A new state-of-the-art planetarium dome being built in the Indian city of Thiruvananthapuram has been forced to delay its grand opening after design flaws forced the under-construction Kerala State Science and Technology Museum (KSSTM) to scrap previous plans. Originally planned to open later this month, Priyadarshini Planetarium will now debut in April. “In the original design, 48 poles had to be angled at precisely 15 degrees to hold up the

Final plans for Europe’s largest museum development have been revealed with new renderings released for the HUF75bn (US$277m, €235m, £183m) cultural quarter known as Park Budapest in Hungary. Following the judge’s selection, which was narrowed down from more than 500 anonymous applications, the Museum of Ethnography will be built in line with plans by French architecture practice Vallet de Martinis DIID Architectes, while Japanese firm Sou Fujimoto Architects has designed

The world’s first Museum of Science Fiction is coming to Washington DC, with a preview facility currently in the works before a full-scale museum opens in 2018. Set to launch by the end of 2015, the US$3m (€2.5m, £2m) Preview Museum will cover 4,000sq ft (371sq m) and will act as an area to test concept exhibitions and offer a glimpse into the process of building the final full-scale facility.

Subsequent to winning a competition to revamp Oldham Coliseum in 2013, Dutch practice Mecanoo has submitted plans to transform the building into a new heritage centre and theatre. Mecanoo, which has offices in nearby Manchester as well as overseas, had a busy year in 2014. Back in February, Francine Houben, Mecanoo’s creative director and founding partner was awarded Woman Architect of the Year 2014. Following this, one of the practices’

Following a two-year fundraising campaign, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) is closing in on its financial target to build a 235,000sq ft (21,800sq m) new wing. The US$610m (€513m, £401m) figure would fund the new wing – which would house works by the likes of Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and David Hockney – and secure the future of the museum for many years to come. The expanded

MOBO Architects has won a design competition to refurbish vertical and horizontal access structures of a UNESCO-protected fortress in Cartagena, Colombia. The London-based practice will revamp the 20,000sq m (215,000sq ft) area that surrounds the walled, colonial city with the aim of creating a pleasant walking tour through the city’s bastions and walls. The winning proposal offers a series of urban interventions that will unify the existing disparate structures and

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) has reopened its American art wing following a US$7.9m (€6.4m, £5m) two-year redevelopment. The 15,000sq ft (1,400sq m) area has undergone a full renovation, which now sees artworks arranged chronologically with the aim of demonstrating how American artists were involved with art coming from overseas. The wing’s unveiling also coincides with the reopening of the building’s main entrance, the neoclassically-designed John Russell Pope entrance,

By 2020, a new super museum will be constructed in central Copenhagen, dubbed the Natural History Museum of Denmark. Blending together three of the city's existing institutions, the Natural History Museum, the Geological Museum and the Botanical Museum, the new facility is expected to be one of the largest of its kind in the world. Following a recent DKR550m (€73.933m, US$91m, £58.1m) grant from several private foundations, the University of

A large hourglass has been installed in Turin, Italy’s, Piazza San Carlo, counting down progress as the €50m (US$62.3m, £39.7m) redevelopment of the city’s Egyptian Museum reaches its final stages. Scheduled to fully reopen on 1 April 2015, Museo Egizio or the Egyptian Museum of Turin is one of the world’s oldest Egyptian museums. Founded in 1824, it ranks second only to its counterpart in Cairo. The museum is at

New York’s American Museum of Natural History is planning a major expansion with the addition of a US$325m (€261m, £207m), six storey building, intended to expand the institution’s role for scientific research and education. The proposed Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation would stand on what is currently open space within the confines of the museum’s land. Planned to be completed in time for the museum’s 150th anniversary

An international team, led by New York-based Steven Holl Architects, has been chosen to design the Mumbai City Museum North Wing. Steven Holl Architects has been chosen to almost double the size of the Mumbai City Museum, otherwise known as the Bhau Daji Lad Museum, from a shortlist of eight architectural heavy weights. Organised by Malcolm Reading Consultants, the competition drew more than 100 entrants. Malcolm Reading commented: “In Steven

Architecture firm Soare & Yokina Arhitecti Asociati (SYAA) has won a competition to design the new nature-themed science museum complex in Constanta, Romania. Bucharest-based SYAA will design the 80,000sq m (860,000sq ft) Muzeul Stiintei si al Naturii Constanta, which will be the largest such complex in the Black Sea region and is being funded by the Territorial Council of Constanta. The development follows a ‘green’ theme The main structure features

Fernando Romero, principal architect at Mexican design firm FR-EE, has unveiled designs for a new Latin American Art Museum (LAAM) to be built in Miami, Florida. Plans for the US$50m (€40.4m, £31.9m) LAAM were revealed during Art Basel and Design Miami at the start of December 2014. Split over four levels and covering 8,361sq m (90,000sq ft), the ground floor will be used to showcase emerging artists and provide a

