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

Zaha Hadid is the name behind a new, super-luxe residential tower called One Thousand Museum to be built in the Museum Park area of Miami, Florida. The 62-storey building will have 30,000sq ft of private leisure facilities for residents and their guests, making it an enclosed community. With 83 exclusive, luxury apartments, One Thousand Museum is offering elegant, six star lifestyle with 'museum-quality' residences. Options will include duplex townhomes, half

Executives at the community-owned Machrihanish Airbase in Campbeltown, Scotland, are confident they'll beat the other four shortlisted candidates to become the UK’s first spaceport in 2018. The airbase, which has a history of involvement with space flight, is the only bidder which has exceeded the UK government’s minimum runway length of 3,000m, as well as being more than 1,000 acres in size and removed from densely populated areas. Machrihanish was

Ground has been broken on a €30m (US$33.5m, £21.4m) aquarium development in the Canary Islands, which is set to open in 2017 as part of one of the Spanish islands’ biggest attractions, Loro Parque. Spanish architecture firm VDR Designs have masterplanned the development, which will be ecologically sustainable and focus on renewable energy. To include 38 display tanks and 300 species of fish, birds, small mammals, amphibians and reptiles, the

Ball-Nogues Studio has created an experimental installation for the Coachella festival using a unique production process and reclaimed paper. The Los Angeles-based design and fabrication practice said the installation, Pulp Pavilion, served as a bold and colourful canopy space and respite from the sun. Performances on two stages at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, held annually in the California desert, could also be viewed. The studio’s production process

Dreamworks is expanding its worldwide attractions presence, with plans for a major indoor theme park in Moscow – the largest in Europe – as part a large mixed-use US$1bn (€900m, £642m) development scheme in the heart of the city. First announced in 2013, Moscow officials recently approved the project, which will welcome Dreamworks' IPs such as Shrek, Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar to the Russian capital. Russian development company Regions

Championed by Nobu Hospitality founding partners chef Nobu Matsuhisa, actor Robert De Niro and Hollywood producer Meir Teper, a 321-key Nobu Hotel – designed by Rockwell Group – has opened in the leisure-focused City of Dreams Manila, in the Philippines. The Nobu Hotel was developed by Melco Crown (Philippines) Resorts Corporation – a subsidiary of the leisure city’s operator Melco Crown Entertainment. International design firm Rockwell Group is responsible for

Inspired by the movement of athletes, New York-based Diller Scofidio + Renfro has revealed its preliminary designs for the United States Olympic Museum. According to partner Elizabeth Diller, the museum – which will be located in Colorado Springs – “spirals up and outwards from a central atrium, drawing the public in at its base and propelling them up through the galleries”. She said the building would be “expressed in two

Merlin Entertainments has continued its policy to turn its major attractions into multi-day features by debuting its new Legoland Hotel at Legoland Florida. The multi-coloured exterior and entrance, conceptualised by Merlin’s Magic Making team, is the gateway to 152 Lego-themed rooms and suites, interactive play areas, a pool and a restaurant. The hotel features suites across four themes – Pirate, Kingdom, Adventure and Lego Friends. Each room can sleep up

The Gainsborough Bath Spa, the first UK hotel to be owned and operated by YTL Hotels, will soft open on 1 July. The facility will feature Spa Village Bath – YTL’s international brand concept of a thermal Romanesque bathing circuit. Designed by London-based EPR Architects along with New York-based Champalimaud Design in collaboration with a number of other interior designers, the hotel will retain its Georgian characteristics and will have

A pair of architecture graduates have teamed up with Airbnb to create one of the more pleasant objects likely to be found floating on London’s River Thames – a buoyant guest house. Twins Nick and Steve Tidball – who graduated from London’s Bartlett School of Architecture and now work as creative directors in advertising – have paired up with the accommodation giant to create a city crash pad described as