Oct. 30 Seven years after the destruction of the World Trade Centre, skyscrapers are back in fashion. Parisians have just had a peek at the plans for what will be the first skyscraper to be built in the low rise capital for 30 years. Meanwhile, the world’s tallest building, the extraordinary Dubai Burj, is nearing completion in the Middle Eastern state....more

		Oct. 30, London The decision that has culminated the saga of one of the more bizarre planning refusals in London has been announced by the Secretary of State for Communities, Hazel Blears. 100 City Road designed by Squire and Partners is a planned 131 metre tall tower to stand overlooking Old Street Roundabout in the London Borough of Islington that encountered much opposition from locals with the scheme eventually being denounced in the council planning meeting which refused the application....more

		Oct. 29, Chicago Memo to Mr. Trump: Lighting isn't just important to me. It's a point of pride for readers such as Steve and for Mayor Richard M. Daley, who ordered you to put up the spire in the first place. The mayor has been pushing building owners to light the tops of their buildings at night, correctly arguing that it promotes an image of vitality...more

		Oct. 29, Miami Key International Development has completed development of the Ivy RiverFront Tower, a $121 million residential tower in downtown Miami. The 45-story building consists of 504 luxury residential condominiums, as well as street-level retail space and restaurants and nine levels of parking, on a 13.5-acre site along the Miami River. Amenities include a pool and spa, sauna and fitness facility. ...more

		Oct. 29, New York Would you like to see a building twisting itself into different shapes night and day on the New York skyline? Would you like to live in an apartment with a view that rotates 360 degrees? It may be a little hard at the moment to arrange financing for such tower — or any other new skyscraper in Manhattan — but the architect David Fisher is looking for a place to build it here someday....more

		Oct. 28, Kazakhstan With a history tied to nomadic civilizations and a New York City-sized population spread over more than two million square miles of territory, Kazakhstan may not seem like the most probable site for ambitious urban architecture. But the reality of contemporary Kazakhstan may be more accurately embodied by the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, a glass pyramid rising above Astana, the Central Asian state’s capital....more

		Oct. 28, Abu Dhabi An iconic building under construction in Abu Dhabi is set to enter the Guinness Book of Records as the “World's most inclined tower”.Developers Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (ADNEC) and cc, the architects behind the Capital Gate, have submitted a joint application to the Guinness Book of Records to recognise the tower as the “most inclined in the world”....more

		Oct. 28, New York The Cooper Square Hotel is a new modern glass and steel tower in the Bowery section of New York City designed by Carlos Zapata Studio.The 21-storey, 145-room hotel, dubbed “Downtown Luxury” by its owner/developer, has an open plan with a modern European feel...more

		Oct. 28, Seoul Putting an abrupt end to years of circular debate, Lotte Group's controversial plan to construct a 112-story building in Sincheondong, southern Seoul, has been approved, despite concerns that it would be too close to Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. ...more

		Oct. 27, Israel Skybot's robotic window washing system gets high-rise windows cleaned faster and cheaper than human teams, and at much less risk to human life. Washing windows on skyscrapers is harrowing work. Injuries or death from falls, while not common, occur frequently enough; on average, about 70 window washers - mostly non-unionized and using substandard equipment - die each year in the US, while another 130 are injured (the injury and fatality rate among unionized workers is far lower). ...more

		Oct. 27, South Korea KlingStubbins has been awarded design of the 3.4 million sq ft,  Gateway Business Center in  Songdo International Business District, Incheon, South Korea. Gateway Business Center will form the figural entry to the new metropolis. Five office towers sit atop a multi-story retail base and an underground parking facility. Each of the towers has a rooftop garden sheltered by 12-meter-high glass screen walls and a trellis of photovoltaic panels....more

		Oct. 27, Kuala Lumpur Setting a new world record for the number of swimming pools to apartments is 1KL in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.Designed by SCDA Architects, the scheme features 94 apartments spread over 35 storeys with an enormous 95 infinity pools making it the only building in the world to have more swimming pools than apartments and giving it a distinct selling angle...more

		Oct. 25, Singapore Singapore’s 26 storey EDITT Tower, designed by architects T R Hamzah & Yeang, is being created to rehabilitate an urban, non-organic site, classified as ‘zero-culture’ where the natural ecosystem has been completely devastated. Besides meeting their client’s practical requirements for a tower for use as retail, exhibition and auditorium use, the design is very much an ecological design....more

