A new hotel and spa has opened in a 1920s era Victorian mansion in Valparaiso, Chile. Palacio Astoreca is owned by Swiss-Chilean entrepreneurs Vincent Juillerat and Francisca Joannon. The boutique hotel, which opened following a US$5m (£3.1m 3.9m euro) renovation project, features 23 guest rooms furnished with antiques from the Santiago and Valparaiso regions. Designed by Alvano and Riquelme architects, the hotel features art by contemporary painters such as Ricardo

The Asian Civilisations Museum is set to invest S$5.5m (US$4.5m, £2.8m, 3.5m euro) in expanding its building in Empress Place, Singapore. A new wing, which is expected to open in 2015, has been funded by the Hong Leong Foundation (HLF) and is being designed by Singaporean architects GreenhilLi Consultants. Surrounded by a light-filled atrium, and connecting to galleries on three floors, the new wing is a departure from the 19th

£16.1m Knowsley Leisure and Culture Park has been officially launched on the former site of the St Thomas Becket School in Huyton, Merseyside. Part of the centre has been open for 12 months but now all facilities are open including the new outdoor velodrome and BMX track. The new facility includes two 25m lane pools, an eight-lane competition pool, six-court sports hall, fitness suite, squash court and dance studios. There

A new £7.8m swimming pool is set to launch in Montrose, Scotland this month. The new 25m, six-lane swimming pool will link to the existing Montrose Sports Centre and will also feature a viewing gallery and a studio pool which incorporates a moving floor to allow variation in pool depth. The pool will be used both for competitive and community swimming. The complex was designed by Angus Council architect Dave

A new £16m swimming pool and leisure complex is set to open in South Shields, Tyne and Wear in early 2013. The Pier Parade project is part of South Tyneside Council's regeneration plans. It was designed by LA architects and is being built by Graham construction. It will feature a 25m, eight-lane competition pool; an 18m teaching pool and leisure waters with flumes; sprays; bubble pools and water play. The

ASR Limited, the New Zealand-based company that built the Boscombe surf reef in Dorset, has ceased trading. The liquidation of ASR casts doubts over the future of the site as a surfing attraction - the only artificial surf reef in Europe. Plans for the beleaguered £3.2m reef first surfaced in 1999 when Bournemouth Borough Council gave the green light for a feasibility study to be conducted on the project. Detailed

A new US$550m leisure district - The Linq - on the Las Vegas Strip is gearing up for its launch in 2013. Owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment Corporation, The Linq will span more than 200,000sq ft (18,580sq m) and is comprised of retail, dining, beverage and entertainment experiences. The project was designed by Washington D.C-based firm David M. Schwarz Architects and the architect of record is Las Vegas-based Klai

German hotel group Kempinski has emerged as the potential operator of the gigantic 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea. Construction work on the property - which dominates the skyline in the heart of the secretive nation's capital city - initially began in 1987 but was halted due to an economic crisis following the fall of Soviet Union in 1992. The imposing building was left to rot and as a

The Japan Sport Council has shortlisted 11 architects to redesign Japan's new 80,000-seat Kasumigaoka National Stadium. The stadium will need to be complete in time for the country's staging of the 2019 Rugby World Cup and as part of Tokyo's bid for the 2020 Olympic Games. The finalists include Olympic stadium designers Zaha Hadid Architects and Populous. The competition, which received a total of 46 applicants, restricted entry to practices

A new environmentally friendly spa and leisure centre is set to open at Portavadie Marina in Loch Fyne, Scotland by the end of 2014. Architects Stewart Associates has been appointed to design the centre, which will be powered using local sustainable technology. The project, still in the planning stages, is expected to include spa facilities, outdoor and indoor swimming pools, a gym, an exercise studio and a soft play area.

Chinese hospitlity giant Mission Hills Group has signed an agreement with Marriott International to open two hotels - The Ritz-Carlton and Renaissance Hotels - at its Mission Hills Haikou resort in Hainan, China. Located in the volcanic region of Hainan Island, the RMB$1.3bn (US$208m, £129m, 161m euro) investment will see the two hotels open in the second quarter of 2015. The Ritz-Carlton will have 180 rooms with 20 villas and

The Parrish Art Museum in Long Island, New York, US is set to unveil its new building on 10 November 2012. Spanning a 14-acre (5.7 hectare) site in the town of Water Mill, the new 34,400sq ft (3,195sq m), Herzog & de Meuron-designed museum will be twice the size of the existing facility in Southampton and about three miles away from it. It will be the first art museum built

RIBA Competitions has launched a two-stage Design Ideas Competition for the Great Fen Visitor Centre in Cambridgeshire. The competition is being promoted by the Great Fen - a partnership which comprises the Environment Agency, Huntingdonshire District Council, Middle Level Commissioners, Natural England and The Wildlife Trust. Great Fen plans to establish a £2m visitor centre at New Decoy Farm in Cambridgeshire and the competition is open to design teams based

