Mixity Design’s 33-floor Trump International Hotel & Tower in Baku, Azerbaijan, is to open this month. It will have 72 luxury residences and 189 hotel rooms. The London-based studio’s design features an exterior facade with a distinctive silhouette resembling “the mast of a sail in high seas”, and is comprised of metallic bronze panels, glass openings, and private terraces. Neighbouring the Zaha Hadid-designed Heydar Aliyev Center, the tower is sited

Following the phenomenal success of New York’s High Line – a disused railway transformed into a public greenway – architects across the world have been keen to get their hands on similar projects, with cities and countries keen to capitalise on the unused space. The Singaporean government is the latest to get involved, shortlisting five architects to develop a feasible plan for 24km (15m) of track spanning the length of

Glenn Howells Architects (GHA) is to design a new building for the English National Ballet in London as part of the development of London City Island. The English National Ballet School will take up residence in its new home in Q3 2018. It will be be located at the heart of the new creative quarter. Spanning 12 acres, the London City Island mixed-use development will include restaurants, shops, spaces for

It can only be reached by taking a speedboat over a coral reef and descending a dramatic three-tier staircase, and was originally opened in 2012 as the world's first underwater nightclub. Now Poole Associates has redesigned Subsix, the underwater venue located at the Per Aquum Niyama resort in the Maldives, to become a multi-functional creative space which can be “transformed into whatever guests imagine it to be”. Subsix is 6m

New York has seen ten ambitious new buildings from a range of top architecture firms spring up at the same time – with the public given free reign to add to, amend or otherwise improve on them. But there is a good reason for such apparent madness, as the buildings are made with Lego and are part of an art installation at the High Line in Manhattan, a public park

One of the largest man-made ice structures in the world has opened inside Iceland’s Langjökull Glacier in the shape of IceCave – a development designed for visitors to see the naturally occurring blue ice phenomenon. Backed by leading pension fund investors and the Icelandair Group, the network of man-made tunnels stretches back as far as 300m (984ft) into the solid ice glacier – the second-largest in Iceland – and a

Raison d’Etre’s spa and wellness brand LivNordic has launched the first of three spas planned on cruise ships as part of a partnership with Viking Ocean Cruises. Inspired by Nordic bathing traditions, including alternating hot and cold experiences, this ship’s spa offers the first snow grotto at sea. Inspired by nature, the LivNordic design, by Raison d'Etre, uses white pigmented ash, reminiscent of the Tree of Life in Norse Mythology

Stadium redevelopment plans laid out by architects Populous for newly-promoted League One football team Southend United are imminent, according to the Englieh seaside town’s Council leader, Ron Woodley. The £80m (US$122m, €111.4m) redevelopment, tentatively known as Fossetts Farm Stadium, includes a £25m (US$38m, €38m) 22,000-seat stadium, a 12-screen multiplex cinema, a hotel and retail park, and a 13-storey tower block comprised of 170 apartments. The futuristic-looking stadium will also be

Sport and entertainment architects, Populous, have announced a merger with Jump Studios, a London-based practice which specialises in high-concept interiors, installations and architectural design. The merger was unveiled at a press conference in London on the evening of 1 June. Jump Studios were established in 2001 and specialise in retail, workspace, exhibition, brand experience, pop-up, restaurant and bar design. It has clients ranging from Nike and Levi Strauss to Red

Qatar Museums has started its search for an architect to design a one million square foot art gallery in Doha, Qatar. The Art Mill International Design Competition will remodel the Qatar Flour Mills, using existing grain silos within the architecture to create one of the largest art galleries in the world. The site is around 83,500sq m (898,787sq ft) with extensive outside space integrated with the design, giving opportunities for

A Snøhetta-led team has been chosen to create a walkway giving public access to the second largest waterfall in the US. Toronto-based architects Dialog and Portland-based landscape studio Mayer/Reed complete the design team for the ‘Riverwalk’ portion of a revitalisation project at Willamette Falls, in Oregon City, Oregon. Riverwalk connects the city centre to the waterfall, which will be accessible to the public for the first time in 100 years.

London-based Aros Architects have produced early plans to turn World War II sea forts seven miles off the British coast into a luxury hotel and spa. The unused Red Sand Forts in the Thames Estuary near Kent, built in 1943 to defend Britain against a Nazi attack, could become a hotel with executive apartments, where guest can fly in by helicopter. A similar development took place at Spitbank Fort –

Experience designers BRC Imagination Arts are introducing a ‘game-changing’ fan experience to the world of sports attractions. The Selig Experience exhibit honours retiring Major League Baseball (MLB) commissioner and former Milwaukee Brewers owner, Allan ‘Bud’ Selig. Opened at Miller Park – the home of the Brewers – the experience features a multimedia presentation telling the story of Selig’s role in saving MLB in Milwaukee, his efforts to bring the Brewers

Herzog & de Meuron’s 42,000-seat football stadium in Bordeaux, France, has been completed – with Zinedine Zidane the guest of honour at its inaugural match. Delivered on time and on budget, Nouveau Stade de Bordeaux has been designed to appear 'light and open', according to the Swiss architects. Grand staircases blur the boundaries between the inside and outside, while 900 white columns guide visitors on their way in and out

