Sheffield City Council has unveiled ambitions for a major mixed-use development in the northern English city, masterplanned by Leonard Design Architects. The proposed £480m scheme is intended to regenerate Sheffield city centre through 900,000sq ft of leisure and retail, with a small portion allocated for residential and office space. Leonard Design Architects, who have advised on several large European retail developments including Westfield shopping malls in London and Milan, aim

A $75m (€69.9m, £50.8m) renovation at the Walker Art Center will create a new cultural district in Minneapolis, US. Locally-headquartered architects HGA and Netherlands-based Inside Outside will oversee the project, which will include the construction of a new entrance pavilion as well as landscaping improvements to the art museum’s campus. The plans will directly connect the Walker to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, situated opposite, creating a 76,890sq m (827,640sq ft)

Everything appears to be shipshape for a new nautical-themed multi-format cultural venue in Dubai that is set to be completed in 2016. The 2,000-seat Dubai Opera will host theatre, concerts, art exhibitions, opera, orchestra, film, sports events and seasonal programmes, according to developer Emaar, and will form the centrepiece of the emirate’s new downtown opera district. The complex can be configured in three different modes to accommodate the type of

A new approach to 3D printing promises to deliver commercial quality manufactured parts at a much faster rate. Silicon Valley-based Carbon3D’s ‘Continuous Liquid Interface Production’ (CLIP) technology harnesses light and oxygen to continuously grow objects from a pool of resin instead of printing them layer-by-layer. It says the technique is 25-100 times faster than conventional 3D printing, and can deliver commercial quality objects with consistent mechanical properties. A broad range

Design International is to design a destination mall as part of a project which aims to boost Morocco’s standing as a tourism and cultural centre. The Mall of Rabat will be one element of the mixed-use Wessal Bouregreg project, which also features a Zaha Hadid-designed theatre, a national library, an archaeology and earth sciences museum, a hotel, a marina, and a residential area. Wessal Bouregreg will cover an area of

Bjarke Ingels' W57 'Courtscraper' project in New York's Hell's Kitchen is taking shape, with the first interior construction site photos posted last night on NY Curbed via Field Condition. The 80,000sq m development will have 709 apartments and 45,000sq ft of leisure, retail and commercial space. Leisure amenities will include a pool and gym, along with a cinema, golf simulator and basketball court, with details of retailers and commercial tenants

Ohio’s Toledo Zoo has reopened its aquarium following a near three-year, US$25m (€21.5m, £16.4m) renovation, which has seen the interior of the historic facility revamped to provide a brand new, world-class visitor experience. The aquarium, which first opened in 1939, was closed in 2012 for the renovations. The new development has almost tripled the amount of water inside the aquarium. The building’s historic exterior architecture, by the Works Progress Administration,

JW Marriott Hotels & Resorts has soft-opened the JW Marriott Venice Resort & Spa on the private island Isola delle Rose, with the grand opening celebration planned for 24 June 2015. The hotel is situated 15 minutes by speedboat from Piazza San Marco. Architecture practice Matteo Thun & Partners has been in charge of converting historic buildings into a sustainability-focused 266-key luxury hotel, holiday villas, convention centre and a spa

Plans have been unveiled by US-based Morphosis Architects for a luxury hotel next to Pritzker Prize-winner Peter Zumthor’s famous Therme Vals Spa, Switzerland. The directors of 7132 Ltd, Remo Stoffel and Pius Truffer are behind the scheme. Stoffel trumped a rival bid from Zumthor to buy the Therme Vals spa hotel from the municipality back in 2012, and he and Truffer are now keen to expand their presence in the

Architects OMA and landscape architects OLIN have been selected to design the 11th Street Bridge Park, an elevated park in Washington D.C, US. Chosen from a shortlist of four architecture and design teams – including Balmori Associates / Cooper, Robertson & Partners, Stoss Landscape Urbanism / Höweler + Yoon Architecture and Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT) / NEXT Architects – OMA + OLIN will be transforming the aged freeway bridge

Madrid-based SelgasCano architects have unveiled their designs for this year's Serpentine Pavilion in London, featuring an explosion of colour. To be constructed from ETFE, translucent fluorine-based plastic, the lightweight structure will be double-skinned, consisting of multi-coloured panels wrapped in webbing. Internally, the experience will be like passing under sheets of stained glass. When describing their design in a company statement, SelgasCano said they wanted to explore ways a visitor could

An exhibition gallery and education centre will form the heart of a new corporate headquarters by Zaha Hadid Architects for environmental management company Bee’ah. It will be built just outside Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. The building will be used as a learning resource to demonstrate practical environmental awareness to the community and will be the first building in the UAE to be fully powered by renewable energy. A

Hosted by London's Design Museum, the Design of the Year Awards 2015 exhibition is now open. The exhibition showcases 76 projects that have been shortlisted for this year's award. The projects range from cutting-edge technology, for example a solar powered table that can be used indoors, to epic architectural creations like Frank Gehry's Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris. Curated by the Design Museum's Gemma Curtin, the exhibition is open to all,

Four Seasons Bahrain Bay has opened on a private man-made island off the Kingdom’s capital city, Manama. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the 273-key property has interiors by Pierre-Yves Rochon, EDG and Los Angeles-based Waldo Fernandez. The urban resort has five different swimming experiences, including a children’s pool, a pool that sets the scene for a cocktail lounge during the evenings, a free-form infinity pool, indoor spa pool and

