March 26, Southwark, UK Community secretary Hazel Blears has given the green light to both Ian Simpson Architects’ 52-storey Mirax-Beetham skyscraper and the neighboring Wilkinson Eyre twin-tower scheme on Blackfriars Road in Southwark, South London. The decision follows a joint public inquiry into the two high-rise developments near Blackfriars Bridge, south of the Thames, which started in September 2008...more

March 26, Manchester According to Alsop, the 100m-long, nine-storey building for developer Urban Splash was inspired ‘by three fat chips piled on top of one another’. The 142-apartment scheme, which sits between the Ashton and Rochdale canals, has a mix of one, two and three-bedroom flats. The upper stories are clad in ‘newspaper print’ to ‘echo the industrial heritage of the surrounding Ancoats area’. Work is expected to finish on the lower ‘chip’ in early Summer 2009...more

March 26, New York The Freedom Tower is out. One World Trade Center is in. The Port Authority, the agency that owns the building at Ground Zero, said Thursday, March 26, 2009, that the signature skyscraper replacing the Twin Towers destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, will be more commonly known as One World Trade Center. The reason for the name swapping? One World Trade Center is more marketable, said Steve Sigmund, a spokesman for the Port Authority...more

March 26, Bangkok Amanda Levete Architects have unveiled Central Embassy, a 30-storey retail and hotel project in Bangkok, Thailand. The tower will be built in the former gardens of the British Embassy in the city. Amanda Levete Architects was formed after Levete and former partner Jan Kaplicky, who had previously worked together as Future Systems architects, went their separate ways...more

March 26, Chicago The programs cover the 2008 CTBUH Tall Building Awards, given in Chicago in November. In Program 1, Architects Eugene Kohn and Bill Pedersen of Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) talk about the Shanghai World Financial Center, the CTBUH 2008 Building of the Year. In Program 2, structural engineer Bill Baker of Skidmore Owings and Merrill (SOM), winner of the 2008 Fazlur Khan Lifetime Achievement Award, talks about the Burj Dubai. Program 3 will be released later in Spring 2009...more

March 25, Evanston A controversial skyscraper in the suburbs is getting the go-ahead. The site along Church Street in Evanston will soon be filled with bulldozers and steel beams. Many residents are concerned that a tall building will spoil the city's charm. But as CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reports no one could pass up a construction project that would create new jobs...more

March 25, London Eco-architect Ken Yeang’s first scheme in the UK, the £300 million extension to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH), has started construction in March 2009. Officially designed under the Llewelyn Davies Yeang banner, the 30,000m² Mittal Children’s Medical Centre in central project is being hailed as the greenest hospital in the country. The scheme’s Neat assessment, the health sector’s equivalent of Breeam accreditation, has achieved an overall ‘excellent’ rating...more

March 25, Seoul Lotte Group finally got the green light Wednesday, March 25, 2009 to go ahead with its multi-billion-dollar project to build the ``Lotte World II,'' a 555-meter-tall, 112-story skyscraper near the Lotte World amusement park in southern Seoul. The Office of the Prime Minister (PMO) approved the plan at a meeting of working groups and decided to refer it to a Cabinet meeting for endorsement as soon as possible...more

March 25, London David Chipperfield Architects’ plan for Seal House in the City of London has won planning permission. The 18,000m² office and retail scheme, developed by the Sellar Property Group was forced to undergo a redesign after an earlier Chipperfield proposal was rejected in April 2008 over concerns it impacted on views from Wren’s Monument to the Great Fire of London (1679)...more

March 24, Chicago Representatives from AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trusts are meeting with Chicago Spire developer Shelbourne Development Group on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 to advance preliminary discussions that could have the deep-pocketed pension fund help pay for construction of the stalled skyscraper...more

March 24, Brisbane BVN architectural design of the new MMH seeks to be an elegant response to the heritage of its place and setting. The design has been undertaken based on a design strategy which complements the masonry style of its surroundings. The external design concept for the MAH extension reinvigorates and provides a new image for the MAH. The design is different from that of the MAH but is integrated with the existing building...more

March 24, New York Two pencil-thin towers are making their mark on the East 20s. Construction will end in May 2009 at the very skinny 60-story One Madison Park at 23rd Street and Madison Avenue, which packs 65 apartments into a building that measures 50 feet across the front. Farther up Madison Avenue is another tall drink of water, the 55-story Sky House at 11 East 29th Street, which also measures 50 feet across the entrance (and 37.5 feet in the rear)...more

