Grimshaw has designed a detailed masterplan study for a new forecourt at Frankfurt Airport’s Terminal 1.  Grimshaw’s design seeks to reorder forecourt traffic to create a large central public space that brings light, greenery and fresh air into the airport.

Inspired by the surrounding forest landscape, the design features dense planting at the forecourt edges and a delicate overhead canopy which shelters the forecourt that will produce interesting interior photography.  In addition, the new forecourt provides two stories of densely packed mixed-mode traffic and a retail concourse.  Speaking about the masterplan, Grimshaw Partner Andrew Thomas said: “We’ve sought to provide a solution that balances functionality with a striking new identity which provides a contrast to the linearity of the existing space.”

Allies & Morrison’s Vauxhall Square development beside the transport interchange have won planning.

The mixed-use scheme for CLS Holdings, featuring two residential towers of 168m, is part of the Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea Opportunity Area and will result in interior photography by an interior photographer.  It also contains two hotels, two office buildings, student housing, a four-screen cinema plus retail, cafes and restaurants, as well as a new 50-bed homeless hostel, replacing the existing hostel on the site.  More than 50% of the scheme will be public realm, including a large new square in the centre of the development providing a pedestrian route through the site.

The square and public spaces will be the first step linking Vauxhall gyratory to a new linear park running through the whole opportunity area.

BDP has been commissioned to design a new broadcast and TV centre in Taiyuan, the capital city of Shanxi Province in north China.  Commissioned by the Shanxi Broadcast & TV Channel, the development will form one of the focal points of the emerging Jinyang Lake Commercial District to be captured with interior photography by an interior photographer.  The first phase of the 200,000sq m scheme will comprise six building providing offices, film studios, a media centre and a cultural exchange centre.

The main building is a 198m office tower which will house the press centre, ten studios and general office space and meeting rooms.  Work has already started on site and is due to finish in 2014.

Assael Architecture has received planning consent for Queens Wharf in Hammersmith, west London.  The mixed-use residential scheme for interior photography, adjacent to the grade II-listed Hammersmith Bridge,  replaces a series of derelict office buildings at the site.  When complete the development will have 87 housing units alongside commercial space on the ground floor.

Norman Foster has presented his plans for the renovated New York Public Library at the Stephen A Schwarzman Building on 42^nd Street in Manhattan.  The proposals will see a new home designed for the circulating collections, replacing the existing book stacks which currently take up seven storeys below the Rose Reading Room that will feature in interior photography.  The stacks are inaccessible to the public and the books will be moved to a humidity-controlled chamber under Bryant Park.  This means the existing stacks can be removed and replaced with a new library, housing the Mid-Manhattan collections and the Science, Industry and Business Library.

Foster said: “Our design does not seek to alter the character of the building, which will remain unmistakeably a library in its feel, in its details, materials and lighting.  “The parts that are currently inaccessible will be opened up, inviting the whole of the community – it is a strategy that reflects the principles of a free institution upon which the library was first founded.”

Visitors will enter the new circulation library on a balcony in the centre of the former book stack space. From here a grand staircase will lead down to the main level.  The project would more than double the space currently open to the public.

Crossrail has secured £30 million towards public realm improvements around its stations.  The funding was approved by Transport for London, and is in addition to the £28 million allocated from Crossrail’s own budget.

Architects including John McAslan, BDP, Gillespies and Atkins are working on the schemes, with plans for 16 stations completed. A further 12 will be done by the end of 2013.  Crossrail said the work would provide 92,000sq m of improved public space at new stations in central London including new pedestrianised areas, traffic calming measures, interior photography, new trees and new seating areas.

Andrew Wolstenholme, chief executive at Crossrail, added: “We are using the huge momentum of this project to encourage further investment in new and improved public spaces and regeneration over a much wider are around Crossrail stations.”

The work has been carried out together Design Council Cabe.

Wandsworth councillors have given the go-ahead to the Ian Simpson and dRMM-designed first phase of Battersea Power Station’s re-development.  Battersea Project Land Company’s reserved matters planning application was approved by the planning committee. Outline permission for Rafael Vinoly’s masterplan was granted in August 2011.

