UK-based Lazenby Design has been appointed to design the new Evolution Museum in Athens, Greece. Scheduled to open in 2010, the 4,000sq m museum will be located at the city’s Attica Zoological Park. The museum will house both outdoor and indoor exhibits, including immersive prehistoric environments, creature models, palaeontology displays and animated interpretive AV exhibits. The museum will chart the history of the planet from early organisms through the dinosaur

Culture secretary Ben Bradshaw has announced the appointment of Paul Finch as the new chair of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE). Finch, who is currently programme director of the World Architecture Festival, will succeed Sir John Sorrell as chair of the commission for a four-year period from 14 December, having previously held the post of deputy chair. In addition to his former role of commissioner and

Glasgow City Council (GCC) has appointed Sir Robert McAlpine as the main contractor for the city's new £120m National Indoor Sports Arena and the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome venues. The council's executive committee approved the findings of a report that recommended the selection of the Hertfordshire-based construction company from a shortlist of four firms, which also included Laing O'Rourke, Bovis Lend Lease and BAM. Both the 5,000-seat NISA and the

A new £4.5m sports and community complex, which has been designed to incorporate a number of environmentally friendly features, has opened to the public in west London. The Little Venice Sports Centre on Crompton Street, which is the only venue in the area to be accredited by the Inclusive Fitness Initiative (IFI), includes four badminton courts, a large sports hall with underfloor heating and a multi-purpose dance and exercise studio.

A new multi-million pound concert hall is set to be built at the University of Birmingham (UB) to provide a new home for the institution's music department and facilities for the local community. Plans for the venue have been drawn up by Glenn Howells Architects to include a 450-seat auditorium designed to accommodate a range of performances – from solo voice to electro-acoustic – as well as associated research, teaching

Construction work has reportedly started on the 5-star Songjiang Hotel, a 'sunken hotel' being created in a 100m-deep water-filled quarry in Songjiang near Shanghai, China. Situated inside the Shanghai Sheshan National Holiday Resort area, the 21-floor hotel will have two underwater levels, 17 floors between the surface of the water and ground-level and two floors above ground-level. The underwater floors will house a restaurant and guestrooms facing an aquarium, while

The £10m Amphitheatre Wellness Centre in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, is to open on 17 August. Designed by Given Architects, the centre will boast an “Olympic-standard” fitness suite supplied by Technogym, a floodlit synthetic sports pitch, squash courts, a synthetic tennis court, a 25m swimming pool, a soft-play area and a multi-purpose sports hall for badminton, five-a-side football, netball, basketball and gymnastics. The centre was built on the site of the

Sir Robert McAlpine, the Hertfordshire-based company, is set to be named as the main contractor for the new £120m National Indoor Sports Arena (NISA) and the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome venues in Glasgow. A report due to go before Glasgow City Council's (GCC) executive committee on 14 August has identified Sir Robert McAlpine as its preferred contractor from a shortlist of four firms, which also included Laing O'Rourke, Bovis Lend

BAA has unveiled plans for the new £1bn Terminal Two building at London's Heathrow Airport, which has been designed to emit 40 per cent less carbon than the existing second terminal facility. The new development will cater for around 20 million passengers each year and forms part of BAA's wider £4.8bn investment in improving services and facilities at one of the world's busiest airports. Plans for Terminal Two, which will

Designs put forward by LiD Architecture have been selected as the winning concept for a new public civil space, which will be built as part of a mixed-use redevelopment of Dublin's docklands in Ireland. Dublin City Council (DCC) and Point Village Limited announced that the Belfast-based firm had been chosen following the conclusion of a design competition administered by the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland (RIAI). Plans for The

The Dorchester Collection’s Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles, US, is to undergo a multi-million dollar renovation that will see the hotel shut from October this year till mid-2011. The project will include the renovation of all of the hotel’s 91 rooms and suites, its famous Champagne Bar and its restaurants and private dining rooms. Twelve new villas will also be built within the hotel’s grounds. A new spa is already

International construction consultancy, Davis Langdon, and FaulknerBrowns Architects have been appointed by Aberdeen City Council (ACC) to progress plans for the city's proposed 50m swimming pool. Davis Langdon has been selected as project manager, while FaulknerBrowns will head up the design team for the new facility, which is set to provide a regional competition standard facility to help attract visitors to the city. Neil Fletcher, chair of ACC's 50m Pool

The latest hotel to form part of Sir Rocco Forte's portfolio of luxury accommodation has opened in Sicily. The £120m (US$203.3m, 141.1m euro) Verdura Golf & Spa Resort joins famous names such as St. Petersburg's Hotel Astoria, The Balmoral in Edinburgh, Geneva's Le Richemond, Brown's Hotel in London and the recently opened Augustine in Prague as the 13th hotel in the Rocco Forte Collection (RFC). Covering an area of 175