March 24, Dubai Stories of the mass abandonment of Dubai, lack of investment and a general depression in the once buzzing architectural centre have been rife in the international press of late. But it would seem that architects are not yet prepared to let go of their playground yet as this latest design shows. There is one difference though - this design attempts to shed off the common association of distinctive with outrageous to create a more sophisticated building, perhaps a sign of a new era for Dubai?...more

March 23, Gravesend, UK The project, called Clifton Wharf, will occupy two brownfield sites, with one site including an unused iron railway pier extending out into the Thames. The scheme also comprises 145 residential apartments, a retail unit and provisional river-related uses. The design overcomes the challenge of a split location with five sliced ellipsoidal buildings...more

March 23, Jeddah Asian developer Keppel Land is starting work on what will be their first project in Saudi Arabia, twin 300 meter tall residential towers to stand in the rapidly liberalizing city of Jeddah. Whilst most of the country is still under strict Islamic law the city is more liberally ruled and unlike most of the population centers in the Kingdom, it has both a cosmopolitan population and a long international trading history that has established its position as the leading commercial center of the country...more

March 23, New Jersey RMJM Hillier have unveiled their design for Vista Center, a new LEED Platinum office tower in Trenton, which will be the city’s largest commercial development in decades. At a time of economic crisis, this major investment will bring new jobs, revenue and an iconic tower to New Jersey’s Capital City. Trenton’s Planning Board unanimously approved the preliminary site plan in late 2008...more

March 23, Barcelona The extension of the Fira de Barcelona in Montjuïc is planned half inside and half outside Barcelona's municipal term, at the back of the Montjuïc hill, following the gran via avenue straight to L'hospitalet de Llobregat. Japanese architect Toyo Ito won the competition for the master plan of the project. The exposition center will be composed of 9 pavilions and two 114-meter towers, which will be used for hotels and offices. The two towers will be the tallest buildings in Hospitalet...more

March 23, Mumbai Reining in developers who violate open space and other norms governing the construction of towers, the committee that gives the final nod for all high-rise buildings in Mumbai has issued orders that every such proposal should be vetted by it even before construction permits are obtained from the civic body. The six-member high rise committee was formed in 2004 to vet the proposals for high rises. Under the definition, a high rise is any building over 70 meters in height...more

March 23 The Chicago-based Committee of Tall Buildings and Urban Habit are looking for nominations for the 2009 annual awards to be held in October 2009 to help choose what their membership considers to be the best projects and most important skyscraper builders of the year. In all there are seven categories for nominations...more

March 23, London CZWG’s design for the £180 million Rathbone Market development in Canning Town, East London, has been approved by the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation. Developed around three phases, the 60,600m² scheme will provide new residential accommodation, retail and state-of-the-art community facilities. It will be one of the first sites to be developed within the wider master plan framework conceived to regenerate the Canning Town area...more

March 23, Hanoi Poor insulation and design is causing a 20 to 30 per cent loss in energy consumption in some buildings, according to an energy saving survey, implemented by the Ministry of Science and Technology in co-ordination with Ha Noi University of Architecture. Since 1994, the energy used in residential flats and multi-storey public buildings has accounted for roughly 24 per cent of the nation’s total consumption ratio...more

March 20, New York Located at the western edge of Midtown Manhattan, the Clinton Park mixed-use development, in the first stages of construction in March 2009, will occupy more than half of a city block with 1.3 million sq ft of commercial and residential programs. Designed by Enrique Norten and Ten Arquitectos, the building fills a void in the urban fabric by integrating multiple commercial uses at the base and providing 900 housing units in the 27 floors above...more

March 20, Chicago Because the new 60-story office building called 300 North LaSalle is very glassy and doesn’t flaunt a wild, attention-getting shape, many passersby are likely to dismiss it as just another glass box. That would be dead wrong. While this riverfront skyscraper has significant shortcomings, it does enough things well to come off as a positive addition to the cityscape...more

March 20, Philadelphia We don't refer to cities as concrete jungles for nothing. Cities are tough places, made up of hard surfaces. In Philadelphia, the default material has always been brick, but as the city grew, builders experimented with limestone, brownstone, a dash of marble, and eventually concrete. We expect a Philadelphia building to emerge from the earth like a natural outcrop. With the arrival of modernism, however, cities everywhere began to lighten up with glass buildings...more

