Aberdeen Football Club (AFC) has lodged a planning application with Aberdeen City Council to build a new £40m stadium at Loirston. The site at Loirston Loch near Nigg was named as the preferred site for the Dons' new 21,000-seat stadium after AFC decided its current base at Pittodrie was 'outdated'. A site at Kings Links, opposite Pittodrie, was said to be too small and expensive. The new development - designed

The museum commemorating the victims of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York is set to open to the public in 2012. The US$45m (£29m, €35m) Memorial Museum, designed by Davis Brody Bond architects, will cover 120,000sq ft (11,100sq m) and will be located beneath the memorial plaza. Visitors to the museum will enter through a glass-cased visitors' orientation and education centre located on the

US-based luxury hotel operator Morgans Hotel Group has announced that it has had to procure additional funding to complete the development of its Mondrian hotel in SoHo, New York, US. Morgans has amended the debt financing on the property with its lender - subsidiaries of CapitalSource - to "provide for extensions" of the maturity date of the mortgage loan. In addition to the new funds, Morgan's partner in the joint

Senator Ted Kennedy - the youngest brother of JFK - who died last August, is to have an Institute for the Senate built in his name, next to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum on the University of Massachusetts at Boston campus. According to its website, the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate is "dedicated to educating the public about our system of government and enhancing civic

Grade I-listed Apethorpe Hall in Northamptonshire has been opened to visitors following a major £4m redevelopment of the property. Funded by English Heritage, the work on the property included the restoration of the interior areas - including the plasterwork, oak panelling and ornate fireplaces - by traditional craftspeople. A large section of the timber-framed roof has been repaired and re-roofed using thousands of local stone slates. In total around 150,000

The Jellyfish Theatre in Southwark will become the UK's first fully-functioning theatre made entirely from recycled and reclaimed materials when it opens later this year. The opening of the venue is part of the The Oikos Project, a mix of public art, architecture and performance. It is the brainchild of Arts Council-funded organisations The Red Room and The Architecture Foundation, in association with The Junction, Cambridge. The Red Room will

The redevelopment of Hatcham Garndens in New Cross, London has been completed. The remodelling of the park - designed by architects East - was undertaken in collaboration from London Development Agency (LDA) and Lewisham Borough Council. East were appointed to re-design the park and put their landscape and urban design know how into action. The practice used a consultation process with the local school and neighbourhood in order to develop

Shortlists for the 11 categories of the European Hotel Design Awards 2010 have been revealed. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on Tuesday 23rd November at the Lancaster hotel in London. The judging panel includes Simon Ford of InterContinental Hotels Group, Khirstie Myles of Marriott International, Andrew Onraet of Von Essen Hotels and Eugene Staal of Rezidor Hotel Group. This year's nominations include the Kinsterna Hotel &

Sunderland City Council (SCC) has revealed that designs drawn up by artist Fiona Heron have been selected for the new gates that will be located at the entrance to Roker Pier. A series of stainless steel posts and toughened glass panels will be used to capture and reflect natural light as part of the design, while a brass-framed porthole will celebrate the pier's link with a nearby lighthouse. SCC is

Merlin Entertainments has appointed PCL Construction Services and Morris Architects to design and build the Legoland Florida attraction, which is scheduled to open in 2011. The 145-acre family attraction, which will be located on the site of the former Cypress Gardens theme park in Winter Haven, is set to include more than 50 rides, shows and attractions. Merlin acquired the park – which also includes the Splash Island Waterpark –

The Council of the Isles of Scilly (CIS) has selected St Ives-based architects Poynton Bradbury Wynter Cole to draw up proposals for the regeneration of Porthcressa. A full planning application is due to be submitted in October for the scheme, which will include improvements to the promenade, a redevelopment of the bulb store into a library and upgrade work to Porthcressa Square. The design work for the Porthcressa project has

Monmouth's Savoy Theatre and the Animal Wall - part of the Cardiff Castle complex - are among 24 historic buildings to receive a share of nearly £1m from the Welsh Assembly Government. The Savoy Theatre - one of the oldest venues of its kind in Wales - is set to benefit from repair restoration work to its front elevation after securing more than £39,000 as part of the funding package.