		Oct. 24, London Make Architects has designed this new curving blade-like building to stand on the south bank of the River Thames on the eastern end of London's Albert Embankment near Vauxhall. Sited at 38-46 Albert Embankment, the proposals for OKTIS Holdings feature a lone 23 storey tower with a height of 75 metres, with the bulk of the scheme from the 3rd to 21st floors having a total of 165 apartments. ...more

		Oct. 24, Canada When The Bow, a $1 billion office tower under construction in Calgary, is completed in 2011, the 58-story building will be the largest office tower in Canada outside of Toronto. Designed by  Foster + Partners, The Bow has an arc-shaped aerodynamic design to reduce the amount of steel needed for structural support, extra floor space for air circulation to help reduce heating and cooling costs, and a dazzling network of atriums and sky gardens...more

		Oct. 23, Chicago Presidential Towers, the West Side residential fortress that's home to more than 4,000 Chicagoans, is on a health kick. Near the main entrance, walking maps on the wall show mileage and calories burned. The in-building market features organic products and food labeled a "healthy choice." "We're trying to encourage healthy choices," said Presidential Towers Senior Community Manager Phyllis Kempton, one of the many building management employees who now wear running shoes with their business attire...more

		Oct. 23, Atlanta High-rise living isn’t just about the views. The concept does conjure up images of glamorous people on windswept terraces that overlook panoramic cityscapes. But living in a glass and concrete structure that soars into the sky is also about convenience, security — and luxury....more

		Oct. 23, Chicago Chicago just got a little colder as the end to a decades-long building boom has left two of the city’s tallest building projects stuck in limbo, leaving their owners scrambling to seek alternative methods of financing. Developers of the 1,047-ft-tall Waterview Tower and 2,000-ft-tall Chicago Spire bet that enough sales would come through before the market turned sour, but they lost that round—at least for now...more

		Oct. 22, Bahrain Ithmaar Development Company (IDC), will build an iconic 44-storey building as well as a mixed-use freehold and serviced apartments development project that will include a four star hotel in Bahrain. The $175 million projects will be built near the Shaikh Hamad Causeway that links Muharraq to Manama...more

		Oct. 22, New York Nearing completion in New York City is what will be one of the thinnest towers ever built on the planet called 785 Eighth Avenue after the address it's situated on. Standing on the south western corner of Eighth Avenue and West 48th Street in the heart of Manhattan, the building is 172.6 metres high with 42 floors above ground. What makes it extraordinary though isn't the height but rather the frontage on West 48th Street of a tiny 5.08 metres, whilst Eighth Avenue is barely bigger with a mere 7 metres...more

		Oct. 22, Dubai Tameer Holding Investments have employed retail design firm Callison to develop six mixed-use towers in the heart of the new Dubailand development.T he towers themselves will feature the latest in sustainable technology, including energy efficient geothermal and solar heating, in addition to cooling systems and low flow water systems...more

		Oct. 22, London Mayor of London Boris Johnson has decided not to overrule Lambeth Council's decision to approve P&O's redevelopment of the Elizabeth House site in York Road, next to Waterloo Station. The mixed-use P&O development, designed by Southwark architects Allies and Morrison, would replace Elizabeth House on York Road alongside Waterloo Station...more

		Oct. 22, USA From green cleaning products to energy-efficient appliances, Green Home 101 has delved into several different aspects of what makes a sustainable, environmentally responsible household. But what about the home itself? Look skyward in any major American city and you’re likely to see a soaring new green high-rise. With scarce land in urban areas, the cost of housing skyrocketing, and increasing demand for better communities, high-density development is experiencing a renaissance in the US....more

		Oct. 21, Dubai Set within Dubai's International Media Production Zone (IMPZ), a commercially and residentially combined 'arts precinct' is being created - the Dubai Arts District. David Marks, Managing Director of Marks Barfield, responsible for the design of the 11 residential buildings in the district, comments: “This bespoke development will be a first-of-its-kind arts precinct project in Dubai and is intended to attract design-conscious purchasers seeking a quality environment.”...more

		Oct. 21, London With early construction work continuing on London's Pinnacle skyscraper, a 288 metre tall building to stand on Bishopsgate, details of the first pre-let for the building have been announced. Rex Restaurants Associates has agreed to take 1,200 square metres of space in the tower to fill with a top quality restaurant and cocktail bar....more

