World Architecture News is inviting entries for the WAN Urban Design Award 2009. If you have designed a project in the transport, infrastructure, urban design, landscape and public realm areas, you can enter for the 2009 Awards. This award features two categories; one for completed projects and one for unbuilt/design-only schemes. The deadline for entries is 31st August 2009...more

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey turned over a parcel of land at the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan to developer Larry Silverstein today, which the authority said obligates Silverstein to deliver three office towers by the end of 2014. Silverstein already controlled two building parcels at the site and was waiting for the Port Authority to complete development preparation on the third. The handover ends the authority’s obligation to pay the developer $300,000 per day for delays, the agency said in a statement...more

Construction work on Burj Dubai is almost nearing completion as the final cladding slab is about to be placed within weeks. The tower consists of 24,348 glass, aluminium and steel panels. Arabian Aluminium Company started work on the exterior cladding of Burj Dubai in April 2007 and is now entering the final phase with the manufacture of the six-metre long last panel for the tower...more

The Norwegian Barents Secretariat announced plans for a new cultural center that is being touted as the world’s tallest wooden building. The Secretariat hopes that the new structure will serve as a physical symbol of their important role in the High North - a lighthouse of sorts and a beacon of knowledge and development. As part of that role, the new office and cultural center will also act as a model for sustainable building and carbon neutrality...more

Barry Island in south Wales used to be a buzzing seaside town. Unfortunately, as the years have passed the island has lost its crowd pulling appeal, as its attractions have slowly fallen into a state of disrepair. Salvation and a much needed boost for the islands dwindling economy could be at hand though, if redevelopment proposals penned by architects David Pierce Consultancy are given the go ahead...more

Chicago Architecture Today announced the initiation of the 2010 student-based Mock Firms International Skyscraper Challenge, which focuses on a studio brief for Mexico City. The Mock Architecture Firm Competition is an opportunity for high-school and college students interested in the design/build industry to test their skills in a uniquely collaborative environment...more

Alain Robert, the French daredevil famous for scaling some of the world's tallest buildings without ropes or a net, made it to the top of a Mexico City skyscraper on 20 August 2009. Robert, who has climbed 70 structures including the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building and San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, made it to the top of the 23-floor glass and steel office building known as "World Plaza" in just 30 minutes while proudly displaying a large GoldenPalace.com logo on his back...more

Construction of an Arthur Erickson-designed luxury hotel and condo project is set to resume after the developer rejigged the plans. It was originally developed as the Ritz-Carlton Vancouver, but excavation work on the $500 million twisting tower was halted in October 2008. The worldwide recession and the softening of the local housing market forced developer, Holborn Group to develop a new building strategy...more

Foster + Partners is understood to be redesigning the £500 million office and hotel scheme, which will feature a 51-storey skyscraper, to include the local landmark. In late 2008 it was thought the  former railway building at 233 Shoreditch High Street would be flattened to make way for the tower. But the developer's managing director, Martin Jepson, said, ‘Following the local campaign to preserve the Light Bar building, we are currently in the process of preparing amended proposals for our Bishop’s Place regeneration project'...more

If climate change and population growth progress at their current pace, in roughly 50 years farming as we know it will no longer exist. This means that the majority of people could soon be without enough food or water. But there is a solution that is surprisingly within reach: Move most farming into cities, and grow crops in tall, specially constructed buildings. It’s called vertical farming...more

Signature Place, the $170 million sail-shaped condo tower that has reshaped St. Petersburg's silhouette, has steered into something of a gale. Developer Joel Cantor, clipped by the recession just as he topped off the tower's 36-stories in 2008, has spent the summer of 2009 grappling with a rumor mill that's determined to sweep him into the loser's column. Cantor continues to reassure such doom-and-gloomers that their fears are misplaced...more

The Ashby high-rise, a proposed 23-story tower that came to symbolize Houston's struggles to resolve conflicts over land use, obtained permits on 21 August, 2009 that cleared the way for its construction on a site near Rice University. It was not clear, however, when work on the long-delayed project would begin. Changes in the developers' latest plans, the 11th they had submitted since July 2007, reduced projected traffic to meet the city's standards...more

Water gushed into the Prudential Center from a leaky pipe on Friday, 21 August 2009, and forced 2,000 people to evacuate the 52-story skyscraper, sending waves of office workers down stairwells and onto the streets of Back Bay. A pipe cracked on the second floor and sent water cascading into a shopping mall on the first floor. The flood disabled many of the tower's elevators, forcing office workers on the upper floors to make a 40-minute climb down the stairs...more

