The Cook Natural Science Museum in Decatur, Alabama, has unveiled plans for a brand new US$17m (€15.6m, £11m) facility, which will see the museum move from what was once a by-appointment warehouse tour into a fully-fledged educational facility. Increasing in size from 5,000sq ft (464sq m) to 57,000sq ft (5,295sq m), the interactive museum, designed by Huntsville-based, will move from its current home to a new location in downtown Decatur.

The 162-year-old Prison Museum in Horsens, Denmark, has reopened to the public after the second phase of a significant Dkr21.8m (US$3.2m, €2.9m, £2m) redesign and refurbishment of the former state prison, with the latest expansion telling the story of the people who lived and worked in the facility. Copenhagen-based design studio Kvorning Design & Kommunikation (KDK), which specialises in exhibition design, graphic communications and interior design, worked with the museum

Three storeys of French architect Jean Nouvel’s new residential tower in New York will be devoted to public gallery spaces created by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The 82-storey '53W53' tower will stand adjacent to the museum, and is known locally as the MoMA Tower. Developer Hines said the second, fourth and fifth floors of the building would be curated by MoMA. Nouvel’s 1,050ft (320m) tower is the size

Zaha Hadid is the name behind a new, super-luxe residential tower called One Thousand Museum to be built in the Museum Park area of Miami, Florida. The 62-storey building will have 30,000sq ft of private leisure facilities for residents and their guests, making it an enclosed community. With 83 exclusive, luxury apartments, One Thousand Museum is offering elegant, six star lifestyle with 'museum-quality' residences. Options will include duplex townhomes, half

Inspired by the movement of athletes, New York-based Diller Scofidio + Renfro has revealed its preliminary designs for the United States Olympic Museum. According to partner Elizabeth Diller, the museum – which will be located in Colorado Springs – “spirals up and outwards from a central atrium, drawing the public in at its base and propelling them up through the galleries”. She said the building would be “expressed in two

London-based architectural firm Adjaye Associates have designed a temporary pavilion to house a selection of works at the 56th Venice Art Biennale. The biennial event, which was first held in 1895, is a major contemporary art exhibition showcasing creativity from across the world including art, contemporary dance, architecture, cinema and theatre. The vast exhibition is made up of a central pavilion and the Venetian Arsenale (a complex of shipyards and

The opening of the hotly-anticipated M+ Museum in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD) has been pushed back to 2019 after a delay in funding held up the construction process. Originally set for opening in 2017, the museum – designed by Herzog and de Meuron in partnership with TFP Farrells and Ove Arup & Partners Hong Kong – is now scheduled for completion in Q4 2018, with the public

Hollywood bigwigs look to have gained the vital stamp of approval needed to proceed with Renzo Piano's US$300m (€263.5m, £190.4m) development of Los Angeles’ Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. To be located next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), which is currently undergoing an expansion, the Academy museum has been designed by award-winning architect Renzo Piano. Contemporary architect Zoltan Pali had been working on the project but

Jack Rouse Associates (JRA) is finalising work on a science and technology focused children’s museum in the US ahead of its opening in Q3 of this year. JRA is providing final concept, schematic and detail design for the 8,000sq ft (743sq m) exhibit space at the US$6m (€5.3m, £3.8m) Children’s Museum of Siouxland in Sioux City, Iowa. Targeting children aged between six months and 10 years, the 15,000sq ft (1,394sq

LDA Design has been selected to masterplan a university campus at London’s Olympic Park, featuring a museum, collections libraries and performance spaces. A team led by the practice, which also includes Nicholas Hare Architects, will develop the 125,000sq m (1,345,489sq ft) campus for University College London (UCL), called UCL East. It will be located south of the ArcelorMittal Orbit and the Zaha Hadid-designed London Aquatics Centre at the Queen Elizabeth

Netherlands-based architecture practice MVRDV is to turn an abandoned station overpass in Seoul, South Korea, into a public park and garden. The studio won the Seoul Metropolitan Government competition to transform the 938m (3,077ft) long elevated highway, next to the city’s Central Station, in a similar fashion to the High Line in New York City. MVRDV’s proposal, Seoul Skygarden, will see 254 types of trees, shrubs and flowers used to

Neutelings Riedijk Architects have revealed final designs for the merger of three Dutch museums in Leiden, incorporating a central atrium to seamlessly blend old with new. Combining the Natural History Museum ‘Naturalis’, the Zoological Museum in Amsterdam and the National Herbarium of Leiden and Wageningen, the existing 20,000sq m (215,000sq ft) museum will be renovated with further construction adding another 19,000sq m (204,500sq ft) of space. The design includes a

The SANAA-designed Grace Farms complex – which features an amphitheatre, gymnasium and library – will officially open on 9 October. Located in New Canaan, Connecticut in the US, it is being built for the Grace Farms Foundation, a non-profit organisation established in 2009 to support initiatives in the areas of faith, the arts, justice and community. The complex will be open to the public. The 86,000sq ft building is known