		Oct. 19, Seoul Construction is well underway on one of the very latest skyscrapers in the South Korean capital of Seoul to stand in the central business district of Yeoido island. With a height of 165 metres and 36 storeys S-Trenue has been designed by Minsuk Cho of Mass Studies, who has conceived a tower dominated by an outer zigzagging metal frame that runs along the podium section, and then up the main skyscraper element creating an appearance of bundled metal....more

		Oct. 18, Boston With business slowing at home, Boston-area architects are jetting across the world to land monumental projects that even master builder Robert Moses might envy. The Boston office of Cannon Design is designing a $1 billion medical center for the Saudi royal family. In Dubai, Boston firm Burt Hill cooked up an unusual horizontal "skyscraper." And in Beijing, Steffian Bradley is undertaking a 4-million-square-foot condominium complex that features 10 towers...more

		Oct. 18, Hong Kong The Hong Kong SAR government will continue its endeavors to provide a quality and sustainable living environment for the people of Hong Kong, the Secretary for Development of Hong Kong Carrie Lam said Saturday. Lam was speaking at the plenary session of an international symposium organized by the Skyscraper Museum in New York City, said a press release of the Hong Kong Information Service Department. ...more

		Oct. 17, Chicago The recent march of skyscrapers onto the land between North Michigan Avenue and Navy Pier has not been easy on the eyes or good for the city’s soul. Few have architectural merit. But a new condo tower and park alongside it offer the area some real bright spots. If they won’t redeem the mess, they will at least provide relief from it...more

		Oct. 17, Chicago The tower, designed by DeStefano & Partners, is contrived to compliment and not overshadow the Chicago skyline. Despite reaching 1,100ft high with over 100 floors when complete, the tower will take second standing to the mighty Sears Towers, respectfully holding back and allowing the Chicago landmark its stature....more

		Oct. 17 Humans, as we know from the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, have built towers from the beginning of civilisation. Tall buildings appear to be part and parcel of the development of cities on the make around the globe. The intention was to make an impression on local people and the gods in ancient Sumeria, while today it is to impress business and politicians worldwide...more

		Oct. 17, Chicago The Chicago Spire is back in the news, and not for selling another of its expensive condos. There are new questions about whether the skyscraper, which would become the tallest building in America, is going to get built...more

		Oct. 16, Charleston For the largest towns and cities in the region, the buzzword for new growth and development is "infill," and it goes hand-in-hand with a push for interconnected neighborhoods in which homes are mixed with shops and offices....more

		Oct. 16, Istanbul Located on Buyukdere Street, the newly developed business district of Istanbul, the project, designed by Oncuoglu Architecture, is a planned as a mixed-use development consisting of 32 floors which is aimed to be a landmark for the city. B199 Istanbul project stands out from the buildings nearby with its design inspired from the historical urban topography of Istanbul...more

		Oct. 15, Sydney The three companies shortlisted by the NSW Government to develop and build Sydney’s impressive new harbour side headland park and urban waterfrtont are Lend Lease and Westpac Corporation; Brookfield Multiplex; and Mirvac Projects, Leighton Projects, Nakheel PJSC and Macquarie Property Development and Finance....more

		Oct. 15, London On London's Southbank we have had the Beetham Tower, 20 Blackfriars Road, 240 Blackfriars Road, a potential height increase for Kings Reach, some residential blocks at Holland Street behind the Tate Modern plus an extension of the Tate Modern itself. Creative agency Hayes Davidson has overhauled their website and to show off their latest work amongst the images featured is one showing all the projects above and effect they will have...more

		Oct. 15, Bahrain HOK has released these images of its 60ha masterplan for Water Garden City in Bahrain. The scheme will develop a massive 2,200,000m2 of residential accommodation, hotels, schools and commercial, leisure and retail space. According to HOK, it will create a community for up to 40,000 people....more

		Oct. 14, Business Week Online Antony Wood, CTBUH Executive Director, discusses the evolution of the world's skyscrapers on BusinessWeek Online. "We're seeing a major emphasis change both in who are building tall buildings and why they are being built. There are now more tall buildings in Asia than there are in North America for the first time ever" said Wood...more

		Oct. 14, Brisbane The developer behind the $900 million Vision Tower skyscraper on Mary Street is confident construction will proceed, despite the global credit crisis and economic uncertainty. Austcorp's ambitious 79-storey building will be the tallest in Brisbane when complete and is tipped to become an icon of the city's burgeoning growth...more