For the last 40 years, there have been many feathers added to the CTBUH cap and the most notable thing to happen to our own Mumbai is that the CTBUH is organizing their 41st year extravaganza in 2010 in Mumbai in conjunction with Remaking of Mumbai Federation (ROMF). Incidentally, the ROMF comprises eminent Indians, over 50 stakeholder associations and 9000 local members working on the ‘Save Mumbai and Make Mumbai’ mission...more

Never as architecturally distinguished as the former Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center, the Aon Center at least presented a vision of clean vertical lines, rising with aloof calm beside Grant Park.  But as sharp-eyed skyline watchers have noticed, a nasty little carbuncle has appeared on the roof of the 1,136-foot tower. About 85 feet tall, it resembles a cylinder stuck atop a flagpole. And people are wondering what it is...more

It was meant to be a shining jewel for Las Vegas in the heart of the new Symphony Park. But amid a tarnished economy, plans for the new World Jewelry Center are being put on hold for up to six years.  Lots of incredible things are happening where the land for the Jewelry Center is ready and waiting: medical centers and a massive concert hall are under construction.  But a 52-story skyscraper filled with jewelry companies? That's an idea in serious jeopardy...more

A road had to be closed in central London when a 4m-wide pane of glass fell from GMW and Grimshaw’s new office refurbishment - 125 Old Broad Street.  The glass, which plummeted from the 17-story of the office block, shattered on the street close to a bus shelter and narrowly missed city workers on their lunch break.  The 30,850m² refurbishment of the former 26-story London Stock Exchange features a new façade by concept architect Grimshaw...more

The City of Cape Town is planning to build tower blocks of up to 14 stories in a bid to beat its massive housing shortage.  City housing director Hans Smit said the buildings would be grouped in a "town" around facilities such as shops, community centres, schools and recreation facilities.  "The idea of very high density towns hasn't been tested in this country," he said at a media briefing in Cape Town.  "A lot of people say it won't work...more

Russian architecture studio A.Asadov have designed a series of island complexes to be built in the city of Sochi ahead of the winter olympic games there in 2014.  Among the proposals is this one made up of five round 'islands' each with a tower in the middle. from a bird's-eye view they make the olympic rings emblem.  The dark blue tower is Europe and the 'cold of Scandinavian winter'. The black ring Africa 'is based on African sculpture'...more

CZWG has designed this new hotel to stand on the site of the approved Chesterfield House development near Wembley Stadium in the London borough of Brent.  Overlooking the junction of High Street and Park Lane, the site is occupied by a long squat office building from the 1960s and has been up for redevelopment for most of this decade - previous plans by EPR Architects for an office tower with ground floor retail were approved in 2001...more

Is the World Trade Center site (né Ground Zero) special, or is it just another piece of Manhattan real estate? That appears to be the major point of contention between the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Silverstein Properties, both of whom are still in the middle of a bitter fight over who should finance the two remaining towers at the site.  Both sides made their case at a special hearing of the City Council...more

On August 18, 2009, a dozen residents and an equal number of city staffers gathered at Blanche Lavizzo Park and listened in on a meeting of the city council's Planning, Land Use, and Neighborhoods Committee.The committee was discussing proposed changes to the city's land use code to encourage affordable housing by giving developers bonus height if they include it in their projects...more

Germany’s historic Hamburg-Harburg Harbor announced the development of a sustainable ECO CITY that combines industry, entertainment and pedestrian life into one super green package. Designed by international firm Tec Architecture and the global engineering company ARUP, ECO CITY is one of the only projects in the world that is seeking to achieve the highest level of environmental certification from all three major green building rating systems...more

The Commission for Architecture and Built Environment has got the knives out for the Broadway Malyan designed tower at 30 Pall Mall in Liverpool.  Of particular concern to the government design quango is the height of the tower which at 18 stories is something they feel is poorly sited next to much shorter neighbors, whilst the podium is so substantial the soar of the tower is nullified leading the architectural body to dub it "ungainly"...more

A Moscow court froze the assets of major developer Mirax, including a landmark skyscraper being built in the main business district, for the company's failure to repay a $242 million loan to Alfa Bank.  Dmitry Tafintsev, spokesman for the Moscow Arbitration Court, said that the court froze several assets of Mirax in the Moscow City business district, including the massive Federation Tower.  The Moscow court has yet to pass the ruling on the case...more

Arcology - a hybrid of architecture and ecology, is essentially a mega city which packs a ginormous population into one hyperstructure. A group of ambitious designers has taken their looming pyramidal arcology and placed it smack dab on the Mississippi River as a proposal for the rebuild of New Orleans. This 30 million square foot beast-building with an array of green features is aptly named NOAH, and is meant to house 40,000 mostly human residents...more