March 20, Brazil Brazil Builds was the title of the Museum of Modern Art’s famous 1944 exhibition on Brazilian modern architecture, a show that offered a promising design panorama at a dangerous moment in world history. In 2009, the world faces a different kind of moment, but one similarly shadowed by economic fear. In Brazil, architects are trying to maintain a steady perspective—neither optimistic nor gloomy...more

March 20, Dallas One of downtown Dallas’ largest office skyscrapers is scheduled for foreclosure. The 52-story Elm Place tower at 1401 Elm St. has been posted for forced sale by lenders who are owed more than $22 million for the office tower and other downtown properties. Built in 1965 as the First National Bank tower, the 1.3 million-square-foot black glass and white marble building was once the tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi River...more

March 20, San Francisco Morphosis Architects’ US Federal Building in San Francisco uses concrete’s thermal mass and natural ventilation as part of its strategy to cut carbon emissions while creating a comfortable office environment. The United States Federal Building in San Francisco is one of the first major US office buildings for more than 70 years to be naturally ventilated...more

March 19, London The run down Victoria borough in London, is taken one step closer to regeneration with the approval of two key schemes by Westminster City Council. Selbourne House and Wellington House, will join further Land Securities' projects in the borough: Cardinal Place, which completed in 2006; and VTI2 which gained permission in February 2009, providing a mix of offices, shops, cafés, restaurants and homes to the area...more

March 19, Dubai Frank Lloyd Wright intended his Mile High Illinois skyscraper to be the focal point of Broadacre City—a theoretical city he began planning in the 1920s. While a one-mile-high skyscraper might have seemed fantastically out of place in Wright’s era, The Illinois skyscraper project was an exploration of horizontal space because, as he put it, some cities are simply “incorrigible” and Broadacre could use a tall building to act as a cultural and social hub...more

March 19, New York Mexican architect Enrique Norten and TEN Arquitectos have unveiled their design for Cassa, a hotel and residential tower in New York City. This tower is a dramatic architectural statement, using its windows and their punctured rhythm to become the facade’s only ornaments, distinguishing it from the more conventional glass and stone edifices of New York’s midtown...more

March 18, Cannes In the architecture world, the annual Cannes fair is almost shorthand for large property developments and big investments. It forces everybody to think more realistically about finances, and spells “business” much more clearly than similar gatherings in the architecture agenda, like the Venice Biennale or the London Festival of Architecture...more

March 18, Charlotte UNC Charlotte has unveiled plans for an eye-catching, cantilevered building in uptown Charlotte that the school says marks its commitment to the city’s business district. The $50.4 million Center City Building will be constructed at Ninth and Brevard streets. It will feature 143,000 square feet of classrooms, public space and faculty offices. The building was designed by architectural firm Kieran Timberlake in partnership with Charlotte-based Gantt Huberman Architects...more

March 18, London The most polarizing issue in architecture today is no longer whether celebrity architects are ruining the profession. It’s what to do with the leftovers of postwar Brutalism. For an older generation of architects these buildings embody the absolute nadir of the welfare state. Destroying them would be an act of mercy...more

March 18, Qatar The Minister of Municipal Affairs & Agriculture (MMAA) in Qatar is getting a brand new office building that takes the form of a towering cactus. Designed by Bangkok-based Aesthetics Architects, the modern office and adjoining botanical dome take cues from cacti and the way that they successfully survive in hot, dry environments....more

March 18, San Francisco One Rincon Hill, one of San Francisco’s newest landmarks and the tallest building on the skyline, was selected as among the world’s best tall buildings for 2008 by The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). Based at the Illinois Institute of Technology IIT in Chicago, CTUBH is an international organization sponsored by architecture, engineering, planning and construction professionals...more

March 18, Jaegersberg, Denmark Water towers, TV antennas, parking garages and other structures tend to be ignored within the ubiquitous context of their surroundings; however these oft-overlooked structures can offer amazing opportunities for renovations. Take this water tower turned student housing complex in Jaegersberg, Denmark. This once practical structure was left unused until Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter ApS won a competition to renovate it into a multi-purpose building...more

