Plans by Forest Green Rovers Football Club (FGRFC) to play its games at the world’s first entirely wooden stadium have been approved by the English Football League (EFL). Getting approval to host games at the proposed stadium clears another planning hurdle for the project, which would see a 5,000-seat venue built near the UK town of Eastington. Plans for the stadium were first unveiled in 2015 and it is expected

Construction work has begun on the huge Shanghai International New Cultural and Creative esports Center. The 500,000sq m venue is estimated to cost around 5.8 billion yuan ($898.2m) and forms part of a larger, US$1.5bn project. Built by Chinese property company SuperGen Group – the parent company of Chinese esports organisation Edward Gaming (EDG) – the venue is located in the city's Minhang District. The 6,000-seat arena is expected to

Football's world governing body FIFA has filed a criminal complaint over what it describes as "criminal mismanagement" of the World Football Museum project in Zurich. The project was first announced by disgraced former FIFA president Sepp Blatter in 2012 and the attraction opened its doors in February 2017 at a cost of around CHF500m (€459m, £415m). The 3,000sq m (32,300sq ft) museum is part of a larger development which includes

The UK government has launched a £1bn Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS), providing grant funding for energy efficiency measures across the public sector. The funding has been made available for capital sustainability and heat decarbonisation projects within public sector non-domestic buildings, including central government departments and non-departmental public bodies in England. Public sector bodies can apply for a grant to finance up to 100 per cent of the costs of

Belgian football team Club Brugge has appointed architects B2Ai and SCAU to develop designs for a new €100m stadium. The new stadium, to be located at the heart of a new park in Bruges' Sint-Andries district, will seat 40,000 fans and will be designed to provide a more "intimate experience". Design aspects of the venue include an exterior draped in a see-through, perforated textile covering, while inside modern, open-plan councourses

The organising committee of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games have shelved plans to create an athletes' village in the Perry Barr area of the city. The £520m development would have provided a home for around 6,500 athletes and officials during the Games and was due for completion in early 2022. Post games, the development was set to be converted into more than 1,400 homes, forming the first phase of a

Construction work on Gunyama Park Aquatic and Recreation Centre in Sydney, Australia, is expected to be completed in late 2020. The City of Sydney, which owns the centre, said that the COVID-19 pandemic had caused delays to works and it now expects the facility to open by the end of the year. When complete, Gunyama Park will be the biggest aquatic complex built in Sydney since the 2000 Olympic Games.

Madrid city council (Ayuntamiento de Madrid) has set out plans to develop a number of sports facilities in the surrounding areas of the existing Wanda Metropolitano stadium. The "sports city" project, in the eastern San Blas-Canillejas district, is led by the council and is set to transform a site which was originally earmarked for an Olympic park during the city's failed bids for the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games. Facilities

Plans have been revealed to redevelop the Van Donge & De Roo Stadium in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, into a mixed-use complex dominated by four towers rising from the stands. Designed by architects Moederscheim Moonen, the proposals include expanding the capacity at the stadium from 4,300 to 6,500 to seats, while creating a number of other services – from housing and retail to offices and leisure. The Van Donge & De

The historic San Siro football stadium in Milan could be demolished to make way for a brand new stadium, following a decision by Italian heritage authorities. According to the Superintendency of Cultural Heritage of Lombardy (SCHL), San Siro has "no cultural interest" and there is no heritage-based objection for it to be razed to the ground. The venue is the home for Milan's two Serie A giants – Internazionale and

London’s Westminster City Council has approved developer Reef Group’s plans to invest over £150m (US$185.3m, €171.4m) in Cavendish Square, transforming the space into a subterranean mixed-use destination, with a focus on healthcare and wellbeing. Claimed to be London’s first subterranean health and wellbeing destination, the 280,000sq ft (26,000sq m) destination will deliver specialist facilities for London’s private healthcare sector. Currently an underground park, the existing structure will be reused and

Cooper Robertson are transforming the historic Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville, Virginia, to make it more inclusive for women, children, families and younger generations. The buildings at Farmington date back to the 1760s, with the east wing of its clubhouse building having been designed by Thomas Jefferson and the club itself having been established in 1927. As Cooper Robertson has pointed out, though, "While private-membership clubs [in the US] remain

Chelsea Football Club has allowed the planning permission for its new Herzog & de Meuron -designed stadium to lapse, keeping the project on hold until "economic conditions improve". The English Premier League received planning permission in 2017 to build a 60,000-seat venue at the site of its current Stamford Bridge stadium. But the club announced a year later that it had put the project on hold due to the "unfavourable

ASM Global has revealed HOK -designed plans to increase the capacity at its Manchester Arena venue to 24,000, which would make it the largest arena in Europe. As well as the proposed increase to capacity, the plans include the creation of an additional concourse level to house VIP boxes and lounges, as well as food and drink outlets. A new "worker bee façade" – in honour of Manchester's symbol, the