Preparation work is underway for the construction of a new complex to be sited in the Chinese city of Wuxi at Hang Lung Plaza. Named Centre 66, the project comes from the drawing boards of renowned architectural firm Aedas on behalf of Hang Lung Properties. When completed it will consist of two towers standing at heights of 245 metres and 215 metres. The towers will stand on a curving, fully glazed podium base which is broken up by three large, glass atria laid out in almost a triangular shape designed to promote circulation around the site...more

Luxury lifestyle provider DAMAC Properties is showing its determination on construction and delivery with its flagship Ocean Heights development approaching 70 floors. The skyscraper which will finally stand 84-storeys tall at the entrance to Dubai Marina on Al Sufouh Road, will complete its structure by the late autumn 2009 and is due for total completion in 2010. It is set to be one of the area's most iconic buildings, already towering above all others in the vicinity and with its twisting architectural design now clearly visible...more

The centre-right majority in city hall have agreed to propose for the first skyscraper to be built in Stockholm. But such a landmark on the Stockholm horizon most likely will cause a great deal of debate before it can be built, in 2013 or 2014 if the local plan is approved. The planned skyscraper will be 187 meters high with 54-storeys, approximately 32 meters higher than the current highest building in Stockholm...more

Lange Jan and Lange Lies, the chimneys of the Oranje Nassau mine that were once part of Heerlen’s skyline, are getting a modern successor. The building, designed by Mecanoo Architecten, that will arise on the Burgemeester van Grunsvenplein will become the city’s new icon, forming the pinnacle of Heerlen’s future. The loss of the mine has been incorporated in the design of the apartment towers...more

As the notoriously private Goldman Sachs continues to keep the details of its New Headquarters Building near Ground Zero under wraps, permitting no one to speak on the record about the project, there is no denying what the eyes can see. The 43-storey glass and steel tower located on West Street between Vesey and Murray Streets is expected to open later in 2009. When it does, it will house more than 9,000 employees in 2.1 billion sq ft of space...more
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Regardless of silly house prices, decaying housing stock is a steadily depreciating asset that will depreciate even faster when new and essential regulations about energy efficiency come into force. At present, three-quarters of the Scottish housing stock falls below the Scottish Quality Housing Standard. Half of it does not satisy the seven out of 10 energy standard. The solution is not to tart it up, but to knock it down...more 
For four responses to Germaine Greer's argument...click here

In the 125 years since William Le Baron Jenney's ten-storey Home Insurance Building in Chicago became the world's first skyscraper, the spectacle of soaring towers has become increasingly common wherever land is scarce, allowing cities to stack life ever taller, denser and more dynamic. Like cathedrals and palaces of the past, skyscrapers today define their cities' identities as they shape the skyline...more

Lebanon’s property market is literally soaring ahead in defiance of the financial crisis affecting most other countries. Prices keep rising and new projects keep getting launched. The latest high-profile building to be announced is the Sama Beirut tower. When completed, the 50-storey building would be the tallest in Lebanon. A spokesman for the developer said: “Sama Beirut is paving the way for a new trend in the capital. Towers are definitely popular in the city and in its suburbs due to the lack of space.”...more

Hundreds of high-rise tower blocks around the UK have inadequate fire protection, experts believe, risking a potential repeat of the fatal blaze in Camberwell, south London, July 2009, in which six people died. A combination of neglect, poor maintenance and a confused regulatory framework has left some buildings lacking even basic protection, such as functioning fire doors to seal off emergency staircases. Local authorities could face a massive bill to make their blocks safe...more

Oklahoma City might still be able to brag about having the tallest skyscraper in the state when the new Devon Energy Corp. world headquarters is built, but the tower is no longer on track to top Dallas’ skyline. Klay Kimker, Devon’s vice president of administration, confirmed the tower’s height has been dropped from 54 to 50 stories, but the change is unrelated to the national economy...more

Sir John Madejski's Sackville Developments is trying again with Station Hill in Reading, and this time taking a less intensive approach to the development. Whilst the main office building has become moderately taller, the height of largest residential building has been reduced; but the real changes have come in the improved amount of space for the public realm, and in particular the links that it has to Friar Street with a central plaza at its heart and new links straight to the nearby train station...more

It’s thrilling to see so many new constructions striving to be as eco-conscious as they possibly can, but beware. What looks green on the surface of things can belie another story entirely when you dig a little deeper. Here we reveal what we believe to be the most ridiculous cases of architectural greenwashing we’ve seen so far...more
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By extending an existing canal system, the Yinzhou Fantasy Island Master Plan, developed by DeStefano and Partners will create a new retail hub in the heart of Ningbo, China. Unique to the Ningbo region with its pedestrian friendly boulevards and proximity to mass transit systems, the development will feature entertainment, retail and cultural venues supported by mixed-use neighborhoods to the North, East and West...more