The Baccarat Hotel in Manhattan – which Beijing-based Sunshine Insurance bought from hotel manager Starwood for US$230m (€210m, £154m) earlier this year – reopened on 18 March. The 114-key property features 15,000 pieces from Baccarat SA in addition to a number of dining facilities, a gym and a spa. The hotel’s interiors were designed by French duo Gilles & Boissier to combine the features of a classic Parisian hotel with

Mövenpick Hotel Istanbul Golden Horn, Turkey, will open on 31 March. The hotel is sited 10 minutes from the Old City’s historic sights and 10 minutes from the Haliç Congress Centre, enabling it to target both business and leisure guests. The 136-key property, owned by Istanbul-based Akgel Real Estate Investment, has been designed by Loft Architects - with interiors by Sinan Kafadar from the Metex Design Group - to evoke

HKS Architects have unveiled plans for a US$1.86bn (€1.69m, £1.2bn) dual-team NFL stadium to house the St Louis Rams and one other team as the NFL sees Los Angeles as a two-team market. According to the Los Angeles Times, Rams owner Stan Kroenke and representatives of HKS met with NFL officials to discuss the plans, with latest renderings showing a light metallic, wave-shaped structure with a roof surrounding the stadium

Following an £80m (US$119m, €109m) renovation by international architecture firm, Wilkinson Eyre, the University of Oxford’s Weston Library has reopened to the public. Originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in the 1930s and part of the infamous grade II listed Bodleian Library in Oxford, UK, the structure needed some extreme modernisation and renovation to open it up to the public. Wilkinson Eyre have incorporated several new features into the

Starwood Hotels & Resorts has announced that it will expand its luxury portfolio in Latin America and the Caribbean through a series of new hotel launches. Starwood will open high-end properties under its St Regis, W Hotels and The Luxury Collection brands – taking the total of luxury properties under its operation in Latin America and the Caribbean from 19 to 22 by 2017. Solaz, a Luxury Collection Hotel in

Blackstone, one of the world's biggest real estate investors, has announced that it will buy Chicago’s Willis Tower, the second-tallest building in the US for US$1.3bn (€1.19bn, £800m). Previously known as Sears Tower, the Willis Tower is an iconic structure – designed by Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill – it dominates the Chicago skyline. Vendors, 223 South Wacker, said Blackstone will be an "excellent steward of this world famous building". Blackstone

The Office for Architectural Cultural (OAC) has revealed the competition winning design for the UNESCO World Heritage site at Daming Palace in Xi’an, China. The scheme will be an all-encompassing urban regeneration. Xi’an is home to several UNESCO world heritage sites, and OAC’s mixed-use project will cover part of the Daming Palace Heritage Park, as well as a large early 20th century Dahua Wool Spinning Factory. Spanning more than 500

Bjarke Ingels and his firm BIG produce enticing concepts and ideas for the architecture world, and their latest project – Uppsala Power Plant (UPP) in Sweden – is no exception. BIG was asked to design a biomass cogeneration plant to supplement Uppsala’s existing energy production during peak times. Instead of a traditional overbearing and forbidding power plant structure, Bjarke Ingels has designed something quite the opposite. The design consists of

Following the announcement this week that negotiations have begun for the funding of the £1bn (€1.3bn $1.42bn) Swansea tidal lagoon project in Wales, UK, CLAD speaks exclusively to Paul Newman, principal of Juice Architects, the firm behind the project's iconic visitor attraction. "The Tidal Lagoon is an extraordinarily important development and I am delighted the Visitor Centre has become the iconic symbol of this pioneering project” said Newman. “I am

International architecture firm Foster + Partners have revealed plans for an 80-storey mixed-use skyscraper in downtown Toronto, Canada. Called ‘The One’, the project has been termed ‘a new model of vertical retail in the city’ by the firm. At 318m (1,043 ft) tall, the scheme will incorporate nine levels of shops, cafes and restaurants, centred around a 60m (196 ft) high atrium at its base. The base of the skyscraper

Luxury Italian car brand Ferrari has opened its latest store in Milan, featuring a new concept focused on lifestyle, experience, entertainment and shopping. Located in Milan’s city centre, the aim of the new operation – designed by architect Massimo Iosa Ghin of Iosa Ghini Associati – is to create the spirit of a memorable location within the brand’s store. The three-storey, 750sq m (8,000sq ft) experience store aims to cater

An evianSpa will open in 2016 as part of a 38,000sq m (409,029sq ft) plaza development in Doha’s Cultural Village Foundation Katara. The first phase of the development opened to the public in October 2010. Leyk & Wollenberg Architecture and Atelier GH will lead the design of the evianSpa project. Gael Hiétin of Atelier GH developed the evianSpa global design concept and is known for his multi-sensory projects. Qatari operator

In an effort to combat a failing economy that has plunged a quarter of its population into poverty, Egypt is planning to build a new US$45bn (€42.3bn, £30.6bn) administrative, business and leisure capital east of Cairo to house five million people. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's (SOM) Philip Enquist has been placed in charge of urban design and planning for the mega-development, which will be linked to Cairo through extensive public