The new global design marvels to bucket-list (including two here)

Next big things in travel: Architecture and design

New structures dreamt up by architects and designers with an eye to the whimsical, the futuristic and the sustainable are about to be revealed. Read on for our definitive list of the next big things in architecture and design.

Expo 2025, Osaka, Japan

Bring on the whimsy… Japan Expo’s Shigeru Ban’s Blue Ocean pavilion.

For a glut of whimsical, transitory architecture, put Osaka, Japan into next year’s travel plans. The next World Expo, starting from April 13, is already drip-feeding architecture fans a feast of pavilion designs from the world’s brightest practices. To date, highlights include Shigeru Ban’s Blue Ocean Dome made from paper tubes, bamboo and reinforced plastic, and Singapore’s giant sphere by DP Architects, while Lebanese-French architect Lina Ghotmeh, who designed the 2023 Serpentine Pavilion in London, has drawn inspiration from dhows – traditional Arabian boats – for the Bahrain pavilion. Australia will be represented by Brisbane-headquartered practice Buchan. Its pavilion, themed “Chasing the Sun”, is “an abstraction of a eucalyptus gumnut”. See expo2025.or.jp

Museum of Shakespeare, London, UK

Artist’s impression of the Museum of Shakespeare, Shoreditch, London.  

Opening in late 2025, the Museum of Shakespeare encircles the archaeological ruins of the 16th-century Curtain Playhouse, which opened in Shoreditch in 1577, just outside the City of London. Shakespeare’s home theatre until the Globe opened in 1599, the museum is the site of the first production of Henry V and possibly Romeo & Juliet. Since the playhouse closed, the street levels of London have risen considerably – the museum steps three metres underground and four centuries back in time to 1598. See thestageshoreditch.com

Troodos Observatory, Agridia, Cyprus

Reflective cladding means the observatory blends into the Troodos Mountains.Credit: Kyriakos Tsolakis Architects

Inspired by sci-fi stories, three siblings are the architects of the new Troodos Observatory in central Cyprus. Kyriakos Tsolakis Architects was founded by their father in Melbourne in 1973, and his children Elena, Nicodemos and Cassandra now run the practice from Cyprus and London. Cloaked in reflective cladding, the public observatory blends into the Troodos Mountains, its rotating 5.6-metre-wide dome and hydraulic roof house a 20-inch (51-centimetre) reflective telescope and a solar telescope. “We are trying to replicate that feeling of wonder … curiosity and yearning to know more about the world beyond the everyday existence,” says Elena Tsolakis. While its goal is to boost local astro-tourism, its design is sure to draw architecture tourists as well. See cosmos.cy

Loch Ard Blowhole Lookout, Great Ocean Road, Vic

Loch Ard Blowhole Lookout, Victoria.

The Great Ocean Road’s largest tourists are the inspiration for the newest lookout near the Twelve Apostles. The $8 million Loch Ard Blowhole lookout is inspired by a breaching whale, and curves across the top of the blowhole, into which the Southern Ocean thunders dramatically. Working with the Eastern Maar community, using their story of the creation of the blowhole, and connection to whales, who are a key species on this country, architects Denton Corker Marshall are constructing the lightweight “whale” off-site, dropping it in place, and opening to the public in the first half of 2025. It’s the second structural lookout on the Great Ocean Road, following the Saddle Lookout at Port Campbell, eight kilometres away. See parks.vic.gov.au

Audeum, Seoul, South Korea

Audeum, the world’s first audio museum, Seoul Korea.

An architectural instrument is how the leading Japanese architect Kengo Kuma describes Audeum, the world’s first audio museum, now open in Seoul. The seven-storey building is designed to resemble a forest, to bring people into a space for “a unique listening experience within a forest-like structure”. A facade of randomly-placed aluminium pipes clads the exterior of the building, with overlapping louvres to create ever-moving shadows, while inside Kuma uses gentler fabric and a “wood drape” of strongly scented Alaskan cypress to soften the sound, for visitors to experience texture, light, wind, sound and scent. See audeum.org

David Geffen Galleries, Los Angeles, California, US

The David Geffen Galleries marks Peter Zumthor’s first US project.

It’s taken three years to build, with local design aficionados including actor Brad Pitt weighing in, but the newest wing of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is on track to be complete by year’s end. Facing Wilshire Boulevard, the David Geffen Galleries is Pritzker Prize-winner Peter Zumthor’s first US project, and has drawn Angelenos’ ire as Zumthor’s gallery space is smaller than the building it is replacing. His sweeping design, which he describes as “a concrete sculpture”, is a curved, single level of concrete, wrapped with glass to capture natural light for LACMA’s permanent collection. LACMA already has pavilions designed by another Pritzker Prize winner, Renzo Piano, on its eight-hectare campus, lacma.org

Slussen, Stockholm, Sweden

Foster+Partners’ new Slussen masterplan.