March 16 Although North American green building practices and technology have come a long way in the past 15 years, based on the writer’s research in Western Europe and the United Kingdom for his forthcoming book, Green Building Trends: Europe, Western European architects, engineers, and builders are ahead of those from North America in the widespread use of passive design techniques, integrating solar power into building design, and producing low-energy buildings...more

March 16, Warsaw New zoning plans and problems with financing are making it difficult to build high-rise buildings in Warsaw. According to developers, the general lack of zoning plans in Warsaw makes it a real challenge for them to invest in such projects. The region of ul. Towarowa has been a particular cause of worry for many developers, because City Hall is currently changing its zoning plans for this area...more

March 16, London Construction has finally begun today on Renzo Piano’s long-awaited Shard of Glass in Southwark, south London. The 310m-tall tower which will rise above London Bridge Station will, for a short time become western Europe’s tallest building and will tower over Cesar Pelli’s One Canada Square, London’s current record-holder at 235m...more

March 16, Dublin Facing off against Norman Foster's U2 Tower on the other side of Dublin's Docks is this new design by Zaha Hadid Architects for major Irish developer, Treasury Holdings.Called North Wall, the scheme will stand next door to The O2 and overlooks the key East Link Bridge and replace existing plans for an underwhelming seven-storey glass block...more

March 16, Gotenburg Addressing the urgent need to green our built environment, Kjellgren Kaminsky Architects have conceived of a Super Sustainable City that re-envisions Gothenburg, Sweden as a future-forward ecotopia. Designed as a dense and interconnected urban area, the master plan incorporates everything from green rooftop gardens to water and energy harvesting roadways, towering solar arrays, and soaring wind turbines...more

March 16, China Hoping to avoid the "skyscraper curse," China's cities continue to reach for the sky. While most of the world's major construction projects have been put on hold, new skyscrapers are under construction in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and several smaller cities, defying the global economic slowdown.Developers believe China will prove to be an exception to the "skyscraper index" proposed by financial analyst Andrew Lawrence...more

March 16 International professional services company GHD has developed a landmark concept to radically cut energy use in high-rise buildings. The external shading system sits like a skin on the outside of a building, moving around on tracks to shield the sun while still allowing daylight to penetrate...more

March 16, London DSDHA has won approval from Westminster City Council for the redevelopment of the Hog In The Pound site in Central London. Developed by the Kenmore Property Group and Appley Properties, plans for the proposed development outlines the replacement of the existing pub with a new mixed-use retail, office and residential scheme...more

March 15, Stockholm Stockholm - City officials here have yet to announce the winning design for the Slussen project, which aims to replace a tangle of traffic circles, bridges, underpasses and boat locks in the heart of this city. The five proposals in the competition offer a snapshot of contemporary urban planning ideas...more

March 14, Las Vegas Designed by the London architects Foster & Partners as a 49-story building, the Harmon has instead topped out at 28 floors. More than 200 condo units, which were to fill the higher floors, have been scrapped, according to Alan Feldman, a spokesman for MGM Mirage...more

March 13, Chicago The Sears name isn't just a tack-on. It stands for something: A fabled part of Chicago's history as a great mercantile center. The building's architecture reflects that past: It is strong, solid, democratic. Its flat roof and bare-boned exterior put on no airs, as New York's high-life Jazz Age skyscrapers do. The name, in other words, is inseparable from the skyscraper's-and Chicago's-identity...more

March 13, New York The Skyscraper Museum opened the doors of its permanent home at the southern tip of Battery Park City on April 4, 2004. Tishman Construction Corporation built the 5,000 square foot space and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) served as the Museum's architect, with award-winning partner Roger Duffy as lead designer, who created a contemporary design with a ceiling and floor of polished stainless steel that turns the gallery into a "vertical Versailles...more

March 13, Paris Yesterday Winy Maas presented MVRDV’s vision for Greater Paris 2030 to the Economic and Social Council of France. The project 'Paris Plus Petit' by MVRDV in collaboration with ACS and AAF is one of ten proposals by international architecture and urbanism teams to envision the future of the french capital and its vast agglomeration...more

March 13, Mexico City SPACE architects is aiming to produce one of the greenest buildings in Latin America with a new 33-storey tower set for Mexico City. The Efizia tower project is a mixed use building for developer Diimx in the Santa Fe district of the city, which in recent years has been transformed from one of the city’s most rundown areas into a business and leisure destination...more