One of Kuala Lumpur's famous landmarks is set to be transformed into a world class, mixed-use complex which will include a brand new 39 story environmentally friendly office tower.  The project, which is located 500 meters from the world famous Petronas Twin Towers, will be known as The Intermark, a suitably sci-fi moniker that sounds like some sort of galaxy boundary about to be crossed by the starship Enterprise...more

Portland's distinctive skyline has a dramatic addition.  The graceful blades of four 45-foot-tall wind turbines are spinning above the glossy new Twelve West Building, one of a handful of urban high-rises nationally that capture wind for electricity. The project, built downtown at Southwest 12th Avenue and Washington Street by sustainability leader Gerding Edlen Development Co., already has piqued international interest...more

Despite the worlds cash-flow problems the Turkish city of Istanbul appears to undergoing a flurry of activity with preparation work underway for another 45 storey tower despite the final design having yet been chosen.  Four proposals have been put forward to the project named the Agaoglu Residential Tower all penned by local architectural firm Camoglu.  The first tower has a cylindrical glazed central core with two petal shaped fins running up either side...more

Construction workers have begun to install the first of 24 giant steel columns at the site of One World Trade Center, formerly known as the Freedom Tower. The perimeter columns — each about 60 feet long and weighing about 70 tons — will allow the initial floors of the tower to be built out.  The columns, the largest yet at the site, were manufactured by ArcelorMittal in Luxembourg and shipped for fabrication in two plants...more

While several of the finalists in our ReBurbia design competition tended towards the surreal, a few futuristic entries took an approach that was downright dystopian. In Radial Erect-Urbia Michael Hughes and Damon Wake envision a future where the suburbs are besieged by 3,000 foot-tall mobile crane towers. Once the massive mechanizations have toddled into place they drill deep into the earth’s crust and unfurl their tripod legs out in a 2,000 foot radius...more

Will Alsop announced he is to leave his practice. Here, as part of a retrospective of his projects, is the AJ’s 5 October, 2006 coverage of Alsop & Stormer’s Palestra: Will Alsop first set up practice in 1961 with fellow Architectural Association graduate John Lyall.  In 2000 he formed Aslop Architects and in the same year won the RIBA Sterling Prize for Peckham Library.  This year the practice, which now has offices in London, Singapore, Toronto...more

Preparation work started for a project to be located in the Turkish city of Istanbul. The project is being built to be the new headquarters for the Soyak Corporation and will be named the Soyak Plaza with its main centre-piece, a 160 metre tower.  The tower is the work of New York based architects Pei Cobb Freed and Partners. When viewed from the front rises from a square shaped base with an off set podium section...more

Developers of the multi-million dollar Midtown Gainesville City Center complex won a street abandonment approval from the Planning and Appeals Board, but construction has not started.  Planning and Appeals granted City Center's request to abandon part of Bradford Street and Green Street at the development site.  City Center's representative, attorney Julius Hulsey, said right now the project is on hold...more

Half a mile across the River Thames from where bankers tally job losses in London’s financial district, builders sink girders to lay the foundations of what will be western Europe’s tallest skyscraper.  “The Shard,” funded by four Qatar-based companies, is due to be completed in 2012. The 1,016-foot (310-meter), 430 million-pound ($730 million) tower also will be the most prominent symbol yet of how money from the Middle East is filling the void...more

Songdo City, near Incheon 40 miles and about an hour’s drive outside Seoul, already is filling up, and it isn't even fully built yet.  When the first residential condos in the new International Business Zone developed by Gale International and masterplanned by Kohn Pederson Fox went on the market, they sold out in a day, or so say the architects.  KPF has had an unusual opportunity to plan a new city from the ground up, literally...more

The luxury 372,000m² development – designed by RMJM’s New York and Istanbul studios - is located in the Atasehir district of Istanbul which the Turkish government intends to transform into the country’s new financial district and business centre.  Set on a site that features panoramic views stretching from the Bosphorus Strait in the west to the Princes’ Islands and the Sea of Marmara to the south...more

The W Austin Hotel & Residences project downtown, which is the planned future home for Austin City Limits tapings, needs new financing. Corus Bank was signed up to provide a $165 million construction loan, but has been hit hard by the economic downturn and assigned the loan to a subsidiary of the developer, Stratus Properties, in exchange for a $250,000 reduction in the outstanding balance...more