Malaysian property developer Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad (CMSB), has won the right to build the proposed RM308m (US$105.8m, €93.4m, £69.5m) Sarawak Museum Campus and Heritage Trail in Kuala Lumpur. The project, awarded by local government for the Sarawak region, comprises design, construction, fitting out and exhibit design for the 30,000sq m (323,000sq ft) museum development. PPES Works – a subsidiary of CMSB – has signed a design and build negotiated

The multi-million dollar Indian Heritage Centre (IHC) has been opened in the Little India district of Singapore by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. The four-storey building, designed by Singapore-based Greg Shand Architects, in collaboration with URBNarc, incorporates modern and traditional Indian architecture, and is inspired by the “Baoli” – a well in which water is reached via a descending set of steps. With its translucent, shimmering facade, the design creates

Jack Rouse Associates (JRA) are driving forward plans for a new visitor attraction for spirit maker Beam Suntory – the Jim Beam Urban Stillhouse – in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, US. Located below Beam Suntory’s Louisville office, the new multi-million dollar visitor experience will include a small working distillery, a bottling line, a tasting experience and a selection of Jim Beam-branded merchandise for sale. Scheduled to open towards the end of

A team made up of Snøhetta, Cao Perrot and Schlögl & Süß Architekten have created the architectural elements and designs for the €34m (US$37.3m, £24.3m) expansion of Wattens, Austria’s Swarovski Crystal Worlds. The museum, opened in 1995 to celebrate crystal-maker Swarovski’s 100th anniversary, was originally designed by artist Andre Heller, who was commissioned to design the 14-chamber museum. Reopening on 30 April, the expansion has nearly doubled the available space,

The city of Munich has opened NS-Dokumentationszentrum München – The Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism – a museum and education hub focusing on the city’s role as the birthplace of fascism in Germany. The white cube design by Berlin-based architects Georg Scheel Wetzel represents a counterpoint to the still existing Nazi Party buildings in its vicinity. According to the architects, its design allows a diverse array

OMA, the architectural practice founded by Rem Koolhaas, have converted a former industrial complex in Milan, Italy, into a new home for designer Miuccia Prada’s Fondazione Prada. Fondazione Prada was established by Miuccia Prada in 1993 as a cultural organisation dedicated to the arts, cinema and philosophy. The new venue opens to the public on 9 May. The 19,000sq m (204,500sq ft) art campus, has been seven years in the

Safdie Architects have unveiled plans for South Carolina’s National Medal of Honor Museum – a five-point design presenting the history of the US’s most decorated and revered soldiers. The new museum and education centre coming to the Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum in Mount Pleasant, has been budgeted at US$98m (€87.8m, £63.9m) and is intended to recognise and remember the recipients of the country’s highest military honour, also teaching

A fire has more or less completely destroyed a popular science centre in Hellerup near Copenhagen, Denmark. The town’s Experimentarium – which was undergoing a DKR339m (US$49.5m, €45.4m, £32.4m) redevelopment – was gutted by fire on 27 April, the exact cause has yet to be determined. The expansion would have added a roof exhibition area, new classrooms, a training and education centre, conference centre, café and solar panels. Ejendomsselskabet was

Colorado-based architectural firm Fentress have revealed final plans for the US$150m (€138m, £99m) renovation and expansion of Cleveland’s Museum of Natural History after gaining approval from the museum’s board of trustees. The plan, which aims to better integrate nature and science into exhibitions, is soon to enter the US$20m (€18m, £13.2m) first phase and will increase the museum's space to 200,000sq ft (18,500sq m), up from 68,000sq ft (6,300sq ft).

Isambard Kingdom Brunel's original entrance to the world's first underwater tunnel is to be turned into a cultural venue for music performances, theatre and events. The 65ft (19.8m) deep entrance shaft to the Thames Tunnel, in Rotherhithe, London, was the first project the famous engineer worked on. Architectural practice Tate Harmer has now designed a freestanding cantilevered staircase that will provide public access to the circular ‘sinking shaft’ for the

An Australian national park could be designed by primary school pupils using the video game Minecraft. The government of South Australia has launched a competition asking students to create their perfect national park using the popular game, or to suggest changes to an existing state park. Minecraft allows players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D pixelated world. With AU$8.9m ($6.9m, €6.4m, £4.6m) set aside for park

Shanghai Natural History Museum has moved into its new home – a nautilus-shaped building inspired by the biological structure of cells, the elements and natural phenomena. Designed by Perkins + Will, the green structure mimics architectural themes found in nature. The main area of the 479,000sq ft (44,500sq m) exhibition space rises from the site’s foundations, spiralling upwards like a shell. Within the structure, light is dispersed through a lattice

The French government has spent €56m (US$60m, £40.2m) recreating an exact replica of a cave discovered in 1994 containing a huge collection of prehistoric paintings of horses, mammoths and rhinos – among the oldest documented pieces on earth. The works – preserved thanks to a rock fall roughly 23,000 years ago – were quickly closed off to the public after their discovery on the basis that something as simple as

Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta and Japanese design studio SANAA have both been awarded first place in a competition to design the New National Gallery and Ludwig Museum in Budapest, Hungary. Part of plans for Europe’s largest museum development, the announcement is the final piece of the puzzle in Budapest's HUF75bn (US$277m, €235m, £183m) cultural quarter. While both firms have been named winner of the contest, only one of the two