March 12, La Defense, Paris Architects Foster + Partners have unveiled plans for a new mixed-use development in Paris at real estate summit MIPIM in Cannes, France. Called Hermitage Plaza, the project will comprise two 323 meter towers incorporating a hotel, spa, apartments, offices and retail space...more

March 12, New York We've already given the New School's proposed SOM-designed new academic building at 65 Fifth Avenue the reaper treatment, and the building was said to be going through a redesign, but now we can finally retire that blue-and-red rendering (while running it one more time, of course)...more

March 12 From the unseen, unsung files of design competitions past comes the Envision Green Hotel proposed by Miami-based Michael Rosenthal Associates for Hospitality Design’s Radical Innovation design competition. Part wind tower, part urban eco-resort, and all egg, this “lobular” structure is touted as one of the most recognizable landmarks for the city in which it would ultimately be laid...more

March 12, Chicago Come this summer, Chicago's iconic landmark known around the world is getting a new moniker: Willis Tower. Willis Group Holdings, a London-based insurance broker, announced Thursday, March 12, 2009, that it will consolidate its area offices to Sears Tower and as part of the deal, gets to put its own name on the 36-year-old skyscraper...more

March 12, Gzira, Malta The full development permit of the Metropolis Plaza project – a mixed-use lifestyle development located in the heart of Gzira, was approved by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority on March 12, 2009. Metropolis Plaza is the tallest building currently being developed in Malta and will include residential, commercial, health, fitness and leisure facilities as well as extensive underground parking...more

March 12, Paris It's the world's most visited city, a tourist dream of grand, historical buildings and cobbled charm. But Paris's secret shame has always been the horror lurking behind its peripherique ring road - the moat that protects the city's 2 million people from at least 6 million others who live outside in high-rise, ethnic ghettoes or suburban sprawl, choked by dismal public transport and shabby green space...more

March 11, Moscow Despite the probable cancellation of the Russia Tower and a number of other major projects in Moscow not everything is affected as the Zvenigorodsky Multifunctional Complex proves. With 252.82 meters of height and 62 floors, not to mention an enormous amount of internal space the project marks the largest to start in Moscow so far in 2009...more

March 11, London Culture secretary Barbara Follett has decided not to list the iconic 1986 landmark, home of insurance institution Lloyd’s of London, claiming it was neither old enough nor sufficiently under threat to warrant heritage protection. The news has ‘shocked’ the Twentieth Century Society (C20), which called for the ‘inside-out’ office block to be urgently Grade I-listed in January 2009...more

March 11, Melbourne With the construction industry experiencing a slowdown, developers are constantly looking for ways to streamline projects and control costs without compromising on quality. MiCasa8 is a new 219 unit student accommodation complex located in the central hub of Swanston Street, Melbourne. A solution developed by OneSteel Reinforcing played a role in the fast-track construction of the $22 million building...more

March 10, Boulogne Billancourt, France French architect Jean Nouvel has designed the 'C1' building, situated in the heart of a new quarter currently being developed on the former Renault factory site at Boulogne Billancourt, France. The building contains about 40,000 meters square of offices and shops. Construction began in December 2008 and the project is expected to be completed by 2011...more

March 10, Beijing Following the spectacular fire that consumed Beijing’s TVCC Building on February 8, 2009, questions immediately surfaced about the famed structure’s fate. Would the 141-room Mandarin Oriental hotel be rebuilt? Given the portentous nature of the fire, which was ignited during New Year’s celebrations, would anyone stay if it were? What about the insurance money?...more

March 10, Birmingham The tower is planned for a Broad Street site near to canal side development Brindleyplace and will include a hotel, retail, leisure and residential space. Roger Holbeche, the managing director of developer Regal Property Group said: ‘Regal Tower will be one of Birmingham’s tallest buildings and is set to alter the city’s skyline...more

March 10, Madrid A retrospective exhibition of architect Dominique Perrault is currently on display at the ICO Museo Colecciones in Madrid. The show is on view ending May 17, 2009. Co-curated by Frédéric Migayrou and Gaëlle Lauriot-Prévost, the exhibition is an overview of 25 of his projects, explained through maquettes, photos, original plans, videos and 13 films by the filmmaker Richard Copans, which allow viewers to enter into this architect's most distinctive buildings...more