The View from The Shard (VTS), a new visitor experience located at the top of Europe's tallest building in London, will open to the public on 1 February. Details of the attraction's design were revealed for the first time today (25 October) by Anders Nyberg, VTS chief executive. The tall attraction will take people on a journey to 244m (800ft) above London, almost twice as high as any other viewing

Wellcome Collection in central London has unveiled a major £17.5m development project which will increase the attraction's available gallery space. Stirling Prize-winning architects Wilkinson Eyre will transform the venue, bringing new areas into public use and adding a dramatic new spiral staircase and interconnected galleries. The works were commissioned by the collection's owner, Wellcome Trust, as it strives to meet the demands posed by an increase in visitor numbers at

French hotel giant Accor has opened a 'high tech' hotel in Blackfriars, London. Novotel London Blackfriars incorporates the latest technologies including tables fitted with televisions so guests dining alone will be entertained. Multimedia tables housing iPads for each guest also offer a selection of apps with the latest news items, information on events and what's happening in London. A further set of iPads with a range of games to keep

Hotel operator Pan Pacific Hotels Group is set to open Parkroyal on Pickering, a hotel and spa in Singapore, based on a hotel-in-a-garden concept, at the end of 2012. The hotel is located at the gateway to Singapore's Central Business District and landmarks such as Chinatown and China Square Central. Designed by Singapore-based architectural firm WOHA, Parkroyal was built with a strong focus on integrating environmental elements throughout the property.

Bouncing and jumping across the Seine on a giant trampoline could be a possibility if plans unveiled by Atelier Zundel Cristea are taken on board. The proposal was put forward for an ideas competition for a new bridge in Paris, which called for a new icon or landmark to add to the 37 bridges across the Seine. “It appears to us that Paris already has the bridges and passages necessary

The Peel Group has appointed architects Allies & Morrison to design its new luxury hotel project in Manchester. Architects from across Europe were invited to take part in a competition - organised by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) - to design the hotel, which will be located on the site of the former Worsley New Hall in Greater Manchester. Worsley New Hall was a historically significant manor house

It held murderers and madmen behind its walls for three centuries but now one of Northern Ireland's most notorious jails Armagh Gaol is a step closer to becoming a luxury hotel and spa. A planning application has been submitted which seeks to redevelop the former Armagh prison into a mixed-use property that will provide a 65-bed hotel with a spa and conference facilities as well as an education and heritage

Resort Worlds Birmingham leisure complex is set to open at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham by January 2015. It will comprise a Genting casino as well as a 176-room hotel and spa. Other facilities include a cinema and extensive conference facilities as well as a factory outlet centre. Casino operator Genting UK are beginning work on the £125m leisure complex after appointing contractor Galliford Try. This development will

Detailed plans for the first phase of Rafael Viñoly's Battersea Power Station masterplan have now been submitted to Wandsworth Council. The project in Nine Elms in London was granted outline planning consent in 2011 and the new application provides a detailed specification for the first stage of the development. The application covers the details of the scale of the buildings and structures, the external appearance and the landscaping within Phase

Rosewood hotels and resorts is to open its second Asian resort in Phuket, Thailand in 2014. Located on a 600m (1,968ft) Emerald Bay beachfront in Western Phuket, the Rosewood Phuket resort comprises 87 villas, 20 residences and five hideaway homes and a spa. The Sense Spa will feature five treatment rooms, seven spa villas with steamrooms and showers and a swimming and watsu pool. The central feature of the spa

The government-appointed architecture watchdog ARB (Architects Registration Board) has apologised for suggesting that Renzo Piano and Daniel Libeskind should not be described as architects in the UK press. Last week, ARB sent a letter to Building Design magazine saying that neither Piano nor Libeskind were registered with ARB - therefore being undeserving of the title. Piano is a former Pritzker Prize winner and is famous for having designed the Centre

More than 100,000 visitors attended the opening weekend of Glasgow's new Emirates Arena. The sports arena, which opened its doors on 5 October, will play host to the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. The 10.5-hectare arena is located beside the Commonwealth Games Athletes' Village and the Celtic Park. It will include an indoor sports arena, three sports halls with 12 badminton courts, four outdoor five-a-side football pitches, an outdoor 1km cycle

Image: Work on the complex began in June 2012 The £18m Portway Lifestyle Centre in Oldbury, West Midlands is on track to open in August 2013, despite delays in construction work due to poor weather conditions over the summer months. The centre will replace the Oldbury Leisure Centre in Sandwell. Facilities will include a sports hall, hydrotherapy pool, a gym and weights area and dance studio. There will also be

Norway's 90m euro (£73m US$116) contemporary art museum, the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo, has opened to the public. The museum, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, is located on the edge of a fjord and is divided into two halves by water. Renzo Piano's previous work includes Beyeler Museum in Basel, the extension of the Morgan Library in New York and the Shard in London. The museum covers an