Wutopia Lab have created a bookstore on the 52nd floor of Shanghai's tallest building, Shanghai Tower, that incorporates a lecture room, an exhibition space, a coffee shop, a dessert café and a snack outlet. Covering 2,200sq m (23,700sq ft), the store has been designed to accommodate 60,000 books and 2,000 products. It is wrapped in floor-to-ceiling windows that draw the sky and the cityscape into the space, making the views

Baerbel Mueller and Juergen Strohmayer have created a new gallery for the Nubuke Foundation art centre in Accra, Ghana, that hovers over the existing garden. The centre, which was founded in 2007 and has a sister site in the Ghanaian town of Wa, hosts programmes supporting the arts, culture, and heritage of the country. The Nubuke Extended project was aimed at expanding the site to create a cultural and civic

The London Centre for Music, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, has received a funding boost of nearly £2m ($2.3m, €2.2m) for the next stage of its development. Announced in 2017, the vision for the centre is "to develop a world-class venue for performance and education across all musical genres". It will transform part of and be run by the Barbican performing arts centre and will be a new home

The Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France, has announced plans for a major expansion project following an anonymous €20m (£17.6m, US$22.4m) donation. The project, called Orsay Grand Ouvert – or Orsay Wide Open – is thought to have been in development for a period of several months and has now been made public following the donation. A new wing and a 7,000sq ft (650sq m) Education Center, as well as an

The Middle East Architecture Network (MEAN*) have designed a pavilion for rest and gatherings in the Wadi Rum desert valley in the south of Jordan that responds to the ancient landscape using current design and building technologies. The pavilion was conceived to provide shade and a space to rest during the day, to be a place for celebration, storytelling and gatherings at night and to offer a model for building

The US pavilion for Expo 2020 Dubai is to be designed by the experiential design and production agency Thinkwell Group and will explore "the exciting future made possible by American innovation, vision, and enterprise". The building will be designed in such a way as to appear to be moving at times and will house exhibits about journeying to Mars, the city of the future and 3D-printed prosthetics and organs. It

​ Wheeler Kearns Architects have transformed a decommissioned cheese factory in the US city of Bentonville, Arkansas, into a multidisciplinary space for visual, performing and culinary artists. The Momentary was opened at the end of February as a satellite location of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, which is also in Bentonville. The 63,000sq ft (5,900sq m) facility was conceived with the aim of providing a unique cultural hub

Flores & Prats and Ouest Architecture have won a competition to convert a derelict old theatre and music hall into an open, inclusive public space. The Ancien Théâtre des Variétés was originally designed by modernist architect Victor Bourgeois and built in the 1930s. Having been converted into a Cinerama venue in the 1960s, it was eventually abandoned in the 1980s. Now, the 5,000sq m (54,000sq ft) building will be reactivated

Perkins and Will have broken ground on Destination Crenshaw, a 1.3mi (2.1km)-long outdoor art, culture and museum area celebrating Black Los Angeles (LA). Running along Crenshaw Boulevard, Destination Crenshaw was conceived to celebrate the energy and accomplishments of Black LA, to document and preserve its 200 years plus of history, to seed a "community-driven, counterbalancing force against gentrification" and to drive economic security and opportunities for local residents. The project,

Digital art group Vertigo have created a new audio-visual installation that reacts to the movement of viewers and passersby, animating a public square with flashing LEDs. The artwork. called Echelon, is located at the foot of London’s Centre Point building and was curated by cultural placemaking agency Futurecity for Almacantar, a development company that is rejuvenating the brutalist building. It takes the form of a 12m (39ft) equilateral triangle of

Margot Krasojević has created a conceptual design for a hydroelectric power plant that uses the electricity it generates to power nearby homes as well as an art gallery housed within. Much of Krasojević's work focuses on combining architectural typologies as potential solutions for new challenges in our "perpetually changing environment", like her Harmonic Turbine Tidal Hotel. The Hydroelectric Sculpture Gallery concept redefines what a power plant and a gallery can

Two winners have been chosen in this year's City of Dreams Pavilion Competition, with one constructed from air-filled materials and the other with an inverted pyramid that is a comment on environmental instability. The City of Dreams Pavilion Competition is run by FIGMENT, the Emerging New York Architects Committee of the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter and the Structural Engineers Association of New York. It is based on

The opening of teamLab 's SuperNature Macao museum of immersive digital artworks in Macau, China, has been delayed until further notice as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. Originally due to open this month, the 5,000sq m (54,000sq ft), the attraction is located in an expo hall at Sands Resorts Macao 's Venetian Macao hotel. It comprises a "labyrinthine" layout of gallery spaces that visitors will make their way through

Creating an "unforgettable first museum experience for children" is the aim of the V&A Museum of Childhood in London, which has announced it will close in May 2020 for a two-year, £13m (US$16.9m, €15.7m) transformation by AOC. The museum said the "reimagination" of its collections, galleries, building and public programme will turn it into a "world-leading centre of creativity for children". Creativity is a major theme for the planned renovation,