March 10 Yale University’s Kroon Hall is a state-of-the-art model of where the green building movement is headed. Yet even this showcase for renewable energy highlights the difficulties of creating a building that is 100 percent carbon neutral...more

March 6, Dubai In Dr. Seuss’ environmentalist fable, “The Lorax,” the Once-ler, a budding textile magnate, chops down Truffula to knit “Thneeds.” Over the protests of the environmentally sensitive Lorax, the Once-ler builds a great industrial town that despoils the environment, because he “had to grow bigger.” Eventually, the Once-ler overdoes it, and he chops down the last Truffula tree, destroying the source of his income...more

March 9, Michigan City So your casino is getting pounded by new competition down the road. Do you call in Tony Soprano and ask him to break a few arms? No, you bring in a Chicago architect and have him transform your joint’s image from shopping-mall bland to slick “Ocean’s Eleven” glamour. That is what Chicago architect Lucien Lagrange has accomplished at the remade Blue Chip Casino Hotel in northwest Indiana, 60 miles from downtown Chicago...more

March 9, Stavanger, Norway Proposals have been put forward for a new high rise for Stavanger in Norway. Named the World Trade Center, something the world apparently needs many of. The design comes from the drawing board of Brandsberg-Dahls Architects and if given approval will stand at an approximate height of 130 meters and putting it on the way to being the tallest high-rise in Norway...more

March 9, Cincinnati Baker Concrete Construction poured a nearly 6,000-cubic-yard foundation on January 18, 2009 for the Queen City Square project in Cincinnati, a building that will eventually become the city's tallest. A concrete mat measuring 25,000 square feet by about 6 feet deep will serve as the footing for a 41-story office complex that will soar 86 feet above Cincinnati's current height standard, the Carew Tower...more

March 8, Melbourne A giant office tower soaring up to 70 stories has been proposed for the riverfront site behind Federation Square, as the State Government tries to attract private investors to subsidize the $200 million Jolimont rail yards decking project. Architects Denton Corker Marshall and Bates Smart have been asked to incorporate an office skyscraper in the master plan for the 3.5-hectare site bounded by Flinders Street and Batman Avenue Bridge...more

March 7, Bucharest, Romania Work continues on a new residential project in Bucharest, Romania. Named Anador the project is the work of Israeli architectural firm MYS Architects and consists of three 27 storey towers. The towers all sport the same look. Set on fully glazed podium bases they consist of a central core which will house the elevators and other machinery for the towers. Around this four sections are arranged in a petal-like manner...more

March 6, South Korea The 'Dancing apartment' has been designed by Korean firm Unsangdong architects. Located in South Korea, the apartments are built using oblique lines in which each unit consists of a terrace. The building consists of various community spaces which include parks, leisure facilities, event space, a library, media space and performance space...more

March 6, Los Angeles Frank Gehry has admitted that even he is not immune from the global credit crunch, having lost half his staff in 2008 as prestigious projects have been cut back or put on hold. The architect, who celebrated his 80th birthday on February 28, 2009, admitted to the LA Times on March 1, 2009 that despite new work that includes another Guggenheim museum in Dubai, funding for other major schemes has been pulled, forcing the internal cull...more

March 6, London A planning application for a new 47 floor tall building is to stand in London's Elephant and Castle on the site of Eileen House. Designed by Allies and Morrison Architects for Oakmayne Properties, the development features two buildings with a shared basement and a new planned public space set to stand between them...more

March 6, Dubai Dubai is a burgeoning metropolis surrounded by seawater that relies on imports for nearly all of its food. Addressing the region’s lack of natural resources, Italian architects Studiomobile have conceived of a Seawater Vertical Farm that draws upon local resources to create a sustainable source of food for a cleaner, greener and more self-sufficient Dubai...more

March 6, Boston A major Boston developer has proposed replacing one of Boston’s biggest eyesores with one of the largest, greenest developments in city history. The Raymond Property Company has filed a proposal with the city for One Congress Street, a four-million-square-foot office, residential, and retail development. The project would redefine the skyline, with two towers reaching 42 and 52 stories that rise from a series of smaller buildings intended to mask their scale...more

March 6, San Francisco San Francisco's planned high-speed rail station in the new Transbay Terminal would be obsolete within two decades, state transportation officials warn, forcing them to rethink the design. The proposed station would not be large enough to accommodate half the passengers expected to be using the system by 2030. In addition, the current scheme poses engineering challenges for a Caltrain extension to the Transbay Terminal downtown...more