The decision means 800 flats designed by Ian Simpson and dRMM will go on sale as planned at 10am on January 10.

Rob Tincknell, chief executive of Battersea Power Station Development Company, said the project had received an additional boost from the autumn statement, which confirmed a £1 billion extension of the London Underground Northern line to Battersea Power Station.

“We have seen a new rush of interest in the development from potential purchasers. It is incredibly exciting for us that we will be selling residential units off plan next month,” he said.  The project’s Malaysian backers said last month they expected construction of the flats - that will produce interior photography, to begin in 2013 and to be completed in 2016.

Nex has won a prestigious competition to design a new £2 million cafe at the Duke of York Square in west London.  The practice, based in central London, beat five other shortlisted schemes including projects by Carmody Groarke, Duggan Morris Architects, Architecture :00/, Pernilla Ohrstedt & Sarah Price Landscapes and TaylorSnell.

Its winning design is in the shape of an organic coiled form, featuring a roof garden and a glass wall that rises and falls depending on the weather that will create stunning interior photography.  Hugh Seaborn, chief executive at the Cadogan Estate, said the jury was “won over” by the proposal.  “We think it will intrigue passers-by and become a mini-landmark on the King’s Road,” he added.  Nex will now work with engineers AKT II, Equals Cost Consultants, Atelier 10, DHA Design and the Enterprise Collective to develop the design ahead of submitting a planning application.

Alan Dempsey, director at Nex, said: “After thorough analysis, we were convinced that the best approach was an architecture which resonated with the architectural heritage of the site, while providing a contemporary space that has flexibility for year round use.”  The competition was organised by Malcolm Reading Associates.

London-based March & White has secured planning consent for the reconfiguration and refurbishment of a three-storey mews building in North Belgravia, London. The former office at 18-20 Headfort Place will be transformed to residential use for property developer Grosvenor.  March & White was founded two years ago by Elliot March and James White and the practice specialises in hotel and restaurant design, private homes and residential developments.

The second floor will feature a glazed frontage across one side of the house, flooding the interior with natural light that will help create striking interior photography by an interior photographer. A bespoke-designed wooden staircase with glazed balustrade will lead up to a new roof extension. This will provide a living area and an external roof terrace located at the rear of the mews building. The terrace will accommodate a vertical green wall, which is designed to support a variety of planting.

The project incorporates sustainable design features and is designed to achieve EcoHomes rating of Very Good. The existing Welsh slate from the mews will be reused on a roof that integrates water-saving devices. Handmade lava foam tiles are specified in all the bathrooms to create a natural finish.

Work started on the project in September with the demolition of the existing mansard roof, allowing the addition of a contemporary roof extension to start shortly.

A six-strong shortlist including two British firms has been announced for a new contemporary art museum in Hong Kong that will have interior photography created by an interior photographer.  Farrells has teamed up with Herzog & de Meuron and Benoy with Toyo Ito & Associates for the 62,000sq m M+ which will sit on the waterfront of Victoria Harbour.  Other teams in the running include Snohetta, Shigeru Ban Architects and Thomas Chow Architects, Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Sanaa.

It is hoped that the museum, which aims to showcase 20^th and 21^st century visual culture, will rival the MoMA in New York.

Rafael Moneo will chair the jury and the project is scheduled for completion in 2017.

Populous has been appointed to design the new Rostov Stadium in Rostov-on-Don, Russia.  The appointment is the fourth for Populous in the country, having already been chosen to design stadia for Kazan, Saransk and Sochi. All will be used to host games for the 2018 World Cup and will create strong interior photography.  The stadium, inspired by the ancient earthworks along the banks of the river Kurgans, will have a capacity of 45,000 seats for the World Cup and will be scaled down to 25,000 seats in legacy mode.  Damon Lavelle, principal at Populous, said: “We are certain that the stadium will be a great catalyst for the city and this part of the river.”