		Oct. 14, Middle East According to architect Eric Kuhne, whose firm Eric Kuhne Associates designed Bluewater in Kent, the global economic slowdown could benefit the Gulf region by offering a chance to take stock and return to an architecture inspired by the region itself....more

		Oct. 14, Dubai Pritzker Prize winner Thom Mayne has predicted that Dubai will become an “ecological disaster” if development there continues in its current direction. In a dramatic speech delivered on Tuesday to the World Architecture Congress’s Cityscape Dubai conference, the US architect said the private sector’s dominance in the Gulf state had led to a lack of joined-up planning and that this — combined with the immense speed of development — would lead to a major crisis in the future....more

		Oct. 14, Glasgow Adding impetous to Ian Simpson's plans for a new luxury hotel in Glasgow is the announcement by leading brand Jumeirah the development will be their first outside of London. Standing in the centre of Glasgow on Argyle Street, it will have 26 floors and be 92.5 metres high making it the tallest building in Glasgow, a margin that will increase as the city's existing tallest buildings, sixties commieblocks, are gradually demolished....more

		Oct. 13, Huaxi Structures of contemporary high-rise buildings, though often limited by material capacities, dynamic lateral forces, and legal constraints, have recently undergone a renaissance of investigation. The list of known structural types such as moment frames, braced frames, trussed tubes, and shear wall systems has been expanded to include new morphologies and materials including non-metric cellular formations, exoskeletal lattices, and next-generation carbon fiber composite networks...more

		Oct. 12, Paris Designed by French architectural firm Valode and Pistre, the T1 Tower is now complete. Situated in La Défense, the high-rise business district west of Paris, the tower has a floor area of 70,000 sq m and features restaurants, meeting rooms and underground parking to support the office space within....more

		Oct. 12, Jeddah King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques unveiled and inaugurated the two colossal projects of Kingdom City in Jeddah and Kingdom Tower in Jeddah.The unveiling of the designs and plans of the tower that will adorn the city of Jeddah and will be over 1,000 meters high, was held at the opening of a major international architectural exhibition “Towards the First World” in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Saturday 11th October 2008...more

		Oct. 11, Darwin A 24-Storey luxury apartment block is set to become part of the gateway to the city of Darwin. The Aspire high-rise will include 86 units, a mix of one, two, three and four-bedroom units, and three levels underground.It will form a gateway to the city, with the Harbour View Plaza, dominating the view of the skyline for people entering the city via Tiger Brennan Drive...more

		Oct. 9, Doha The QIPCO Holding ‘Tornado Tower’ in the commercial hub area of Westbay in Doha is nearing its completion date of November 2008.The 200 m skyscraper distributed over 52 stories will offer 58,029 sq m of leasable office space with a 2.8 m finished floor to ceiling space plus 1,700 car parking spaces on three levels served overall by sixteen high-speed passenger lifts and a helipad...more

		Oct. 9, Toronto This city has never seen anything like Giraffe and Gansevoort, Stephen Teeple's first tall-building projects. The 36-floor Gansevoort boutique hotel and apartment tower , the more artistically radical of his two current skyscrapers, will be a jaunty stack of dwellings that jut out and tuck in as the building rises.The terraces created every few floors by this strong rhythmic structural pulse will be planted with trees, generating a kind of park in the sky...more

		Oct. 9, Dubai UAE development company Tameer Holdings has announced that it will be constructing a 33-story high LED screen on the side of a planned commercial building in the Majan district of Dubailand. The massive LED screen is being designed by industry experts Dactronics, and will be visible from almost a mile away. Essentially a massive billboard, the screen "will be a powerful medium for advertising, messaging and art"...more

		Oct. 9, London The nascent cluster of tall buildings at Vauxhall in London could be getting another tower if plans by Amin Taha Associates and Carey Jones are approved. Vauxhall Sky Gardens is being developed by Fairbriar Projects. The scheme features a 35 storey tower rising to 120 metres in height with attached 3 to 6 storey tall podium. ...more

		Oct. 9, Emirates Business, p.9 The 2.4km building image, which is the next contender of the tallest building in the world has been circulated widely but is not yet on the Council for Tall Buildings and Urabn Habitats (CTBUH) list, says the Chairman, David Scott...more