Delays in the deadly task of taking down the Deutsche Bank tower at Ground Zero have driven up the cost of rebuilding the World Trade Center by an estimated $100 million. The former 42-story bank tower, heavily damaged by the toppled Twin Towers on 9/11 and filled with toxins, will take nearly three years longer than originally planned to clean and remove. It's now slated to be done sometime in spring 2010...more

Barcelona’s new law courts complex breaks down the 240,000 square metre programme into nine buildings, four of which are linked by a continuous four-storey high concourse building. The project includes the design of all public, courtroom, and office interiors. The first of the buildings was completed in September 2007.  Before this project, the various legal departments of the governments of Barcelona and l’Hospitalet were scattered...more

The 2009 Streeterville Organization of Active Residents (SOAR) BLUEPRINTs event will honor Adrian Smith with the Vision Into Reality award sponsored by First American Bank, for his contributions to Chicago ’s skyline and his imprint on the global stage of performance-based architecture. Models of ‘1 Dubai ’ and other buildings will be on display at the event, and guests will have an opportunity to meet the architect and bid on some of his drawings during a live auction...more

More proposals have been put forward for a new supertall to help make Chongqing the densest central business district in the world.  The plans come from the not at all insane architects at MAD who notably designed the Sino Steel Tower which looked like a speaker stack. This time they have come up with three designs for a 400+ metre tall tower which will be located close to the city's financial district.  The designs are widely varying in appearance...more

Non-confrontational yet forceful in its design, Pickard Chilton has designed a new lasting landmark for Chicago's skyline in 300 North LaSalle.  At 1.3 million gross sq ft and almost 60 stories high, the tower is a gentle giant and merges into its surrounding high-rise scape with ease retaining a classic outline and sympathetic detailing.  Housing nearly 60 floors of offices and several restaurants and retail outlets...more

Morphosis displays their proposal for the Four Towers in One Competition.  The competition (which Steven Holl Architects ultimately won) asked participants to design an office tower complex for the new Shenzhen Stock Exchange Headquarters in the Futian commercial business district.  The area was in need of a unified urban plan that would include the Headquarters for the new office towers of Shenzhen Media Group...more

Los Faros de Panama, or the Lighthouse of Panama, is an extraordinary mixed-use development offering residential, commercial, leisure and entertainment space in a growth area of Panama City. The scheme comprises three skyscrapers; the central tower standing at 346m, making it one of the tallest residential buildings in the world...more
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ASLA created a new online resource guide on sustainable urban development. The guide contains lists of organizations, research, concepts and projects related to sustainable urban development, and includes sections on: tools for fighting sprawl, sustainable zoning, the reuse of brownfields, investment in open spaces, and sustainable urban design. Developed for students and professionals, the resource guide contains recent reports and projects...more

The twin towers of Callison’s Grand Gateway building are unquestionably the defining landmark of Xuhui. The international architecture firm has created other Shanghai milestones, such as the Bank of China building (Pudong’s first skyscraper) and Nanjing Lu’s Hongyi Plaza (then Asia’s tallest LED screen), but Grand Gateway epitomizes what the Seattle-headquartered architects are all about – designing great retail spaces that draw crowds...more

The long awaited Kuwait Trade Centre, Kuwait City, which was due to be completed in 2007, has finally reached topped out status and, in August 2009, is near complete. The tower, which is the work of architectural firm Norr Limited, stands at 218 metres tall. The project is being built by the Commercial Real Estate Company and has an estimated price tag of $62 million showing just how cheaply you can build a skyscraper in the Middle East compared to western Europe...more

The Four Towers in One Competition asked participants to design an office tower complex for the new Shenzhen Stock Exchange Headquarters in the Futian commercial business district. For Morphosis’ proposal, rather than creating various disconnected vertical skyscrapers, the project aims to create one “cohesive, interwoven district.” By conceiving the sites as 3-dimensional envelopes rather than flat 2-dimensional footprints, the buildings can be interwoven to “facilitate a network of interlocking forms reminiscent of the venerated Chinese puzzle.”...more

Construction of two Atkins-designed high rise towers set for Wuhan, China is ebbing closer as the designs are awarded local government planning approval. Facing the main route to the city centre from the Airport and the main railway station, the two towers are expected to provide an 'important landmark for the gateway into the city', according to Martin Jochman, leading the design team for Atkins China. A 200m five-star hotel will sit next to a 150m apartment building, located above four floors of shops, conference centres and a cinema complex...more

It's three times lucky for architecture firm Make who have secured planning permission for their twin tower scheme overlooking Trafalgar Way near London's Docklands. The scheme is being developed to stand on a McDonalds drive-in with the burger chain occupying the ground floor and the 35- and 29-storey residential towers rising above it to a maximum height of just over 120 metres. The design of the scheme is notable for the stainless steel cladding and the melted effect that the architect has planned between the two towers...more

