World's Largest Building

The New Century Global Center officially opens in China — The building is so large it is capable housing 20 Sydney Opera Houses and is almost three times the size of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The numbers are little short of staggering; at 500 metres long, 400 metres wide and 100 metres high a 1.76-million-square-metre-mega-building has been opened in Sichuan province in southwestern China.

The New Century Global Center, officially the largest freestanding building in the world, took three years to complete and will house offices, shopping malls, a Mediterranean village, a 14-screen IMAX Cineplex and an ice-skating rink large enough to hold international skating competitions.

The building is so large it is capable of housing the equivalent of 20 Sydney Opera Houses and is almost three times the size of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.  At the centre of the building is a huge water park called Paradise Island. Around 400,000 square metres of the building are dedicated to shopping. 06 more images after the break...

Top 10 World Most Expensive House Building

This time we are going to tell you about the Top 10 List of most expensive house building in the world. In the same time, we ensure you that, you that our Top 10 List is also informative with exact information.

10. Dracula’s Castle, Romania

Dracula’s Castle in the 10th place. It has 57 rooms in total, including 17 bedrooms filled with antiques and historical artifacts. It wouldn’t do for the publicly shy Ira Rennet mentioned above, but for the quirkier billionaire, the 450 million tourists that visit every year may be worth it for living in Dracula’s castle.

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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 government at 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...