		Oct. 8, Chicago Chicago's Sears tower, the world's tallest skyscraper when it was built in 1973, is due to receive a green makeover to reduce energy use by 10%. The scheme, which is at planning stage, is being overseen by US practice Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture. Speaking at this week's Cityscape conference partner Adrian Smith said the project would use PV and wind turbines on the roof as well as incorporating new lighting systems, extra insulation and a green roof. ...more

		Oct. 8, London Viñoly is working on two of the capital's most controversial buildings. The Walkie Talkie skyscraper in the City of London and the third attempt to resuscitate Battersea Power Station. During the planning inquiry last year English Heritage called the Walkie Talkie the “ugliest and most oppressive building” in London because of the impact that its 160m (525ft) height and rounded profile - like a cordless phone - would have on the City's skyline...more

		Oct. 7, Charlotte Some of Oklahoma City’s most powerful folks are set to be airborne this morning as they head to Charlotte, N.C., to learn how the city was transformed two decades ago by construction of a skyscraper and the arrival of an NBA team. It’s quite amazing to think where Charlotte was in 1988. The downtown skyline hadn’t changed in years when Wachovia opened its 588-foot-high headquarters — then the tallest in the state...more

		Oct. 7, Paris Pyramids have often been attributed with mystical properties, from resurrecting pharaohs to re-sharpening blunt razor blades, but last week those clever architects Herzog and de Meuron unveiled a new piece of pyramid-powered prestidigitation with their new Triangle project in Paris: the building will cast no shadows....more

		Oct. 7, Dubai Just one year after setting up the company Chris Bosse, Tobias Wallisser and Alexander Rieck have unveiled a unique tower design inspired by Formula 1 technology. Working in collaboration with legendary Formula 1 racer and namesake of the tower, Michael Schumacher, LAVA have designed a vertically undulating design which is set to break ground early 2009....more

		Oct. 7, Dubai International architects RMJM have been chosen by investors Nakheel to design Madinat Al Soor – a pedestrianised city which will house 22,000 new residents. Part of OMA’s Waterfront City, Madinat Al Soor will occupy a much lower profile across the water from the “Manhattan of Dubai” says RMJM’s Design Studio Director Steven Gifford.  Even the idea that people will walk fairly significant distances, that is fairly different for Dubai...more

		Oct. 7, Dubai Japan’s Nikken Sekkei, has been chosen to help design the new Jumeirah Gardens project in Dubai. Sekkei’s design forms an integral part of the Jumeirah Gardens development, as a new sustainable green oasis in Dubai. The city includes tranquil residential districts, areas dedicated to small offices for entrepreneurs as well as office towers and hotels. Natural breeze corridors will be created by the curvature design of the buildings which once combined with greenery and landscaping ensures a pleasant living environment...more

		Oct. 7, Dubai Index is set to be one of Dubai's future landmarks, with state-of-the-art offices for multinational corporations and minimalist designed luxury apartments at a prime location within the rapidly developing Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).....more

		Oct. 6, Tianjin The supertall Sinosteel International Plaza in the Chinese city of Tianjin could be the latest  for the title of "originally obvious building gimmicks you wish you'd thought of". Now under construction, Sinosteel International Plaza is designed by up and coming Chinese firm MAD Ltd who despite having partners only a few years out of school are starting to make an impact on the world of architecture....more

		Oct. 6, Dubai Leading realty developer, Tameer Holding, will be unveiling the design of its 600 meter-plus, Sheikh Zayed Road skyscraper during this year's Cityscape in Dubai, following an intensive global design competition that brought several global offices of design firm, Atkins into competition against each other for the privilege of designing the landmark project.....more

		Oct. 6, Dubai On Monday, Chicago architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill announced that Dubai-based Meraas Development, has commissioned them to design the trio of towers, as well as three other projects, all worth a total of roughly $15 billion. Smith’s credits include the world-record-holding, still-to-be-completed Burj Dubai, a mixed-use tower now nearing its final height of about 2,600 feet. He shaped that skyscraper while at the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill...more

		Oct. 6, Canada The promotion of two different environmental certification systems for the construction of high-rise residential buildings is stimulating debate and new competition in the B.C. and Alberta markets. The LEED for New Construction rating system was designed by the U.S. Green Building Council to facilitate high-performance commercial and institutional projects, including high-rise residential structures. The Built Green Society of Canada launched the Built Green Multi-Storey and Residential Tower pilot program in 2006. ...more