Martha Stewart likely never dreamed her commuting-to-work routine would inspire a way of living. But the developer of a 19-story residential building nearing completion in Manhattan modeled its 15 “sky” garages after Stewart’s habit of driving her vehicle straight into the freight elevator and up to her office. The paparazzi-proof residential building takes the privacy and parking ease of a gated community from the burbs to the “urbs”. It is said to be the first high-rise in the U.S. to provide individual parking “rooms,” one outside each of the tower’s duplexes...more

The Jakarta Provincial Government is targeting the construction of 2,000 high rise apartments in 2009. “They will be located at seven places,” said Agus Soebardono, head of the Jakarta Regional Housing Office. As of August 2009, the government has built 10,000 apartments at 13 high rise blocks, such as Elok in East Jakarta, Tipar Cakung in Marunda, and Pegadungan in Pulogebang...more

John R. Hall, Jr., the NFPA assistant vice president for fire analysis and research, has released a study about high-rise building fires. The report details overall statistics, analysis, and includes a discussion of risk in high-rise fires. Between 2003 and 2006, an average of 13,400 high-rise fires/year took place, according to the NFPA. The risks of fire, fire death, and direct property damage due to fire tend to be lower in high-rise buildings than in other buildings with the same property use...more

Little Diversified Architectural Consulting’s project was named one of the finalists in the Re:Vision Dallas international design competition, in which participants were asked to transform a parking lot spanning one square block into one of the world’s most sophisticated models for sustainable urban development. Little conceived their plan for the mixed-used development based on Darwin’s “Entangled Bank” theory, in which a complex network is made up from simple elements. The community was designed to be completely self-reliant...more

Emaar, the developer, has maintained tight secrecy about the Burj’s opening date, but a senior architect working on the project has confirmed to Arabian Business that 2 December 2009 has been set aside for the opening. ‘This will be a huge achievement and a big celebration for the UAE and for Emaar, particularly as it’s UAE National Day. It will be the first time the public can enter the building,’ said the architect. More than 1,000 specially commissioned pieces of art will be displayed inside the building...more

The Port Authority and the developer Larry A. Silverstein took one step closer to a standstill at ground zero, after Mr. Silverstein essentially rejected proposals from the governor for resolving the impasse over building office towers on the 16-acre site. Silverstein said that proposals by Gov. David Paterson were unlikely to lead to building two of three skyscrapers planned for the World Trade Center site. Work is progressing on the first of Mr. Silverstein’s office towers. But he and the Port Authority have been at odds over how to pay for the other towers...more

The Hunter’s Point Shipyard in San Francisco is a former naval shipyard filled with radiation and industrial toxins. It’s so dangerous that the U.S. Environmental Agency has designated it as one of the most polluted sites in the nation. But instead of letting the site fester, San Francisco has just announced plans to rid the shipyard of its toxins and build the U.N. Global Compact Center, a world class climate change think tank and green tech incubator. Due for competition in 2012, the new development will comprise over two million square feed of LEED-certified space....more

In what's a perfect example of the rise and fall of the property market, Velocity Estates has once again changed their plans for their half-finished project in Sheffield. This time they are applying for planning permission for an 18-storey towerette next door to the main private 22-storey tower that will be used as student accommodation. As before, the second part of the project will be linked to the main tower by a 5-storey wing. It's a far cry from the bullish outlook of 2008...more

A New Jersey fire captain bought into the dream of living in a posh high rise with sleek furniture and a marble floor in Fort Myers. He and his family plunked down their $10,000 down payment for their condo in 2005. But they weren't counting on being the only tenants in a 32-story high-rise. That dream has turned into somewhat of a nightmare. While not having tenants might sound like a dream for condo dwellers who are often at odds with their condo associations, the other extreme is nothing to brag about...more

In feverish times, grand plans were announced for some 75 high-rise towers that would deliver 47,500 luxury condominium units to a market saturated with single-family stucco homes in sprawling suburbs. This is what Las Vegas needs and wants, developers from New York and Florida confidently proclaimed as they unveiled slick architectural renderings of glamorous buildings and promoted lifestyle amenities to match...more

MVDRV is an (post)modern architectural and urban design firm well-known for their surrealistic interpretations of city living and fantastic visions for the future of urban design, but few of their conceptual designs see the bright light of day – or the cool layered lights of night, as shown in their winning design for a new city center in Korea. The mixed use set of mounded towers are at once clearly artificial but also layered with organic material...more