The English National Ballet (ENB) has moved into a new £27m ($33m, €30m) home in London designed by Glenn Howells Architects (GHA). The 93,000sq ft (8,600sq m) building combines a number of previously separate ENB campuses into what it calls "a multi-faceted 'dance factory'". The ground floor is conceived to be a gathering and circulation space, with a public café and an exhibition area. Seven full-sized rehearsal studios include a

The world's largest cricket stadium, designed by Populous, has been inaugurated in India. The Motera Stadium, officially the Sardar Patel Stadium, located in the western state of Gujarat in the city of Ahmedabad, was constructed over the course of three years at a cost of $100m (€89m, £77m). Andrew James, lead architect and senior principal at Populous, said: “Cricket is the biggest sport in India and this stadium has been

Pendulum have won an award for their conceptual design of a modular stadium complex that is intended to provide a platform for economic development in growing communities. The Future Stadia design won the 'Sports and Recreation Project (Concept)' category of the annual Rethinking the Future awards, which are aimed at identifying and promoting "outstanding work in the field of architecture and design across the world." Pendulum's design proposes an initial

Tilke Engineers and Formula 1 ’s Motorsports Division have completed the construction of the Hanoi Circuit track, which will host the first ever F1 race in Vietnam and the third round of the 2020 championship on the weekend of 3-5 April. Formula 1’s newest circuit is 5.6km (3.5mi)-long and will see drivers negotiate 23 turns on their way around it, reaching a top speed of 335km/h (208mph). It is said

Two major construction milestones have been passed at Manica 's $1.9 billion (€1.8 billion, £1.5 billion) Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, with the frame for supporting the roof lifted into place and installation of the seating begun. Practical completion of the stadium is expected by the end of July, after which it will be home to the relocated Raiders NFL team. In addition to NFL games, it will host NCAA

Millwall FC has revealed designs by AFL Architects for the proposed redevelopment of its stadium, The Den, to make it "fit for Premier League football". Redevelopment of the stadium has become a possibility again following the termination of a conditional land sale agreement for the leased site on which The Den is situated in the Bermondsey area of London by the local mayor and cabinet earlier this month. Although the

Liverpool FC has revealed updated KSS -designed plans for the expansion of the Anfield Road stand at its Anfield stadium and has begun a second-stage public consultation of the proposals. Plans to expand Anfield, which were first revealed in 2014, were developed following the takeover of the club by FSG in 2010 – putting an end to discussions about a potential move to a new stadium. Work to expand the

X+Living have created a kids' activity centre in Shenzhen, China, that combines a mix of slides, ball-pits and hidden spaces with fantastical design elements and a pastels aesthetic. Shenzhen Neobio Family Park is the most recent of a number of Neobio Family Parks that X+Living has worked on. Covering 6,000sq m (64,600sq ft), it houses the play space, an entrance lobby, a changing area and a restaurant. Located partly in

A sports centre in Barcelona, designed by Anna Noguera and Javier Fernandez, has won awards for its sustainable and innovative design, which includes a greenery-covered façade, swathes of glazing and timber interiors. Barcelona City Council appointed Noguera and Fernandez after they won an architectural competition it ran in 2014. The competition briefed for the creation of a sports centre in the Turó de la Peira area of Barcelona, in which

Adidas has built a sustainable sports pitch in Florida, using 1.8m recycled plastic bottles. The bottles were collected from nature – at remote islands, beaches, coastal communities and shorelines – in order to prevent them from ending up permanently in the eco-system. Each bottle was then washed and treated before being converted and used as infill for the synthetic 3G pitch. The pitch has been installed at the Miami Edison

Arup plans for a £72m ($94m, €85m) revamp of the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, UK, ahead of its role as the focal point of the 2022 Commonwealth Games, have been approved. The project will see the stadium transformed into a high-quality venue capable of hosting a diverse range of sporting, leisure, community and cultural events. During the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, the arena will act as the main venue, hosting

Buro Ehring 's concept for a stadium with a sunken pitch that is hidden by an eclectic group of buildings surrounding it has won the ' Staydium: Stadiums that live beyond sports ' design competition. The competition brief was to create a conceptual design for a stadium for Montpellier, France, that could be used for international events beyond just sports. It sought to find ideas for ways in which the

Francl Architecture have created a new ice sports centre in the Canadian city of Surrey, British Columbia, with a vast timber roof that recalls the waves of the nearby Fraser River. The North Surrey Sports and Ice Complex, which opened late last year, covers an area of 134,000sq ft (12,500sq m) and houses three ice sheets that are used for ice hockey, sledge hockey, figure skating and other ice sports.