		Oct. 6, Reuters Shanghai, China's most populous city and an aspiring global financial centre, is also among the world's most vulnerable urban areas to a rise in sea levels. Researchers warn that forests of skyscrapers sprouting across the ambitious metropolis could compound the threat by causing its marshy ground to sink. Includes comments by CTBUH Chairman, David Scott....more

		Oct. 5, Dubai Nakheel have announced they are constructing the Nakheel Harbour and Tower Development, which includes a tower ‘more than a kilometer in height’ with over 200 occupiable floors. Although, the exact height of the tower has not been announced, preliminary foundation work has already commenced, making the tower the tallest building under construction in the world according to the CTBUH....more

		Oct. 5, Emirates Business, p.34 Three of the seven newly created initial board of trustees of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) have a GCC presence. The list comprises David Scott, Chairman, New York; Ron Klemencic, Vice Chair, Seattle, Antony Wood, Executive Director, Chicago; Charles Killebrew, Treasurer, New Haven; William Maibusch, Secretary, Abu Dhabi; Sabah Al-Rayes, Kuwait and William Baker, Chicago...more

		Oct. 3, Mexico City The 10th International Arquine competition to design two towers to celebrate Mexico’s bicentenary, has been won by Gregorio Vasquez and Manuel Wedeles with their designs for Tezozomoc and Xochimilco. The two mixed-use towers - intended to be completed for the bicentenary celebrations in 2010 - will be 83 stories, with around 100,000 metres of floor space, and will include offices, residential apartments, a hotel...more

		October, RICS Business, October 2008, p.14 - 17 From the Tower of Babel to the Burj Dubai, mankind has always had an obsession with tall buildings. Alastair Collins, a Partner at Davis Langdon and CTBUH Member says "building tall towers is rooted in the world's history. Through the ages they have been built to demonstrate wealth. Sheer shortage of developable land - in Hong Kong and Singapore for example, has also driven building skywards, as has, in some cases, corporate ego"...more

		Oct. 3, Tiruchi TIRUCHI: The City could soon witness the growth of high rise buildings with a couple of proposals taking shape consequent to extension of development control rules (DCR) of Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA). The Tiruchi Corporation Council, on Tuesday, cleared a proposal for the construction of a multi-storeyed residential building by a private property developer at Edamalaipattipudur ...more

		Oct. 3, Manila At least 27 high-rise projects in various stages of completion are signaling the start of a construction boom in Manila, said engineer Melvin Balagot, city building official. “Not since the arrival of millennium year 2000 that a construction boom is now being experienced in Manila....more

		Oct. 3, Copenhagen The spectacular Bella Hotel by 3XN architects aims to cement Copenhagen’s position as the natural centre for international events. The hotel is a part of the Bella Center, a leading conference complex with facilities to host any type of event, including fairs, exhibitions, meetings and international conferences. Bella Hotel is the largest building work initiated in Denmark in 2008 and will be one of the largest hotels in Scandinavia....more

		Oct. 2, Frankfurt Groundbreaking has begun on PriceWaterhouseCoopers new headquarters in Frankfurt which once completed will be one of the tallest buildings in the city. Called Tower 185 after the height in metres it originally would have reached, the 55 floor building has been developed by Vivico specifically for PWC to occupy the majority of taking about 60,000 square metres of the 116,000 square metre total....more

		Oct. 2, London Much of is often written about the quality of accommodation by developers looking at hyping their latest residential scheme but in the case of the Shard, the P.R may well be true. Called "the finest apartments in London", each will be individually bespoke according to the wishes of the client although an example is on offer in the brochure showing the sort of specification that could reasonably be expected....more

		Oct. 2, Dubai The latest addition to Dubai’s expanding Business Bay area - the O-14 Tower – has recently been drawing international interest, due to its unique design in the context of its surrounding area. The tower, designed by architects Reiser and Umemotos comprises 300,000 sq ft of space over twenty-two stories and is located along the extension of Dubai Creek, occupying a prominent location on the waterfront esplanade...more

		Oct. 2, America One Bryant Park, better known as the ‘Bank of America Tower’, is set to be the greenest skyscraper in the world when it opens later this year. Designed by Cook+Fox Architects, the glossy glass structure is the only skyscraper to achieve LEED platinum - the highest LEED rating. It racks up green points with rainwater cachement and reuse, greywater recycling, recycled and sustainable building materials, energy efficient building systems, and high performance glass which maximizes daylighting and minimizes solar heat gain and loss....more