Goettsch Partners (GP) has been selected as the winning firm in the competition to design the Soochow Securities Headquarters, the new office and stock exchange building for Soochow Securities Co. Ltd. The 21-story, 441,300-square-foot project includes 344,400 square feet of office space, an 86,100-square-foot stock exchange, meeting rooms, classrooms, a cafeteria, and underground parking for 400 cars and 800 bicycles...more

An exhibition of drawings and collages created for Blueprint magazine’s Paper City feature, including work by architect Peter Cook and architect and artist James Wines, opens at the Royal Academy of Arts in London on July 31, 2009.  Contributors to the feature are asked to articulate their ideas about the city; the size of the page is the only constraint.  Alongside original artworks, around 40 designs are presented as a series of printed, paper pads...more

The 63 Building in Yeouido, overlooking the Han River in southern Seoul, for decades has stood as the country's tallest structure. One of the city's main sites of attractions, the gold-tinted skyscraper holds symbolic status, but it won't be long till the landmark tower is pushed to give up its throne.  More than half a dozen super tall buildings will shoot up beyond Seoul's current skyline, slowly chipping away the iconic status of the 24-year-old attraction...more

The Re: Vision Dallas competition named three winners, two of which were featured on AD (DB + P and Atelier Data + Moov).  The third winner is Little, a studio based in North Carolina, with their Entangled Bank proposal. “Entangled Bank combines heavy duty technological prowess with artistic integration of systems. The building is designed as a holistic, integrated design…The Entangled Bank entry materials was incredibly impressive...more

At-risk teenagers staying in Covenant House, a homeless shelter in New York City, have set about cultivating green roofs on skyscrapers around the city. Their goal is to create a citywide "skyscraper garden" across Manhattan.  The teens completed the first stage of the project, done in collaboration with Seeding the City--planting a green roof on the ninth story of a building in midtown Manhattan...more

The ecoFLEX project, designed by a team from Shepley Bulfinch, has won a prestigious 2009 Unbuilt Architecture Design Award from the Boston Society of Architects.  The winning project was one of ten entries chosen from more than 90 submissions in the BSA's Unbuilt Architecture Design Awards program, which is open to architects from around the world. It was designed for the Tall Emblem Structure competition in Dubai earlier this year...more

The Commission of Architecture and Built Environment has given some enthusiastic support to Make Architects with regards to their plans for a new 149 metre tall residential tower in London's Vauxhall.  The Vauxhall Bondway Tower features a distinctive cascading zig-zag as it rises to its 149.5 metre tall pinnacle with 400 apartments inside for developer London & Regional. No one knows whether this is inspired by the completed CIMB Bank Tower in Kuala Lumpur...more

The Rezidor Hotel group is to open a Radisson Royal Hotel in one of Moscow’s most famous landmark buildings, Hotel Ukraina, one of seven Soviet skyscrapers that dot the city skyline based on ideas of then-dictator Josef Stalin and built in Soviet neo-classicism architectural style between 1949 and 1957.  Rezidor’s new flagship is one of the city’s most famous landmarks. Undergoing extensive renovation, the new Radisson Royal will feature 507 guest rooms...more

Construction on more than 10 percent of 1,306 planned skyscrapers was on hold at the end of June 2009, and there were 11 percent fewer such projects under way compared with January 2009.  Mega-projects -- skyscrapers at least 100 meters (328 feet) tall -- have joined the residential housing market in recession.  There were 1,165 skyscrapers under construction around the world in June 2009, down from 1,307 in December 2008. ...more

Construction work on Burj Dubai is nearing completion as the final cladding slab is to be placed in August 2009. The tower consists of 24,348 glass, aluminium and steel panels.  Arabian Aluminium Company – a member of Al Ghurair Construction Industries, started work on the exterior cladding of Burj Dubai in April 2007 and is now entering the final phase with the manufacture of the six-metre long last panel for the tower...more

A new tower planned for San Jose, Costa Rica will be situated in front of Sabana Park, which many consider to be the cities new central park, an area that is undergoing constant improvement and development.  Standing at approximately 25 storeys high and 91 metres, the tower is the work of Spanish architects MOHO and is hoped by designers and city planners alike to provide a new benchmark for future projects within the city...more

Proposals have been put forward for a massive new project to be located in Kuala Lumpur's inner city on a site formerly known as Pekeliling Flats which is being demolished.  Sited at the crossroads of Jalan Tun Razak, Jalan Pahang and the Gombak River, the project which comes from the drawing boards of Malaysian architects Goh Hock Guan and Associates and will cover a massive 22.3 hectares and will have a price tag of RM 9 billion...more

The cocked-hat silhouette of Bank of America Corp.’s new Manhattan skyscraper pokes a few stories higher than its Times Square neighbors, a testament to the aspirations of the Charlotte, North Carolina, bank when the design was unveiled in 2004.  The building was touted as costing $1 billion in 2004, and the bank has declined to update the figure. After the 64 percent slump in the bank’s shares since September...more

Luxury loving dog owners seeking a new abode that offers pet friendly amenities definitely need to visit the Austonian in Austin, Tex. The Austonian is a 56-story condominium development that is being developed by Grupor Villar Mir. A completely pet friendly luxury high-rise, it offers its dog loving prospective buyers an outdoor pet park, a pet grooming area and a staff of personal assistants available around the clock...more.

