Description:

Location: Shanghai (China)
Constructed: 1997 – 2008
Height: 492
Use: Office, hotel, museum, observation, parking garage, retail
Floor count: 101
Architect: Kohn Pedersen Fox

Burj Dubai

Description:

The tallest skyscraper has been unveiled to the world. After years of construction the well known Burj Dubai now called Burj Khalifa has been completed leaving far behind Taipei 101.
Burj Khalifa | World’s Tallest Structure | DUBAI | 828m | 2716.5ft | 162 floors
Use: hotel, restaurants and offices
Architect: SOM
Developer: Emaar

Burj Al Arab Hotel

Description:

Briefly marketed as "the world's first seven-star hotel," the Burj Al Arab is 1,053 feet high and is the world's tallest hotel.
Standing on an artificial island 280 meters from Jumeirah beach, it is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge. It was built to resemble the sail of a dhow, a type of Arabian vessel. The hotel was completed in 1999.

The World Project

Description:

These 300 islands, positioned to form the shape of a world map, are currently being constructed 4 kilometers offshore from Dubai in Gulf waters. 'The World' is being built primarily using sand dredged from the sea.
Prices for the islands will range from $15 million to $45 million. The project is scheduled to be completed by next year.

The ACROS Fukuoka

Description:

In Fukuoka City in Japan, they have an amazing building called “ACROS Fukuoka” with two very distinct sides: one side looks like a conventional office building with glass walls, but on the other side there is a huge terraced roof that merges with a park. The garden terraces, which reach up to about 60 meters above the ground, contain some 35,000 plants representing 76 species. A huge semicircular atrium and the triangular lobby provide contrast to the greenery, in this space is a symphony hall, offices and shops.

Hang Nga Guesthouse

Description:

The house is owned by the daughter of the ex-president of Vietnam, who studied architecture in Moscow.
It does not comply with any convention about house building, has unexpected twists and turns, roofs and rooms. It looks like a fairy tale castle, it has enormous “animals” like a giraffe and a spider, no window is rectangular or round, and it can be visited like a museum.

Cubic Houses

Description:

The original idea of these cubic houses came about in the 1970s. Piet Blom has developed a couple of these cubic houses that were built in Helmond.
The city of Rotterdam(Netherlands) asked him to design housing on top of a pedestrian bridge and he decided to use the cubic houses idea. The concept behind these houses is that he tries to create a forest by each cube representing an abstract tree; therefore the whole village becomes a forest.

Habitat 67

Description:

Expo 67, one of the world’s largest universal expositions was held in Montreal. Housing was one of the main themes of Expo 67.
The cube is the base, the mean and the finality of Habitat 67. In its material sense, the cube is a symbol of stability. As for its mystic meaning, the cube is symbol of wisdom, truth, moral perfection, at the origin itself of our civilization.
354 cubes of a magnificent grey-beige build up one on the other to form 146 residences nestled between sky and earth, between city and river, between greenery and light.

Kansas City Public Library

Description:

This project, located in the heart of Kansas City(Missouri, United States), represents one of the pioneer projects behind the revitalization of downtown.
The people of Kansas City were asked to help pick highly influential books that represent Kansas City. Those titles were included as ‘bookbindings’ in the innovative design of the parking garage exterior, to inspire people to utilize the downtown Central Library.

The Basket Building

Description:

The Longaberger Basket Company building in New Yark, Ohio might just be a strangest office building in the world. The 180,000-square-foot building, a replica of the company’s famous market basket, cost $30 million and took two years to complete. Many experts tried to persuade Dave Longaberger to alter his plans, but he wanted an exact replica of the real thing.

Forest Spiral

Description:

Construction started on: 1998
Construction finished on: 2000
Located At: Darmstadt, Germany
Architecture: FriedensreichHundertwasser(Austrian architect)
Specification: The structure with 105 apartments wraps around a landscaped courtyard with a running stream. Up in the turret at the southeast corner, there is a restaurant, including a cocktail bar.

The Crooked House

Description:

Construction started on: January 2003
Construction finished on: December 2003
Located At: Sopot, Poland
House Architecture: Jan Marcin Szancer (famous Polish artist and child books illustrator) and Per Dahlberg (Swedish painter living in Sopot)