		Oct. 1, London Construction work has been continuing apace on London's Heron Tower site with the erection of the final one of the three tower cranes marking a very visible landmark in what is going on on site. To set the trio up, Select Plant Hire supplied an Ainscough mobile crane which built the Comedil CTL630 crane which will be the larger of the cranes, and this in turn was used to put together the two Comedil CTL 400 cranes....more

		Oct. 1, Moscow Russian developer Vector-Stroy, French holding Vinci Construction Grands Projets and UK-based international architectural firm RMJM will collaborate on 'hanging gardens', a mixed-use development including 46,000 sq m of serviced apartments, an international standard five star hotel and the world’s first vertical park which will run through the core of the proposed building....more

		Oct. 1, San Francisco Tishman Speyer has completed construction on the 33-story office tower at 555 Mission St. in San Francisco, less than two years after the structure broke ground. The building totals 556,319 square feet at the center of the rapidly expanding Mission Street corridor. It includes 4,000 square feet of retail space and two levels of below-grade parking. ...more

		Oct. 1, Birmingham Birmingham City Council’s planning committee has ignored the advice of Cabe’s design review panel and granted planning permission to a 35-storey office tower at 103 Colmore Row. The building, which would replace John Madin’s 22-storey NatWest tower, narrowly won approval at the planning committee meeting last Thursday by seven votes to six....more

		Oct. 1, Chicago Beanie billionaire Ty Warner has purchased the two-floor penthouse in the Chicago Spire that was on the market for $40 million. Kim Metcalfe, spokeswoman for Shelbourne, said the contract was signed Monday. She said the penthouse occupies the 141st and 142nd floors, or some 10,000 square feet. It will be the highest residence in what, if built, will be the tallest building in the western hemisphere....more

		Oct. 1, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a landmark bill Tuesday to discourage sprawl in future decades, completing a deal among environmentalists, homebuilders and local governments on the final day of bill signing.Senate Bill 375, by Democratic Sen. Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento, will push California communities to consider climate change impacts of development in regional planning, with an emphasis on reducing car travel...more

		Oct. 1, UK Banks of glass-fronted residential apartments, shiny new shopping malls, creative industry quarters, art galleries and museums recycled from old industrial buildings, a piece of "iconic" public art: these have become the stock-in-trade features of the revitalized English city in recent years, from Newcastle to Birmingham...more

		Sept. 30, London Proposals for two high rise developments in London have been slammed by Cabe. The Ram Brewery development in Wandsworth High Street, which includes a 32-storey and a 42-storey residential tower as well as mid rise residential blocks, was criticised by the Commission because they said it did not provide a convincing case for the presence of tall buildings....more

		Sept. 29, Glasgow One of the largest projects on the go in Glasgow right now is a massive redevelopment of Bothwell Plaza by Aedas, the scale of which is almost unprecedented outside of London. Skyscrapernews caught up with Aedas director Richard Blair who had more to tell us about the scheme they've come up with and how it's developing....more

		Sept. 29, New Jersey Unprotected high-rise buildings in New Jersey pose serious risk of loss of life, injury and economic strain for thousands of New Jersey residents and firefighters. Citing costs to New Jersey families in the current economic climate, the Department of Community Affairs recently did not adopt proposed high-rise fire sprinkler retrofit regulations that would address a significant public- safety issue. ...more

		Sept. 28, Bangladesh After one year of work the design for City View Tower is revealed by 98° architectural studio. Bangladesh, being a newly developing country, is going under comprehensive construction work. The demand for accommodation for dense population initiates new residential apartments. Such sequence made A.R. Holdings to go for this mixed-use building....more

		Sept. 28, New York Even the most majestic cities are pockmarked with horrors. The knowledge that every shade of architectural experience, from sublime to excruciating, can exist in such compressed space is part of a city’s seductive pull. Yet there are a handful of buildings in New York that fail to contribute even on these grounds. For them the best solution might be the wrecking ball....more

		Sept. 26 Cities are being unfairly blamed for most of humanity's greenhouse gas emissions and this threatens efforts to tackle climate change, warns a study in the October 2008 issue of the journal Environment and Urbanization. The paper says cities are often blamed for 75 to 80 percent of emissions, but that the true value is closer to 40 percent. It adds that the potential for cities to help address climate change is being overlooked because of this error....more