Designed by Alsatian-born engineer Louis Aloys Risse, the Grand Concourse in the Bronx was modeled after the Champs-Élysées in Paris, and boasts one of the highest concentrations of art deco architecture in the world. But not all of the great boulevard’s five miles are so distinguished. Along the southern tip, stretching from 150th Street to the Harlem River, gas stations, auto body shops, and disused lofts predominate, remnants from the area’s industrial past...more.

Italy’s Milano Fiera trade fair facility announced that it will be getting a major eco update in the form of the world’s largest solar rooftop solar array! The massive photovoltaic system will cover 2.9 million sq ft of the roof, and carry a peak capacity of 18 megawatts. Due for completion in 2010, the project stands to snag the world title from Zaragoza, Spain’s General Motor’s factory, which currently holds the record for largest rooftop solar plant at 12 megawatts...more.

The Civil Aviation Ministry and the Airport Authority of India have trimmed down the height restrictions for constructions around our airports. This allows for buildings to sprout higher into the skies above our cities, almost double to what was permitted.  The city of Kerala is expected to make use of this waive in the existing law. Kerala has been the only state outside the megapolis Mumbai, and to a lesser extent Gurgaon, to embrace the highrise culture...more.

Six development company executives were detained and four officials were penalized for the collapse of a Shanghai apartment building in June 2009, local authorities said.  A nearly-completed 13-story building toppled over on June 27 in Shanghai, killing one worker and raising concerns over construction standards.  Six managers, including Zhang Zhiqin, legal representative of Meidu Real Estate Company, and Zhang Yaojie...more.

Dezeen are giving readers the chance to win five signed copies of EcoMasterplanning, a new book by architect and urban planner Ken Yeang, published by John Wiley & Sons.  The book outlines approaches to planning based on environmental principles including ecology, sustainable utilities engineering, water management and human communities.  EcoMasterplanning includes over 30 plans produced by Yeang’s UK-based practice Llewelyn Davies Yeang and its sister company...more.

Buildings that represent social groups, religions or specific moments in human history should be from a typological point of view -and not only aesthetical- different from already defined typologies which are functionally concrete and abstract, like seen in banks and large corporation office towers that are populating the skyline of every important city today.  These buildings should be capable of becoming global and international icons...more.

Preparation work is underway on what will be the Chinese city of Chongqing's tallest skyscraper project - unless it gets trumped by its main rival.  After three years of being embroiled in a race with the ASE Center over which project would claim the tallest title, its a design penned by architectural firm Kohn, Pederson Fox which has managed to snatch the hard fought for crown...more.

Work is underway on construction of a new mixed-use project in Abu Dhabi, one of the tallest buildings under construction in the area.  Named Nation Towers, the two towered project will be located on a prime waterfront plot on Abu Dhabi's Corniche and comes from the pens of architects WMZH who won an international design contest with their plans.  Standing at 65 storeys and 52 storeys, the towers form takes inspiration from the waves and sand...more.

When Century City was built in the 1960s, it was a stab at urbanism amid Southern California’s sprawl. A 176-acre enclave in West Los Angeles, the development resembled the New York World’s Fair of 1964-65, with its futuristic buildings and its parklike setting.  At its heart was the Century Plaza Hotel, a 19-story building designed by Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed the World Trade Center towers in New York...more.

Once again redevelopment of the World Trade Center site is looking more like an epic struggle in a Greek tragedy. Even those characters who may be aware of their fate are locked into the logic of the post-9/11 hubris and are forced to play along as the saga reaches its ultimate consequences. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent attempt to fix things could have been the miraculous deus ex machina of Greek tragedy...more.

Adding to what is well on its way towards becoming the leading skyscraper cluster in Europe by a New York mile is this new planning proposal by BUJ Architects for a hundred meter plus building overlooking Marsh Wall.  The site is next to other planned towers on Cuba Street and the under construction Landmark Towers and will see the erection of a 305 bedroom, 39 floor boutique hotel of approximately 127 metres in height marking a modest step down...more.