A new multimedia experience has opened at Yan City, a mixed-use development in China's Chun Zhu Province that includes a number of attractions. Called Yan Yu Chun Qiu Water Show, the new attraction was designed in partnership by Australia-based multimedia company Spinifex Group and Chinese directors Han Lixun and Yvonne Ho. The 45-minute water show features Spinifex's multimedia rendering of "The Past Meets the Future." The content begins on the

The US$72m (€55, £46m) renovation project of Happy Hollow Park & Zoo in San Jose, California, US. has been awarded LEED gold by the US Green Building Council. The attraction is one of the first in the country to be certified LEED gold, which is given in recognition that a building project meets the "highest green building and performance measures". Points towards the award are earned across six categories: sustainable

Liverpool City Council (LCC) has given its approval to a £4.5bn regeneration scheme designed to transform Birkenhead Docks into a major new waterside destination. The 18 million sq ft (1.7 million sq m) Wirral Waters project is being led by the Manchester-based developer, Peel Holdings, and will incorporate a range of restaurants, cafés, bars, a hotel and cultural attractions. Individual architects have been involved with the design of different elements

Archial Architects has completed a £640,000 refurbishment and gym extension at the University of Essex in Colchester. The project is part of a larger £1.4m upgrade of the facility. The new two-storey extension to the sports centre's existing gym marks the completion of the first stage of the University's Strategic Sports Development Plan. The project has seen a new 130-station fitness suite being installed at the ground floor, while facilities

One of China's most iconic hotels, the Peace Hotel on Shanghai's Bund, has reopened as the Fairmont Peace Hotel after a three-year redevelopment programme. The 11-storey hotel, which first opened on 1 August, 1929 and was the city's first high-rise, was widely known as the 'Number One mansion in the Far East', due to its prime location on the Bund and for its luxury. In its new guise, the property

Will Deague, founder of the Australia-based Art Series Hotels, has revealed details of the group's expansion plans. The group currently operates two hotels - The Cullen in Melbourne and The Olsen in South Yarra - and is currently preparing to open its third site, called The Blackman, in Melbourne next month (August 2010). Deague said that the group will open three more hotels in Melbourne over the next 12 months.

Construction work has begun on a new leisure centre in Lewisham. The Loampit Vale Leisure Centre will include two swimming pools - an eight-lane, 25m competition pool and a 20m training pool - a 100-station fitness club, two group exercise studios, a climbing wall, a crèche and a café. Plans also include a full-service health and beauty spa. The centre has been designed by LA Architects, who worked with specialist

Doncaster Council has revealed the design of a new £22.5m performance venue that is set to become the "cultural anchor" of a new £300m civic and cultural quarter for the town. Plans include a 600-seat main auditorium across two levels to ensure that audiences can get close to the action, while a second flexible space is set to be able to accommodate 200 seated or 400 standing spectators. Dance and

The Kentish Town Sports Centre in London reopened yesterday (26 July) following a comprehensive £25m redevelopment of the Grade II-listed Victorian building. Facilities at the new centre include three swimming pools, a 90-station health and fitness club equipped by Technogym, a Kinesis area, a Power Plate zone, a large group exercise studio and a Wii Fit interactive zone. Work also included the refurbishment of the centre’s heritage features – such

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem has reopened following a 3-year, US$100m (£64.5m, €77m) redevelopment programme involving new galleries, orientation facilities and public spaces. Led by James Carpenter Design Associates of New York and Efrat-Kowalsky Architects of Tel Aviv, the project also included the renovation and reconfiguration of the museum's three collection wings and the reinstallation of its encyclopedic collections. The museum's architectural footprint has increased considerably since its opening in

Steven Holl Architects has received international architecture awards for the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art in Herning, Denmark, and the Knut Hamsun Center in Hamarøy, Norway. The awards, administered annually by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Center for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies, recognise "new and cutting-edge design" and aim to promote "excellence in architecture and urbanism from a global point-of-view." The Herning

The Courtyard Charleston/Summerville in South Carolina, US is to be the first hotel built using Marriott International's 'green' hotel prototype. The development, in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), will dramatically accelerate the company's goal to have 300 LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) hotels by 2015. Marriott's prototype is the first in the hospitality industry to have been pre-approved by USGBC as part of its LEED

Reigate and Banstead Borough Council (RBBC) has appointed Holland-based Pellikaan Construction to build a new £7.5m leisure centre on the site of a former school in Horley, Surrey. Work is due to start on the demolition of existing buildings at Court Lodge Secondary School in late September in order to enable construction work on the S&P Architects-designed facility to get underway in November. A six-lane, 25m swimming pool with ramped

HRH The Duke of Gloucester has officially opened the new £21m Carnegie Pavilion at Headingley Carnegie Cricket Ground in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Designed by architect Will Alsop, the dual-use facility has been developed as the result of a partnership between Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) and Yorkshire County Cricket Club (YCCC). YCCC will use the facility during the summer holidays as a cricket pavilion, which will boast a media centre, improved

Netherlands-based architect Erick van Egeraat has won an international design competition and secured the commission for the VTB Arena Park in Moscow. The 300,000sq m VTB Arena Park will include the complete redevelopment of the home of Dinamo Moscow football club. The mixed-use project is set to be one of the largest sport projects in Russia in recent years. VTB Bank will provide an investment of around €500m (US$644m, £421m)