		Sept. 26, Chicago If you think critic Ada Louise Huxtable gave it to architect Edward Durrell Stone in her 1964 review of New York's Gallery of Modern Art -- she called it "a die-cut Venetian palazzo on lollipops" -- consider what the Tribune's Paul Gapp had to say in his 1974 take-down of Stone's Standard Oil Building in Chicago ...more

		Sept. 26, New York Designed by Kohn Pederson Fox for the Extell Development Corporation, the scheme is called the World Product Center. It's a single 298 metre tall skyscraper with 60 floors that is pitched at providing office space on the upper levels for high tech companies that specialise in such things as medicine with the bulk of the tower being show-rooms for the latest equipment to be exhibited in....more

		Sept. 26, Shanghai Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) and Shanghai Jingang North Bund Realty Co. Ltd. today held the groundbreaking for White Magnolia Plaza in Shanghai, China after recently receiving schematic approval from the Shanghai City Planning Administrative Bureau. The design for White Magnolia Plaza includes one 320-meter office tower and two adjacent hotel towers located above a mixed-use podium and subsurface parking....more

		Sept. 25, Birmingham A new Birmingham city centre skyscraper is not up to scratch and needs a more confident design, according to a national architecture watchdog. Birmingham city council planners are expected confirm the demolition of the derelict NatWest Tower and were considering its 35-storey replacement at a meeting today. The planned tower features a tall mast, likened to a Star Wars lightsabre, rising high above....more

		Sept. 25, Paris Paris council has unveiled plans for a 50-storey glass pyramid after voting to drop a ban on high-rise buildings. Proposals for the Projet Triangle, designed by Swiss architecture practice Herzog & de Meuron, include offices, a conference centre and a 400-bed hotel as well as restaurants, cafes and gardens....more

		Sept. 25, Dubai What credit crunch? The rest of the world might be mothballing its grandiose construction projects but Dubai goes on booming. Barely a week goes by without the emirate claiming another architectural superlative, as evidenced by the stupendous Burj Dubai, the world's tallest structure: 160 storeys and still rising. You could add to the list the world's largest shopping mall, airport, hotel and bridge. ...more

		Sept. 25, New York When Matthew Blesso, 35, a real estate developer, bought his 3,100-square-foot apartment in Lower Manhattan two years ago, he turned it over to two Yale professors, the architect Joel Sanders and the landscape architect Diana Balmori. Their goal was not only to create a stunning series of gardens on the penthouse roof, but also to bring nature into the apartment, intermingling lush foliage and drip irrigation systems with custom wood furnishings and floors...more

		Sept. 25, Abu Dhabi Designed to represent modern commerce and culture in Abu Dhabi, KPF’s ADIA headquarters also echoes its surrounding Islamic architecture. Designed for the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), the 38-storey corporate headquarters is located on the city's heavily landscaped Corniche, which runs along the Persian Gulf waterfront....more

		Sept. 25, Los Angeles Los Angeles developers Jerry Snyder, left, and partner Michael Wise are trying to build Southern California’s first vertical shopping center despite conventional wisdom that such a project would not succeed. The seven-story project by developers Jerry Snyder and Michael Wise would open in 2011 on a Wilshire Boulevard site....more

		Sept. 25, USA It may sound like a pie in the sky idea, but vertical farms containing enough food to feed four million people, could one day divert a potential world food shortage. The huge 'living' skyscrapers have captured the imagination of architects in the U.S and Europe as food prices soar. They are the brainchild of Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University....more

		Sept. 24, Paris Plans showing a pyramid-like tower rising 180 metres above Paris - the first skyscraper to be built inside the French capital in 30 years - have been leaked to the press ahead of Thursday's official unveiling.The 50-storey building has already been dubbed the "Delanoë tower" after Paris' Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, who has battled to bring towers to the low-rise city....more

		Sept. 23, Milan If one city is the centre of world fashion it would be Italy in Milan. Going some way to reinforcing their dominance over fashion victims everywhere is a new project currently under construction in the Italian city, the World Jewelry Center.The scheme features not only a 78 metre tall tower that rises to 18 storeys with a curving glass and stone façade, but also a series of associated lower-rise buildings that will create a self contained campus...more