New York’s One World Trade Center has cut the ribbon on the Hettema Group-designed One World Observatory, allowing visitors to venture to the very top of the western-hemisphere’s tallest skyscraper. The “entertainment experience” – managed by Legends Hospitality – is comprised of a 120,000sq ft (11,148sq m) observation deck at the top of the US$3.9bn (€3.6bn, £2.6bn) Skidmore, Owings and Merrill-designed (SOM) tower, along with an accompanying ground-floor experience. On

British skincare brand Elemis has teamed up with designers Virgile and Partners to transform its central London day spa into The House of Elemis – a new flagship beauty house combining wellness with retail. Launched last week (28 May) the opulent Mayfair townhouse was conceptualised by Elemis co-founder Oriele Frank in partnership with Virgile and Partners. The design brief for The House of Elemis was to reflect the brand pillars

Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa’s vision for Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales will be realised after SANAA architects were named winners of the contest to design the AU$450m (US$344m, €315.6m, £225.2m) revamp of the facility and surrounding area. As part of the expansion, the existing building will become “a global cultural landmark” amid plans to double the size of the 23,000sq m (247,500sq ft) gallery. SANAA’s design incorporates

Zaha Hadid has designed a new Middle East Centre for Oxford University. Hadid, who was born in Iraq, expressed hope that the new building would help the Middle East Centre to continue its work in helping to foster greater understanding of the region. Hadid designed the building to connect existing protected properties and trees and has stainless steel cladding to reflect natural light and give it an ephemeral quality. The

Architectural practice BIG has completed the second phase of a project at Gammel Hellerup High School, Copenhagen, Denmark – the old high school of founding partner Bjarke Ingels. The new addition, a 1,400sq m (15,069sq ft) arts and culture building, follows the completion of a multi-purpose sports hall in 2013, which paid homage to Ingels’ old maths teacher by using the mathematical formula for a ballistic arc – the flight path

The Cook Natural Science Museum in Decatur, Alabama, has unveiled plans for a brand new US$17m (€15.6m, £11m) facility, which will see the museum move from what was once a by-appointment warehouse tour into a fully-fledged educational facility. Increasing in size from 5,000sq ft (464sq m) to 57,000sq ft (5,295sq m), the interactive museum, designed by Huntsville-based, will move from its current home to a new location in downtown Decatur.

Singapore-based architects ar + d are leading the design on a landmark luxury waterfront hotel in New Zealand, the flagship for a harbour-wide regeneration scheme. Architects ar + d have previously worked on Hyatt hotels in Kilimanjaro and Koh Samui. Specialists in the hospitality sector, Conran and Partners, will be creating the interior design and visitor experience, using the hotel’s harbour settings as inspiration. The hotel will look out on

A hotel powered exclusively by solar energy is to open at Dubai’s ‘The Sustainable City’ development, which has been designed by Baharash Architecture. Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) has signed an agreement with Diamond Developers – who are leading the city project – to launch the UAE's second Hotel Indigo. As well as being fully solar powered, all waste water produced by the hotel will be recycled, and all material waste

Australian company White Horse Australia – which has strong ties to one of China’s best known advertising and media companies White Horse Group – is set to redevelop a 584-hectare leasehold on Lindeman Island with the help of DBI Design and project managers Eastview Australia. The redevelopment of what was the former Whitsundays site of the Club Med resort chain will cost AU$600m (US$472m, €426m, £304m) and has been granted

Qatari officials are looking into the possibility of building a first-of-its-kind underwater TV studio for use during the 2022 World Cup, with the intention of converting it into an aquarium attraction after the event. Patric Douglas, CEO of artificial reef and aquarium design firm Reef Worlds, says the company is creating plans for a US$30m (€27m, £19.3m) underwater broadcast studio on the ocean floor. Douglas added that Qatar World Cup

The 162-year-old Prison Museum in Horsens, Denmark, has reopened to the public after the second phase of a significant Dkr21.8m (US$3.2m, €2.9m, £2m) redesign and refurbishment of the former state prison, with the latest expansion telling the story of the people who lived and worked in the facility. Copenhagen-based design studio Kvorning Design & Kommunikation (KDK), which specialises in exhibition design, graphic communications and interior design, worked with the museum

The five-star Le Couvent des Minimes Hotel & Spa, situated in the French village of Mane and housed within the walls of an ancient convent dating back to 1613, has been fully refurbished by designers L’Atelier Pascal Borde to meet the requirements of majority shareholder L’Occitane, the global skincare brand which has its origins in Provence, France. The 46-room property in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence has reopened following the transformation of its

Three storeys of French architect Jean Nouvel’s new residential tower in New York will be devoted to public gallery spaces created by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The 82-storey '53W53' tower will stand adjacent to the museum, and is known locally as the MoMA Tower. Developer Hines said the second, fourth and fifth floors of the building would be curated by MoMA. Nouvel’s 1,050ft (320m) tower is the size