Donald Insall Associates have completed restoration work of Edwardian architecture at Grade II listed heritage swimming baths that are being converted for use as an arts and culture venue. Moseley Road Baths are said to be the only baths in the UK built before 1914 to have continuously hosted swimming since they opened, which was in 1907. They are architecturally significant due to the quality and completeness of their interior,

The Rothko Chapel will reopen in Houston this June after a 14-month restoration project by Architecture Research Office that is part of a wider $30m (€28m, £23m) masterplan project the studio is carrying out. Opened in 1971, the chapel was created as a place for interfaith worship and contemplation by its founders – artist Mark Rothko and John and Dominique de Menil – and has 14 huge Rothko canvases on

Counterspace have been chosen to design the Serpentine Pavilion for 2020 with a design based on gathering spaces and community places around London that will be accompanied by a public programme across the city. Now in its 20th year, the annual pavilion commission is described by the Serpentine as "a global platform for experimental projects by some of the world's greatest architects." This year's architects from the Johannesburg-based practice –

A new £67m (US$86.9m, €79.8m) cultural and environmental Eden Project tourist attraction, designed by Grimshaw Architects, is to be built in Northern Ireland and is expected to open in 2023. Eden Project Foyle will cover a 100-hectare (250-acre) site along the banks of the River Foyle near Derry-Londonderry, brining previously inaccessible land, three historic walled gardens and an 18th-century icehouse back into use. The destination will feature a range of

wHY Architecture are to build a monolithic but welcoming glazed, wooden theatre in a new park on the Kama River as a beacon for the emerging arts district in Perm, Russia. The firm began working on the Tchaikovsky Academic Opera and Ballet Theater in September 2019 and their design was given the go-ahead in January 2020 by a vote of approval from the City Council of Perm, the planning commission

Steven Holl Architects have topped out the Shanghai Cofco Cultural and Health Center, which is aimed at being "a social condenser" for residents of the dense surrounding housing. Designed in 2016 and expected to be completed mid-to-late 2020, the 7,520sq m (81,000sq ft) development comprises a mix of public realm, a canalside park, space for recreational and cultural programs, amenities and health facilities. An open, spacious design contrasts that of

Three huge entry gateways for Expo 2020 Dubai, designed by Asif Khan, will welcome visitors onto the site from 20 October, with a futuristic exploration of the traditional mashrabiya. Mashrabiyas are a type of decorative, projecting window often used to control light and airflow that typically found on Arabic residences. Khan's Expo Entry Portals, which are part of his wider work on the expo's public realm, are said to be

Niall McLaughlin Architects have been chosen to design a new, multi-purpose auditorium and public space for London's Somerset House arts centre. Designed and built by Sir William Chambers during the mid-to-late 1770s, the current neoclassical building has a rich history and courtyards that are described as being among the most beautiful in Europe. With the building already home to a creative community and a variety of different exhibition and events

A bookstore in Wuhan, China, has reopened after a two-year design and renovation project by Wutopia Lab that has seen a huge "light cone" inserted into the building, drawing natural light from the roof down to all floors. The 10,000sq m (107,600sq ft) Hubei Foreign Language Bookstore was established 40 years ago and has undergone a number of alterations and renovations over the years. Wutopia Lab were keen to re-establish

ARM Architecture have begun work on a AU$150m (US$101m, €91m, £77m), two-year renovation of the Sydney Opera House that will better equip it for performances, enhance its acoustics, improve accessibility and create a safer working environment. The project is part of the 10-year Decade of Renewal capital works programme, via which AU$275m (US$185m, €167m, £142m) of investment will transform the Opera House ahead of its 50th anniversary in 2023. The

China's HE Art Museum has postponed its planned opening in March due to ongoing concerns regarding the coronavirus outbreak in the country. The museum, in Shunde, Guangdong Province, is a private, non-profit art institution, devoted to collecting and exhibiting Chinese and global contemporary art. The 16,000sq m (52,500sq ft) facility was designed by Tadao Ando, and was due to hold a ceremony to mark its opening on 21 March 2020.

The Seattle Asian Art Museum will reopen this weekend after a $56m (€51m, £43m) renovation and expansion of its historic 1933 Art Deco building by LMN Architects. The project, which has taken 12 years from planning through design and construction, was the first major renovation of the 64,250sq ft (6,000sq m) facility since it was constructed. Most notably, preservation work has been carried out on the building and its Art

Diamond Schmitt Architects, working with KWC Architects, have designed a joint facility for Ottawa Public Library and Library and Archives Canada (OPL-LAC) aimed at creating an inspiring place for gathering, learning and discovery. The CAD$193m (US$146m, €132m, £111m) building is scheduled to open in 2024, will cover 216,000sq ft (20,000sq m) and be split across five floors. It will house shared resources for the organisations including exhibitions and collections space,