A design contest launched to rival the controversial Guggenheim project in Helsinki, Finland, has received more than 200 entries from 37 countries. Set up by a group led by architect Michael Sorkin, The Next Helsinki competition is a protest against the City of Helsinki’s decision to allow a $153m (€146m, £105m) Guggenheim museum to be built in the South Harbor area. Instead of allocating space to a “foreign-owned museum chain”,

A 2034 development masterplan for Mumbai, India, has come under fire after proposing to remove 70 per cent of the currently heritage-listed sites in the city, while incorrectly labelling others. Of the 1,488 listed heritage buildings, sites and precincts in the city, 1,000 will be removed under the new guidelines unveiled by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. According to the contentious Mumbai Development Plan - 2034, the listed Jehangir Art Gallery

Specially-commissioned slides which will allow visitors to travel from the Hayward’s Gallery iconic glass pyramid ceiling to the entrance level, will open in London this June as part of an exhibition of work by Belgian artist Carsten Höller. The exhibition Decision will immerse visitors in a series of experimental environments, aiming to transform their physical and mental experience in ways which will lead them to question their habitual perceptions. Other

A $75m (€69.9m, £50.8m) renovation at the Walker Art Center will create a new cultural district in Minneapolis, US. Locally-headquartered architects HGA and Netherlands-based Inside Outside will oversee the project, which will include the construction of a new entrance pavilion as well as landscaping improvements to the art museum’s campus. The plans will directly connect the Walker to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, situated opposite, creating a 76,890sq m (827,640sq ft)

Hosted by London's Design Museum, the Design of the Year Awards 2015 exhibition is now open. The exhibition showcases 76 projects that have been shortlisted for this year's award. The projects range from cutting-edge technology, for example a solar powered table that can be used indoors, to epic architectural creations like Frank Gehry's Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris. Curated by the Design Museum's Gemma Curtin, the exhibition is open to all,

Following an £80m (US$119m, €109m) renovation by international architecture firm, Wilkinson Eyre, the University of Oxford’s Weston Library has reopened to the public. Originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in the 1930s and part of the infamous grade II listed Bodleian Library in Oxford, UK, the structure needed some extreme modernisation and renovation to open it up to the public. Wilkinson Eyre have incorporated several new features into the

The Office for Architectural Cultural (OAC) has revealed the competition winning design for the UNESCO World Heritage site at Daming Palace in Xi’an, China. The scheme will be an all-encompassing urban regeneration. Xi’an is home to several UNESCO world heritage sites, and OAC’s mixed-use project will cover part of the Daming Palace Heritage Park, as well as a large early 20th century Dahua Wool Spinning Factory. Spanning more than 500

Abu Dhabi’s Urban Planning Council (UPC) has approved plans for several new major developments in Abu Dhabi as part of a strategy to make the area more tourist friendly. They include a new African safari experience, waterfront developments and a shopping mall. World Desert Oasis in Al Ain is one of 76 new projects, recently approved by the UPC aiming to enhance Abu Dhabi’s appeal as a tourist destination. Designed

Kinslow, Keith & Todd Architects (KKT) have unveiled concept plans for the Oklahoma Weather Museum in ‘Tornado Alley’ Tulsa, US. The structure, standing at 250-300ft tall, (76-90m) tall, takes design inspiration from a hurricane and has aptly been dubbed ‘Tornado Tower’. The top-heavy spiralling tower would be clad in glass with perforated metal panels, using LED lighting to accent sections and make it appear to rotate. Originally envisaged to house

The City of Vienna has announced a two-stage design competition for the expansion and modernisation of the Wien Museum in the Austrian capital. Designed by the architect Oswald Haerdtl in the 1950s, the Wien Museum is situated on Karlsplatz in the centre of Vienna. The structure has been largely untouched for 30 years, save for a partial renovation in 2000 when the central courtyard was roofed over. As Vienna’s key

Auction house China Guardian has commissioned Büro Ole Scheeren to design its new home. Far from being simply a headquarters, the Guardian Art Centre will include a museum, courtyard, the auction house, event space, an 120-room hotel and several restaurants. Construction is now underway on the mixed-use cultural complex, close to the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. Beijing Institute of Architectural Design (BIAD) is also working on the project, which

Following the $91m (€86m, £62m) renovation of Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, in New York, USA, visitors are now offered a truly with interactive and immersive experience, entwined with creative technologies. Masterplanned by Gluckman Mayner Architects alongside Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners with Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) designing the exhibition spaces on the ground, first and second floor galleries – the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum has been completely

The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, is putting the final touches to its new wing before its grand opening on 20 March. First announced in 2012, the US$64m (€60.2m, £42.9m) development – by Thomas Phifer and Partners – is made up of a 100,000sq ft (9,290sq m) glass structure, which will house its glass collection of contemporary art and design. The architect’s design is a square, minimalist