The £12m leisure centre planned for Matlock, Derbyshire, looks set to be given the green light by Derbyshire Dales District Council. As previously reported in Leisure Opportunities, the centre is set to include an eight-lane, 25m swimming pool, two sports halls, a dance studio and a fitness suite. However, the designs – created by Dyer Architects – have come under fire from both Matlock Town Council and Matlock Civic Association,

The Welsh Assembly Government has announced that 2DPP Shape, part of Welsh planning consultancy DPP, has been appointed to draw up a new masterplan for the redevelopment of West Rhyl, Denbighshire. Architects, urban designers and regeneration specialists will form part of a team that will be tasked with developing new proposals for the regeneration of the area to the west of Rhyl's town centre, including the creation of new green

A new multi-purpose public arts venue, which is currently under construction in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, is to be called The Apex. St Edmondsbury Borough Council (SEBC) met on 29 July to approve the new name for the venue, which is scheduled to open in 2010, will incorporate a multi-purpose auditorium with a 500-seat capacity for theatre performance and seminars and standing capacity for 700 people for concert performances. Space

A new £20m Olympic-sized swimming pool, which has been included as a potential training facility for teams ahead of the London 2012 Games, has officially opened in Corby, Northamptonshire. The 50m Corby East Midlands International Pool was unveiled by Olympic swimmer Mark Foster on 24 July and is equipped with moveable floors and booms to accommodate international junior diving events and short and long course races. Designed by S&P Architects,

Camden Council has turned down a planning application for a £135m extension to the British Museum in London, UK. The proposed development, designed by architects Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP), had secured the support of English Heritage but had angered a local conservation group, Bloomsbury Conservation Area Advisory Committee (BCAAC). RSHP's plans included a new 1,000 sq m (10,760sq ft) building at the rear of the museum, replacing the

Construction work has started on an 11-month refurbishment of Newport railway station in South Wales in a bid to cater for an increase in passengers travelling to the 2010 Ryder Cup golf tournament. The new 2,100sq m (22,604sq ft) station, which will be nearly twice the size of the existing site, has been designed by an architectural partnership between Atkins and Grimshaw to improve accessibility and safety, as well as

Revised plans for the £55m New Victoria Place scheme in Bradford, West Yorkshire, are set to be submitted to the local authority by developer Langtree Artisan and regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward. A public exhibition is scheduled to be held on 24 and 25 July in order for local residents to comment on the proposals, which will be located on the site of a former Odeon cinema and is set

A friendly match between Cardiff City Football Club (CCFC) and Glasgow Celtic Football Club has marked the opening of a new multi-million pound sports stadium at Leckwith, Cardiff. The 25,000-seat venue was built by Laing O'Rourke and developed by PMG Estates on a site adjacent to the football club's former Ninian Park home, while the Cardiff Blues rugby team will also be relocating to the stadium from its current home

A topping-out ceremony has been held in London to mark the completion of external construction work on one of the capital's largest ever purpose-built hotels, the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge. The £350m property, which is scheduled to open in early 2010, is situated on land once occupied by the former Greater London Council building and will boast more than 1,000 bedrooms and 2,700sq m (29,062.6sq ft) of meeting space. London

The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) has announced that construction work on the 2012 Handball Arena has started two months ahead of schedule at the Olympic Park in East London. Buckingham Group Contracting has been appointed to construct the venue, which will host qualifying games for the handball competition during the London 2012 Olympics, as well as the modern pentathlon fencing and goalball during the Paralympics. After the Games, the Handball

China's Olympic stadium, the Birds Nest, has won the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Lubetkin award for outstanding architecture for an overseas project. The £217m stadium, designed by previous RIBA winners Herzog & de Meuron, played host to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and beat off stiff competition from five other shortlisted buildings for the prize – including the Beijing National Swimming Centre nicknamed (The Cube), and the Museum

A new visitor centre has opened at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum's Blists Hill Victorian Town. The centre forms part of a £12m redevelopment of the town, which has been funded by Advantage West Midlands and The European Regional Development Fund. The building was designed by specialist architectural practice Nash Partnership of Bath with support from Osbornes Architects and was constructed by Mansell Construction Services Ltd. As well as the different

Proposals for a £24m indoor BMX centre in Manchester's Sportcity development have been announced. The 110,000sq ft (10,220sq m) National Cycling Centre, designed by Ellis Williams Architects, will boast a 2,000-seat BMX arena and offices for the headquarters of the British Cycling Federation. The centre will be surrounded by new public spaces, including outdoor freestyle cycling areas, forming a velopark. Eddie Smith, chief executive of New East Manchester, which is

A £13m leisure centre will be built at Manor Park in Rushden, Northamptonshire, to replace outdated facilities at the Splash Leisure Pool and the Pemberton Centre. The scheme will comprise a six-lane, 25-metre swimming pool and a teaching pool, as well as a four court sports hall, dance/exercise studios and a health and fitness suite. The facility will be project managed by global consultants Mace, whose previous projects include the