Slussen is the lock between the freshwater Lake Malaren and the Baltic Sea in central Stockholm, and a transport hub that sees 400,000 people transit daily. Built in 1642 and rebuilt four times over the centuries, London-based Foster+Partners’ billion-dollar masterplan aims “to redress balance between road vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists while enhancing the public realm”. The corroded, 1930s cloverleaf road interchange is gone, replaced by a civic quarter – the Water Plaza – and arrow-shaped pedestrian and cycle bridges connecting Soedermalm and Gamla Stan (Old Town). After almost a decade of central Stockholm’s major transport interchange as a construction site, the new Slussen is set to open next year. See visitstockholm.com

Grand Palais, Paris, France

The Grand Palais was able to host some Paris Olympics events.Credit: Getty Images

Built in 1897 for the 1900 World Fair, this Beaux-Arts palace has found the limelight again as host of the fencing and taekwondo events at the Paris 2024 Games. The glass and steel palace has been closed since 2021 as it enjoys a $764 million renovation by Paris firm Chatillon Architectes. Aside from the unseen work on thermal properties and structure, the real joy is in removing old partitions to let Europe’s largest glass-domed roof send sunlight through its exhibition hall, its steel supports restored in the classic reseda green, and the underground horse-riding rink becomes a children’s area. The palais will open in its entirety in spring 2025. See grandpalais.fr

Benin National Assembly, Benin, West Africa

The tree-like structure, set among native gardens.Credit: Kere Architecture

The West African tradition of gathering beneath a tree to debate and find consensus is the design inspiration for Benin’s new national assembly building. Located in the capital, Porto-Novo, the new parliament faces the old parliament building, but Kere Architecture, which is based in Burkina Faso and Berlin, has distanced the new building from colonial architecture in favour of indigenous inspiration. The main tree-like structure is painted concrete and set among native gardens. The ground floor accommodates the assembly hall and a hollow, open-air “trunk” with a spiral staircase rising up to support the “branches”, with offices above. See kerearchitecture.com

Mareterra, Monaco

Mareterra’s palatial villas.

It’s rare an architectural project will increase a country’s size, but Mareterra is a new district in Monaco, which will add six hectares, or 3 per cent, to the Mediterranean country. The reclamation project, due for completion by the end of this year, is a meeting of the architectural greats, which includes a marina, public park and waterfront promenade, shopping and 130 “super-prime” residences. Look for Renzo Piano’s unmissable floating apartment block (it’s called Le Renzo), its pool jutting out into the sea, which joins villas designed by Sir Norman Foster, Stefano Boeri and Tadao Ando – not to mention insect hotels and birds’ nests as part of its ecology brief. See mareterra.com

teamLab Phenomena, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

A render of Abu Dhabi’s teamLab Phenomena.

After a protracted wait, the cultural quarter on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island is again rolling out. The island houses the Louvre Abu Dhabi by Jean Nouvel, to be joined by the Zayed National Museum (Foster + Partners) a Natural History Museum (Dutch practice Mecanoo) and, later this year, a digital art museum by Japanese art collective teamLab. Its immersive art museum in Tokyo broke records as the world’s most visited museum last year. With a windowless, cloud-like exterior, the building has been designed from the inside out, and is entered through a mouth-like entrance, “as though wandering through its organs”. See scdabudhabi.ae

Kangaroo Point Green Bridge, Brisbane, Qld

A bridge not too far away… Brisbane’s Kangaroo Point Green Bridge.

Brisbane gets its own Ponte Vecchio when the Kangaroo Point Green Bridge opens later this year. Linking the CBD with Kangaroo Point, it is one of several new bridges crossing the Brisbane River. Designed by Cox Architecture, it is – like the Florentine example – an occupied bridge, with resting points and a restaurant. However, Malcolm Middleton, the former Queensland government architect and chair of Brisbane Open House, adds that, significantly, the $150 million bridge is a “green” bridge, for cyclists and pedestrians only. Neville Bonner Bridge is another pedestrian-only link to the Queens Wharf precinct while, additionally, the Victoria Bridge is also now car-free, as the city prepares for the 2032 Olympics. See visit.brisbane.qld.au; coxarchitecture.com.au

V&A East, London, UK

The East Museum takes design cues from a 1950s silk taffeta Balenciaga gown.Credit: Alamy

In the world’s most museum-rich city, the Victoria & Albert Museum is one of London’s most visited, for its wealth of art and design holdings. Its newest campus is the V&A East in the cultural quarter of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, opening in 2025. It comprises two sites, the V&A East Storehouse and East Museum, the latter designed by Dublin-based firm O’Donnell + Tuomey, inspired by a 1950s silk taffeta Balenciaga gown, which employed the Japanese concept of ma, or “the space in between”. The outer skin of the “folded dress” is 425 pieces of scored, precast concrete cladding over a 1600-tonne steel frame, vam.ac.uk

Kaway’an Eco Farm, Amadeo, Philippines

A render of Kaway’an Eco Farm, the Philippines.

A community farm outside Manila is the site of a new project by Bali-based bamboo architecture bellwether Ibuku, best known for its sweeping bamboo pavilions at the ground-breaking Green School, just outside Ubud. Kaway’an Eco Farm is part of a sustainable housing development which aims to help the community and visitors learn eco-farming while building Filipino culture. The two main buildings, made from locally grown bamboo, will be Pavilion, a hall and the eco-farm’s centrepiece, and the partially covered Bridge, crossing the farm’s lagoon. Ibuku’s models will be included in the new V&A East holdings. It hopes the project will reveal the possibilities of bamboo, one of the world’s most sustainable building materials. See kawayanecofarm.com

Zaishui Art Museum, Rizhao, Shandong, China

Zaishui Art Museum … a lake intentionally floods this kilometre-long art museum.Credit: Arch-exist

A lake intentionally floods this kilometre-long art museum, as architect Junya Ishigami’s team challenged themselves to make the boundary between environment and architecture “as ambiguous as possible”. The long, slender museum, in the coastal city of Rizhao on the Yellow Sea in Shandong Province, appears “like a streak of wind passing over the lake”. Opened earlier this year, the main wing of steel-reinforced concrete runs across the lake, 300 columns planted into the two-metre-deep artificial lake, with glass panels above to invite breeze inside and below, admit water from the lake to lap at the side of raised walkways, mimicking a natural coastline. See cnto.org.au