March 6, London Peter Rees, the city’s planning officer, admitted this week that the gloom among developers and investors is so great it could be a generation before another tall building planning application is received by his department. “If a major project has not started in the city already, it is unlikely to start,” he told BD. “I’m not thinking years, I’m thinking decades… After the Wall Street crash, it took 20 years to recover.”...more

March 5, Toronto Glinting in the sun, the giant stainless-steel water molecule still embodies the promise envisioned when it was installed in the 1960s: Modern technology, science and engineering can improve the lot of humankind. Slowly gazing a full 360 degrees from atop the Rosehill Reservoir in Toronto, you see many examples of life made better through the art form that combines those disciplines - architecture - but none as perfect as those at 10 and 20 Avoca Ave...more

March 5, Chicago Chicago’s No. 2 frozen-in-place supertall skyscraper--not the Chicago Spire, but the Waterview Tower and Shangri-La Hotel--just went deeper into the deep freeze. The Tribune's Kathy Bergen is reporting that Hong Kong-based Shangri-La is ditching plans for a luxe, 200-room hotel in the base of the unfinished riverfront skyscraper, located at 111 W. Wacker Drive...more

March 5, Birmingham A landmark £200 million tower block development earmarked for Digbeth will set a new standard in green energy efficient building for the city. The Beorma Quarter will result in a largely derelict site, opposite Selfridges and St Martins, being turned into offices, workshops, shops, public squares, apartments and the restoration of three historic buildings, including the Cold Store...more

March 5, New York Located in historic Greenwich Village in Manhattan and bordered by 8th and Greenwich Avenues to the west and southwest, One Jackson Square is a 35-unit luxury residential development with a street level retail component that responds in dramatic fashion to its celebrated locale. The building occupies an irregular site in the West Village as a result of the area’s diagonal street grid and falls within the Greenwich Village Historic District...more

March 4 Green building experts in the U.S., the UK and Australia have agreed to establish new metrics for quantifying the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by new buildings. The move comes as the three leading rating systems—the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED, the UK-based BREEAM, and Green Building Council Australia's Green Star—continue to use different methods to assess green buildings...more

March 4, Boston On Monday, March 2, 2009, Raymond Property Company filed plans for a proposed $2.2 billion project on the site of the current Government Center parking garage. The proposal would turn the city’s largest garage into mixed use high-rises as part of the city’s largest green building project. Politicans and potential neighbors have lamented its far reach, but RPC remains confident in its ability to transform downtown...more

March 4, Jakarta Approval has been given to a new set of twin towers to be located in the heart of Jakarta, Indonesia. Apparently not at all fazed by the lack of money in the world, the project named the Sahid Perdana Twin Towers will stand at a relatively impressive 210 meters when complete. The rather futuristic design comes from local architects Urbane who have also mixed in a little of the more traditional into the design with the pattern on the upper levels of the towers facades...more

March 3, Chicago Donald Trump and the lenders on his Chicago skyscraper have agreed to put their legal dispute on hold as the developer wraps up construction of the 92-story tower. Mr. Trump and Deutsche Bank Trust Co. Americas sued each other last fall over a past-due $640-million construction loan on the project. The developer claimed that the financial crisis gave him the legal right not to pay back the loan...more

March 3, New York American Water has completed the design, procurement and construction phase at The Visionaire, fifth in a series of green residential buildings serviced by the company’s Applied Water Management Group. Located in Battery Park City, Manhattan, the 33-story, 251-unit tower is now considered to be the greenest high-rise residential condominium in the United States...more

March 3, Malaysia Malaysian-born architect and director of Llewelyn Davies Yeang, Ken Yeang has been synonymous with skyscraper design for years; and his focus, embracing the growing demands of green design, swiftly developed into an extended analysis for the contemporary eco-skyscraper. He insists that in order to be both ecologically sustainable and high rise, a building needs to be the perfect balance between engineering infrastructure and mimicking nature...more

March 2, Japan Want to cool a building? Steal a trick from the forest canopy and use leaves for shade, as Osaka University did with its Frontier Research Center. Builders, architects, and designers seeking better ways to go green are increasingly turning to nature—the original green—for solutions that have proven track records in the real world...more

