, Calvo’s department blocked the €440m (£398.4m, US$486.8m) development proposal in “the interests

Four design companies have been shortlisted from a field of 17 international and national firms in the race to create the AU$250m North Queensland Stadium in Townsville, Australia. BVN Architecture, Cox Architecture, Hassell and Populous will now vie for the project, with each studio asked to develop a concept design and masterplan for the project. “The four companies have all demonstrated a proven track record in major sports stadiums,” said

Dutch architects MVRDV have won an international competition to design a sports and cultural complex in Shenzhen, China, which will be navigated via a weaving elevated walkway. The Nanshan district government has tasked the studio, and local firm Zhubo Architecture Design, with creating “a social and well­being focal point” for the community in the country’s fastest-growing urban region. Located in a residential area which stretches between two mountain parks, the

A funding campaign to build a self-sustaining cricket ground of international standard in Rwanda is gathering momentum. Cricket is Rwanda’s fastest growing sport and has been used as a tool in recent years to bring people together in the country, which was torn apart by genocide in 1994. Despite the burgeoning interest, there are a lack of cricketing facilities in the country, and so the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation (RCSF)

The French Tennis Federation (FTF) has described itself as "outraged" after a court suspended the development of a new stadium at Roland Garros just days after the project had been given the green light. While the French Council of State cancelled suspension of the construction work that had been implemented earlier on in the year, a different court – Tribunal de Grande Instance – has taken an alternative view and

US National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise the Washington Wizards is creating a new training facility that will double as a concert venue and events arena. While competing teams in Brooklyn, Chicago and Toronto have previously merged practice venues with residential accommodation, the Washington team claims it is the first in the NBA to actively create a mixed-use leisure facility. According to The Washington Post, the plans outlined by the Wizards

The Japanese government has approved a 150bn yen ($1.5bn, €1.3bn, £1.1bn) contract allowing work to begin on Kengo Kuma’s 2020 Tokyo Olympic Stadium. Construction is scheduled to begin in December. The government-funded Japan Sport Council (JSC), which is overseeing the project, estimates that construction will be completed at the end of November 2019 – five months behind the original schedule. New Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said she would closely monitor

A senior executive at Spanish football club Atletico Madrid has lifted the lid on progress being made on its new 66,000-capacity stadium, which will include a fanzone, museum and videomapping facade. Javier Martinez, the club’s managing director, global business development, said he wanted the stadium to be among the “top five experiences” in terms of football stadiums in Europe. He gave delegates at the Soccerex Global Convention in Manchester a

Stadiums and arenas built for events such as the FIFA World Cup and Olympic Games should all be temporary, according to South African architect Ruben Reddy. Talking at the Soccerex Global Convention in Manchester, Reddy told delegates that the structures should be designed so that they can be deconstructed and the materials used to create other civic buildings such as hospitals and school. He used his native South Africa as

The new California home of US National Basketball Association franchise the Sacramento Kings has become the first indoor sports venue to achieve LEED Platinum certification. The US$507m (£336m, €476m) Golden 1 Center, which will host its first preseason fixture on 10 October, is the highest-scoring stadium ever certified by the US Green Building Council – the body that oversees the LEED system. It is also among the top three per

British football club Everton is working with US design firm Meis Architects to create a vision for a proposed new stadium. Meis Architects founder Dan Meis told CLAD that the studio was working with the Premier League club, but couldn't comment further on the plans at this early stage of the project. The Liverpool-based club has long made clear its wish to relocate from its current home at Goodison Park

Golf course architect Tom Doak has designed “North America’s first reversible course” for the Forest Dunes resort in Michigan. Called The Loop, Doak’s design features two distinct layouts that use the same 18 greens and fairways. Players move clockwise on one day, and counterclockwise the next. The course – developed on a relatively flat, sand-based stretch of land to the west of the resort’s pre-existing course – is due to

A group of Japanese architects, including Fumihiko Maki and Kengo Kuma, are petitioning UNESCO to recognise the gymnasium building designed by Kenzo Tange for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics on its World Cultural Heritage list. The high-profile team today (21 September) launched a campaign to have the Yoyogi National Gymnasium listed before the Olympics return to Tokyo in 2020. The facility – which hosted swimming, diving and basketball events at the

James Pallotta, the American investor in charge of Italian football club AS Roma, has claimed construction work on a new stadium for the team could begin next March. Plans to build an 52,000 home ground inspired by the colosseum of ancient Rome have been in the pipeline for four years, with little sign of a breakthrough being made due to what club president Pallotta described as “some problems due to

Australia’s top venue for tennis and concerts, the multipurpose Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, will be refurbished and expanded so that it can host bigger shows and sporting events. Cox Architecture studio, who originally designed the arena, and contractor and developer Lend Lease, will oversee the project, which will include the addition of a new “eastern pod” main entrance. The venue – famous for hosting the main fixtures at the

Danish architect Bjarke Ingels has said that modern-day stadiums lack individuality and called for more design studios to be given the opportunity to design sports facilities. Speaking in an interview with Rolling Stone, the BIG founder said “stadiums are just a total dinosaur”. "It's the same three or four global offices that have designed all the stadiums,” he said. “Then it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy, where you have to be

The design studio at Bartle Bogle Hegarty Singapore and global sportswear giant Nike have joined forces to open a “reimagined running track” in the centre of Manila where sprinters can race against themselves. The Unlimited Stadium was a shaped as a huge sole print of Nike's newest footwear release, the Lunar Epic. The 200m track was lined with an LED screen, and up to 30 runners at a time were

More than 60,000 people flocked to Rogers Place – the new arena for National Hockey League (NHL) franchise the Edmonton Oilers – on its first public open day last week. Construction has been completed on the CA$600m (US$455.5m, €405.8m, £345m) ice hockey venue, located in downtown Edmonton, Canada, and it will host its first official sporting fixtures next month when the NHL returns. “Watching fans gather in the building for

The architect behind the Rio 2016 Olympic Park masterplan has encouraged the organisers of the 2020 Tokyo Games to collaborate with Paralympians as soon as possible to make sure its venues are accessible for all athletes, spectators and the members of the media. In an exclusive interview with CLAD, Bill Hanway, executive vice president at AECOM, said that “the most important lesson to be learnt” from the Rio Games is

Populous is aiming to secure 10 major projects in China over the next five years as the nation seeks to improve its sporting infrastructure. In June, the architect signed a deal with Chinese global trade platform Alibaba to consult on the transformation of several sports stadiums – mirroring the government’s ambition to make China a football superpower. Alibaba’s sports arm, Alisports, has set its sights on operating 50,000 sports venues

The government of Malawi has been handed the keys to its new international multi-sports stadium, after the Chinese contractor in charge of the project completed its work. According to the The Nyassa Times, the Bingu National Stadium, located in the capital Lilongwe, cost US$70m (€62m, £52.4m) to build, with funding coming in the form of a concessional loan from the Chinese government, which will be paid back by Malawi over