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

Saudi Arabia’s Commission for Tourism and Antiquities (SCTA) – in collaboration with colleges of excellence at the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) – will train 10,000 young Saudi people in architectural heritage to help professionalise the sector and boost domestic tourism. The ambitious training programme would see the students trained over the next five years in preparation for joining engineering and contracting offices and firms in the Kingdom. In

The field of architects competing to design the revamp of the Sydney Modern art gallery in New South Wales, Australia, has been narrowed down to five architects for stage two of the competition. The final five shortlisted architects are Tokyo-based Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA; Kengo Kuma & Associates - also from Tokyo; Perth’s Kerry Hill Architects; Mumbai-based Rahul Mehrotra Architects; and Melbourne’s Sean Godsell Architects. “Our vision

Minnesota Children’s Museum has revealed new renderings for its US$28m (€24.1m, £18.4m) expansion, designed to reimagine existing galleries, plus add new amenities and engaging activities for visitors. The expansion will increase the museum’s size to around 74,000sq ft (6,874sq m) and will include new interactive exhibits for children. Additional exhibits will include expanded air and water play space, as well as a new obstacle course comprising a four-storey climbing structure,

George Lucas has said that his proposed legacy museum to be built on the Chicago lakefront could end up going to Los Angeles, after the project met with opposition from an open space campaign group. Last year Lucas picked Chicago over both San Francisco and Los Angeles, with Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti strongly pushing for the museum to come to his city. In November, a federal judge put a

Ole Bouman, previously the head of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, has been named as the director of the upcoming Shekou Design Museum in Shenzhen, China. The new Design Museum is a joint collaboration between the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and China Merchants Property Development Company, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based conglomerate China Merchants Group (CMG). Bouman, who has a deep interest and involvement with all things architecture and design,

The Museum of Fine Arts, in Houston, Texas, has unveiled its US$450m (E381m, £297m) expansion plan to carry it through to 2019. The masterplan – by Steven Holl Architects – will see a redevelopment of the 14-acre (56,600sq m) campus to include new buildings, gardens and a top floor restaurant. Plans include a 164,000sq ft (15,200sq m) gallery to showcase the museum’s collection of 20th and 21st century art, as