This week the first Neom region completed

This week on Dezeen, Sindalah, the first region from Saudi Arabian mega project Neom to be completed, opened for visitors.

Described as a "luxury island destination", Sindalah is a resort located five kilometres off the Neom coastline in the Red Sea. The 840,000-square-metre development was designed by Luca Dini Design and Architecture and built around an 86-berth marina and yacht club.

It marks the first of the Neom projects, which have been heavily criticised by human rights campaigners, to complete. According to Neom, Sindalah will serve as the project's "gateway to the Red Sea."

We revealed photos of Mercury Tower, said to be among the last designs signed off by architect Zaha Hadid before her sudden death in 2016, which is now completed in Malta.

In an opinion piece for Dezeen, Maltese architecture and design writer Ann Dingli asked: "is Mercury Tower a saviour or symptom of Malta's urban fate?"

Our series on mid-century modern design and architecture, which has run throughout the month of October, concluded this week with an A to Z of the style movement's must-known people, projects and places.

We also profiled Danish designer Verner Panton and took a closer look at his Panton chair, and explored unsung mid-century modern architecture as well as architect Eero Saarinen's design for General Motors' Tech Center.

The Royal Institute of British Architects revealed the finalists for its House of the Year 2024 award, which included the Eavesdrop House, pictured, designed to be accessible to its retired clients.

Also this week, we published our list of top houses on Dezeen in October, among them a California home with the feel of a Bond villain's lair.

In architecture news, US studio Kohn Pedersen Fox's 88-storey supertall skyscraper, designed to pay homage to New York City's beaux-arts architecture, has topped out in Manhattan.

Architecture studio BIG, meanwhile, has unveiled its completed headquarters in Copenhagen, which features a 140-metre-long concrete staircase.

A new sustainable construction material was popular with our readers this week. Researcher Tavs Jorgensen has created a method of extruding cob into brick shapes to make the low-carbon biomaterial more accessible.

Cob, a material made from earth and straw, was pushed through 3D-printed extrusion moulds known as dies to create bricks that can then be stacked in interlocking patterns.

Popular projects featured on Dezeen this week included a wood-and-mesh Canadian sports centre, a church extension with a glulam porch and a vernacular Mexican cabin that was reinterpreted in concrete.

This week's lookbooks featured moody bedrooms and bedrooms wrapped in wood panelling.

This week on Dezeen

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