Architecture 00:/’s proposal for a new technical and creative institute at Old Street’s “Silicon Roundabout” will become reality after the government announced £50 million of funding.  David Cameron has announced the invesment at the LSE’s Electric City conference in Shoreditch, saying it would foser the next generation of digital entrepreneurs.

The proposals by YAYA finalist 00:/, which also have the backing of the Mayor of London, include a new civic space owned and operated in the community interest providing workshop and exhibition spaces, free workspaces, education and innovation accelerators.  It will also feature public realm improvements to the Tech City area, including proposals to create a pedestrian peninsular, and safer cycle routes.

A feasibility study to find a location is already underway and is expected to be complete in early 2013.  “What has really been announced today is the support for the proposition of the civic institution as a response to the institutional ‘thinness’ of east London, considering this exploding cluster of young startups in the area: an investment into cultural and economic infrastructure,” said 00:/’s Alastair Parvin.  “The proposition aims to follow in the footsteps of London’s great civic institutions, such as the British Library, the Royal Institution, the Tate: building a national commons for young inventors and creatives, which is accessible to all of us.”

The first sketches of Zaha Hadid’s plans for its Olympic aquatics centre have now been drawn up.  The firm is designing as a new entrance, crèche and 60-seat cafe for the centre which is due to re-open to the public by April 2014.

Original project architects Jim Heverin and Glenn Morley are on site weekly to oversee the deconstruction of temporary elements such as the seating wings.  “The emerging images look absolutely spectacular,” said James Bulley, director of venues and infrastructure at Locog. They have not yet been released to the public.  Locog, which organised the Games, have handed control of the entire site to the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) which is masterminding the £300 million transformation of the Olympic Park.

Ben Woods, LLDC executive in charge of transforming the aquatics centre, said: “It’s very important to us that we don’t take a Zaha Hadid building and put in some identikit reception. ZHA are designing the reception desk which will be a striking sculptural object.”  The handover coincided with the removal of the last of the 17,500 temporary seats at the centre and the wrap that covered the wings. These will eventually be replaced with glazed facades that will be captured in interior photography by an interior photographer.  During the Olympics, the public entered the aquatics centre at first floor level. The venue is now being reconfigured to have a ground floor entrance with a large cafe spilling on to the canalside.

New images of Allies & Morrison’s plans to build a 340 seat extension to Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London have been released.  Called the Sam Wanamaker Theatre, after the organisation’s US actor and director founder, the extension will allow the theatre to present plays throughout the year.

Two tiers of galleried seating and a pit seating area will be the centrepiece of the indoor theatre which will be mainly lit by candles that will produce stunning interior photography.  As well as the new theatre, redevelopment of the foyer is also planned to cope with more than one million visitors a year.

The first plays in the new theatre are expected to be shown at the beginning of 2014.  Also included among the team carrying out the work is Farah Karim-Cooper who is leading the Globe’s Architecture Research Group which is made up of Shakespeare and early theatre architecture scholars and theatre lighting designer Martin White.

Local practice Garnett Netherwood Architects has won planning permission for a new data centre in the centre of Leeds that will result in interior photography for an interior photographer.  It is the first phase of a masterplan for a former manufacturing and industrial site in the South Bank area of Leeds.  The new £43 million data centre, for client Yorkshire Design Group, will be comprised of two towers linked via a glazed central core, each with four floors of data halls.

The six-storey building will be clad in pre-weathered zinc panels, with a band of black brick on the ground floor.  The 11,600sq m building is the first phase in a wider masterplan for the site.

Terry Farrell has won outline planning permission with his masterplan for a controversial 7,500 home redevelopment of Earls Court.  Kensington & Chelsea councillors gave their backing to developer Capital & Counties’ proposals, securing the approval of both local planning authorities after Hammersmith & Fulham gave the go ahead in September.

Farrell’s masterplan is described as “four urban villages and a 21^st century high street” and comprises almost 1 million sq m of development including hotels, offices and cultural buildings that will produce interesting interior photography.  Capco chief executive Ian Hawksworth said he was “delighted” with the decision.  The GLA will now also have to give its approval before the plans can go ahead.