Fake Mountain Villa on Top of Chinese Building

A university professor in Beijing Zhang Lin has built a mountain villa of dreams on the roof of a typical high-rise building without the permission of the Chinese authorities. Local media sources including South China Morning Post have reported that the man spent six years creating the structure using fake rocks but real trees and grass.The artificial landscape covers the entire 1000-square-meter roof of the tower, but local urban management officials have told the owner the structure is illegal and issued him with an ultimatum to prove it was built with proper government permission or dismantle it within 15 days. 09 more images after the break...

Dubai’s Lost Projects

As a change of pace from our usual Top Ten World Architecture series, we thought we’d celebrate the schemes that have fallen victim to the Credit Crunch and have either been put on hold or cancelled completely – and where better than Dubai, one of the fastest expanding cities in the world and home to the current tallest building in the world. Sadly, Dubai wasn’t immune to the worldwide recession, with the recession t one stage having to rely on bailouts from Abu Dhabi to avoid defaulting on loans, and many of its more extreme projects were shelved due to financial restraints and lack of investment. We take a look at the best – and strangest – projects that are currently on hold or sadly may never be.

01. IRIS CRYSTAL TOWER

The Iris Crystal – Left render from Iris; central and right render from Aedas

Featuring a sinuous twist to a luxury commercial tower, The Iris Crystal was designed by Aedas as an eye-catching structure that took inspiration from its location at the head of an artificial bay and based its form on cascading water. The striking double skin exterior, made up of an inner façade of glazing protected by an outer solar screen, reminiscent of Arabic sun screens, was designed to protect the tower from solar gain. The tower was to be built in the Business Bay section of Dubai – a brand new ‘city within a city’ concept that was to be developed between 2008 and 2012-15. Many projects in this area have suffered from financial difficulties of some sort, and the Iris Crystal is no exception. Despite selling 60% of the available let space by June 2008, the tower has suffered massive delays, with no superstructure in place as yet and no official announcement as to when construction will begin again. 09 more after the break...

Fake Mountain Villa on Top of Chinese Building

A university professor in Beijing Zhang Lin has built a mountain villa of dreams on the roof of a typical high-rise building without the permission of the Chinese authorities. Local media sources including South China Morning Post have reported that the man spent six years creating the structure using fake rocks but real trees and grass.The artificial landscape covers the entire 1000-square-meter roof of the tower, but local urban management officials have told the owner the structure is illegal and issued him with an ultimatum to prove it was built with proper government permission or dismantle it within 15 days. 09 more images after the break...

Bahrain World Trade Center

Bahrain World Trade Center

The Bahrain World Trade Center (also called Bahrain WTC or BWTC) is a 240 m (787 ft) high twin tower complex located in Manama, Bahrain. The towers were built in 2008 by the multi-national architectural firm Atkins. It is the first skyscraper in the world to integrate wind turbines into its design. The wind turbines were developed, built and installed by Danish company Norwin A/S. This 50-floor structure is constructed in close proximity to the King Faisal Highway, near popular landmarks such as the towers of BFH, NBB and Abraj Al Lulu. It currently ranks as the second tallest building in Bahrain, after the twin towers of the Bahrain Financial Harbour. The project has received several awards for sustainability, including;

• The 2006 LEAF Award for Best Use of Technology within a Large Scheme.
• The Arab Construction World for Sustainable Design Award.

Photo — Link

The two towers are linked via three skybridges, each holding a 225kW wind turbine, totalling to 675kW of wind power production. Each of these turbines measure 29 m (95 ft) in diameter, and is aligned north, which is the direction from which air from the Persian Gulf blows in. The sail-shaped buildings on either side are designed to funnel wind through the gap to provide accelerated wind passing through the turbines. This was confirmed by wind tunnel tests, which showed that the buildings create an S-shaped flow, ensuring that any wind coming within a 45° angle to either side of the central axis will create a wind stream that remains perpendicular to the turbines. This significantly increases their potential to generate electricity.....