March 2, Stockholm Their tourist board can think of no better word to describe the city than 'beautiful', and Stockholm has beauty in abundance. Now following an international design competition for the masterplan design of the Nya Årstafältet district, the protection of this beautiful city has been entrusted to French architects archi5 with landscape architect Michel Desvigne with their winning design 'Arkipelag'...more

March 2, Middle East Imagine being able to place an entire farm, complete with crops and livestock, in the same space as is required for one of today’s modern urban skyscrapers. A Columbia University professor, Dickson Despommier, has been involved in such a project that could turn a 30 story glass faced building into a vertical agricultural enterprise capable of feeding 50,000 the year round...more

March 2, London The area around Old Street roundabout is very much a development hotspot, something that is bound to be reinforced more by plans by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands for a collection of tall buildings to the north of it. The site of the scheme, New Roman House, is being developed by Rocket Investments and lies about 100 meters north of Old Street roundabout on the eastern side of East Road in an area designated suitable for tall buildings...more

March 2, Taiwan Taiwan broke ground in February 2009 on a trio of interconnected energy-efficient skyscrapers topped with lush rooftop gardens. Designed by Los Angeles-based NBBJ Architects in collaboration with Fei & Cheng Associates, the Chinatrust Bank Headquarters will take advantage of a host of green building strategies geared towards reducing energy consumption and optimizing passive heating and cooling...more

March 2, Chicago Ideas for making Sears Tower more energy-efficient include installing wind turbines or rooftop vegetation at the building. But why stop there? Here are some other suggestions for making the black hulk seem a little greener: Don't just put a garden on the roof; plant trees all over the building. A perfect rejoinder to those who might ask, as Mayor Richard J. Daley famously did: "What trees do they plant?"...more

Feb 28, Washington Researchers at the University of Michigan have designed a new technique for high-rise concrete buildings, which has passed an earthquake simulation test. Their technique passed the test, withstanding more movement than an earthquake would typically demand. The engineers used steel fiber-reinforced concrete to develop a better kind of coupling beam that requires less reinforcement and is easier to construct...more

Feb 27, Jakarta The International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) 2009 in collaboration with Ikatan Arsitek Indonesia (Indonesian Institute of Architects Jakarta Chapter) is pleased to announce an idea competition on the theme of ‘gotong royong city’ in the context of the extended metropolitan region of Jakarta. Three winning entries will be selected by an international jury for exhibition in the IABR 2009 and awarded prizes totaling 7,000 Euros...more

Feb 27, Brooklyn Borough President Markowitz announced that he supports a DUMBO developer’s controversial residential tower, defying opponents who say the 18-story building would obstruct views of the Brooklyn Bridge - but his approval is conditional on a redesign of the building. In supporting David and Jed Walentases’ Dock Street project, Markowitz recommended that the developers actually make their building taller - albeit thinner - to lessen its supposed impact on views...more

Feb 27, Malaysia Green Building Index (GBI), a voluntarily professional-driven initiative, will be introduced in Malaysia in April 2009 to promote higher environmental-friendly compliance in buildings in the country. Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM) and the Association for Consulting Engineers Malaysia (ACEM) had been working hand-in-glove since August 2008 for the setting of the index, which had been implemented in other countries such as Singapore and Australia...more

Feb 27, Charlotte What was once to be Ken Thompson's big corner office in Charlotte's newest tower will now belong to Jim Rogers. Rogers, Duke Energy Corp.'s chief executive officer, announced Thursday, February 26, 2009 that Duke will move its headquarters across the street to the 48-story Wachovia tower under construction at South Tryon Street and become its dominant tenant...more

Feb 26, New York Add one more ear-popping superlative to the structural distinctions at 1 World Trade Center. On opening in 2013, it will have the five fastest elevators in the Western Hemisphere, according to the company that will make them. These express cars, serving the restaurant and observatory, will reach a top speed of 2,000 feet a minute, meaning that a trip to the top of the city’s tallest building will take less than three-quarters of a minute...more

Feb 26, Monaco As part of its stimulus plan and to counteract the cancellation of an offshore extension few months back since February 2009, Monaco has just announced the construction of two twin towers. The tallest of these will be the record ever built in Monaco. With its 49 levels for 170 m height, the tallest tower construction will begin in Spring 2010. The project is estimated to an amount of 500 millions Euros and will last 4 years...more