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has green-lighted more than £21m in funding for a variety of heritage projects across the UK, including the renovation of a World War One social club, construction of Scotland’s first building conservation centre and the creation of an aerospace centre. Among the projects that have received funding, some of the most notable include: Bristol Aerospace Centre Bristol Aerospace Centre gained the largest slice of the

Work has started on South Korea’s first integrated resort – Paradise City in Incheon – which is scheduled open next to Incheon International Airport in the first half of 2017. A number of the industry’s leading architecture and design practices have been working on the US$1.7bn (€1.4bn, £1.1bn) casino, hotel, spa and theme park project, including WATG, GA Design International, Hirsch Bedner Associates, Hawkins Brown, Lifescapes International and Gansam Architects.

A shortlist of six finalists have been revealed for the design of the Helsinki Guggenheim Museum following the biggest architectural competition in history, which saw more than 1,700 firms submit plans. Subsequent to the competition opening in June 2014, 1,715 entries were made in a bid to design the 12,000 sq m (sq ft) museum on Helsinki’s waterfront. Now, the final six have been chosen to progress to the next

Five cities – Dundee, Bilbao, Curitiba, Helsinki and Turin – have been designated UNESCO Cities of Design for their significant contributions to the international design industry. City of Design status, only previously awarded to 12 other cities, recognises significant input to the worldwide design industry and aims to foster the development of local creative industries. It also aims to build relationships between fellow Cities of Design, in areas such as

A pipe dream of turning a former opencast coal site in Kelty, Scotland, into an iconic landscaped art project headed up by Charles Jencks, has been scrapped. The multi-million pound scheme, the ‘Fife Earth Project’, would have seen the former mining site transformed into a major tourist attraction explaining Scottish history and diaspora. Four different landscaped mounds across the 665 acre park would have been used to represent the continents

Holkham Hall on the Holkham Estate in Norfolk has announced plans for a new £4.5m visitor attraction which will focus on agricultural evolution and sustainable food production. The privately-owned, 18th century estate is well respected for its environmentally responsible approach to farming and its 'inseparable links’ with the local community. The project will have a strong educational bias and will focus on how Holkham has evolved its farming practices over

A proposed masterplan for the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C, was unveiled this week by the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), re-imagining the South Mall campus and the area around the Smithsonian’s iconic ‘Castle’. Founded in 1846, the Smithsonian Institution is one of the world’s largest museum and research complexes, boasting the National Zoological Park and several research facilities, as well as 19 museums and galleries. It is expected that the

Several high profile architects have been asked to compete in a newly launched competition to design the New National Gallery and Ludwig Museum in Budapest, Hungary. A previous open competition for the project was recently abandoned, as the jury had "not found any entry suitable for implementation based on the assessment criteria". The studios invited to compete consist of a star-studded line up, with Jean Nouvel, David Chipperfield, Mecanoo, Nieto

London-based Marks Barfield Architects has won an international design competition for a eco-heritage project based on the Aldabra Atoll in the Seychelles. The firm is working with exhibition designers Real Studios and environmental engineer Ritchie Daffin to build a visitor centre on nearby Mahe, providing an experience for one of the most unique coral reef ecosystems anywhere in the world. The reef was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in

Real Madrid FC is pressing ahead with plans for a full redevelopment of the iconic Santiago Bernabeu stadium, complete with a skin of LEDs around the stadium, museum and nearby theme park development. Expected to take six years to complete, Real Madrid’s home stadium, redesigned by architectural firm GMP-Architekten, will be wrapped in LEDs – which will effectively operate as a huge TV screen to air the club’s greatest moments

Lamu Island on the north coast of Kenya is about to undergo a drastic transformation with a KES2.3tn (US$25bn, €19.9bn, £15.6bn) mixed-use development planned to include the largest container port on the East African seaboard, complete with a “Las Vegas-style city” and an international airport. The development – the largest infrastructure project in the history of East Africa – will include roads, railways, and oil pipelines from Lamu across northern

Renzo Piano’s dramatic new building for the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York’s Meatpacking District has entered the final phase of construction, with work set to be completed in time for its long-scheduled opening in Spring 2015. The museum - founded by American socialite Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1931 - is moving from its old Madison Avenue property to the significantly larger new building in order to display

The first images for the legacy project of director George Lucas – the US$300m (€220m, £179m) Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (LMNA) in Chicago – have been revealed by architectural firm MAD Architects. To be built on prime lakefront land next to Soldier Field, the architectural concept for the LMNA “explores the relationship between nature and the urban environment”. Inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van

A stylish new science museum and business centre has opened in Japan’s industrial Komatsu city as part of a regional regeneration programme which will boost tourism and trade. Science Hills Komatsu is built on a 14,428sq m (155,300sq ft) site of a disused mining equipment factory once operated by the multinational manufacturing corporation Komatsu Limited and now owned by the city’s government. The design of the museum, by Mari Ito