MIPIM 2015 has nearly reached its climax and the annual Architectural Review Future Project Awards have been announced. Once again, leisure projects are showcasing some of the best new architecture globally. The overall winner of the Architectural Review Future Project Award was given to the ‘Hanging Courtyards’ The Urban Design of Qing Xiang Historical Cultural Block in Changzhou (China) - Southeast University. The scheme used sustainable techniques as well as

The Museum of the Future in Dubai, announced last week by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, will start on site this week. The museum has been designed by architect Shaun Killa, for 16 years a director of Atkins, and responsible for some of the Middle East’s most celebrated buildings. Killa's new architectural practice, Killa Design – which is based in

Kris Yao | Artech has been selected to design the New Taipei City Museum of Art after winning an architectural contest with its “Contemporary Museum of Art among the Reeds” design. The NT$2.17bn (US$68.9m, €60.6m, £44.4m), 44,000sq m (473,600sq ft) development, located in New Taipei, Taiwan, is being funded by local government. Kris Yao’s winning design will incorporate the site’s historical, cultural and geographical features to form a sustainable vision

SO-IL and Freaks Freearchitects have jointly won an architectural competition to redesign a glass museum and gallery on the site of an 18th century factory in Meisenthal, France. New York-based SO-IL is collaborating with Paris-based Freaks to give the Site Verrier Meisenthal – first opened in 1704 – a complete makeover. Renovations of the former glass factory will include a new cultural centre, glass art centre and glass gallery. According

An Argentinian design team, headed up by Carlos Nahuel Recabarren, has won a UNESCO design competition to create a Cultural Centre in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. From more than 1,000 design proposals that were submitted in the single stage competition – which opened in November 2014 – Carlos Nahuel Recabarren, Manuel Alberto Martinez Catalan and Franco Morero’s project, entitled ‘Descriptive Memory: The Eternal Presence of Absence’ was picked as the winner. Paolo

Sport, museum, culture, recreation and mixed use schemes all feature on the shortlist for this year’s Designs of the Year award. Of 76 nominated projects, representing the work of the best global design talent, an overwhelming number are leisure-related. Organised by the Design Museum, London, the Designs of the Year awards have been running for the past eight years. Awards are presented in six categories; architecture, digital, fashion, product, graphic

The Indian government is planning on expanding its world-famous Film City in Mumbai, with future additions for the home of Bollywood to include a theme park to lure in more tourists. Primarily being built to meet demand for India’s ever-growing entertainment industry, the new Film City will be built on 438 acres (1.7sq km) of land at nearby Kalyan, with the entertainment hub aimed at capitalising on “Bollywood tourism.” In

Work has started on the M+ Museum West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD), Hong Kong, following a ground breaking ceremony. Designed by Herzog and de Meuron in partnership with TFP Farrells and Ove Arup & Partners Hong Kong, the museum's ground breaking was marked by the burial of a commemorative time capsule containing contemporary and local items, ready to be rediscovered in a century. The M+ Museum, with a floor space

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has given a grant of £7.8m (US$11.8m, €10.4m) to ‘The Sill’ a new visitor centre for Hadrian’s Wall and Northumberland National park. The most recent plans for ‘The Sill’ were announced in October 2014, outlining that the project needed at least £11.2m (US$17.9m, €14.3m) to get it off the ground. The HLF grant will help to secure the future of the project, while other donations

The Broad, a new contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, US, is set to open to the public on 20 September 2015. The US$140m (€123m, £91.6m) museum is being funded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, founders of the The Broad Art Foundation whose assets total US$2.6bn (€2.2bn, £1.7bn). Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) in collaboration with Gensler, the museum has been dubbed “the veil and vault”, referring

Manchester, UK’s “gallery in the park” will reopen its doors on 14 February following a £15m (US$23m, €20m) makeover by architectural firm MUMA. The work doubles the public space and extends the exhibition floor, while incorporating educational areas and a storage centre. The contemporary art gallery, in the grounds of the University of Manchester, has had two wings added to the rear of the 19th-century building. The extension's brickwork takes

Ateliers Jean Nouvel’s arts scheme for Qingdao, China – the 70,000sq m (753,000sq ft) Artists’ Garden – has broken ground. The development will include a new museum hosting exhibitions from the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, which was also designed by the practice. An existing harbour will be doubled in size and converted into a marina at one end of the site, while other elements will include art studios,

The Smithsonian Institute is in discussions with a view to opening its first location outside the US. The 40,000sq ft (3,700sq m) Smithsonian gallery would be part of the Olympicopolis educational and cultural quarter being developed at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London. In September 2014, London mayor, Boris Johnson, launched a design competition for the new £400m (US$650m, €503m) educational and cultural quarter and nearly 1,000 design

The £80m (US$121m, €104.4m) Jurassica dinosaur attraction proposed inside a limestone quarry in Dorset, UK, could generate £20m (US$30.3m, €26.1m) for the local economy every year, according to the charity behind the planned attraction. If the plans go ahead, the attraction is estimated to bring in 960,000 visitors annually. The subterranean geological park – backed and supported by Sir David Attenborough, the Eden Project's Sir Tim Smit and science writer