The 284-strong shortlist of projects competing for prizes at this year's World Architectural festival Awards (WAF) announced. The festival - which is now in its fourth year - will take place on November in Barcelona, reported architectsjournal.co.uk. Representing 59 different countries, the shortlist was selected from a record-breaking number of entries (704 application) to the international awards which celebrate excellence in global architectural design. The finalists include a theatre made of straw in Estonia, a soccer school in Soweto, a tree hotel in Sweden, a bamboo office in India and a moving gallery in New York. The Architectural festival will take place from 2 to 4 November. The WAF jury, headed by Michael Sorkin who is the principal of Micheal Sorkin Studio New York, will cast their vote at the festival's finale to decide which of the 284 shortlisted projects is crowned World Building of the Year 2011. The founder of UNStudio Ben Van Berkel, director of Noero Wolf Architects Jo Noero and the director of Turenscape Konjan Yu also represented in jury.

Barcelona, one of the most beautiful cities in the world where lived and worked a great Catalonian architect Gaudi, won another prize for building's architecture. Prestigious architectural award Emporis Skyscraper Award 2010 won the Hotel Porta Fira in Barcelona. The building is a creative concept of two architecture companies, the Japanese Toyo Ito & Associates and b720 Fermin Vazquez Arquitectos, conceptualised the surreal structure. The second award went to the highest building in the world Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the third presented to the Tower Tour CMA CGM in the south of France, in Marseille. The jury, which includes experts from around the world, valued the building's aesthetics and integration into its urban environment over humankind's fascination with building the tallest structure. The winner was chosen from over 300 competing skyscrapers around the world. A committee annually presents this award to an exceptional building at least 100 meters tall completed within the award year. Five star Porta Fira Hotel contorts to a height of 113 meters, with 26 floors, on the outskirts of Barcelona in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. The facade of red aluminium tubes form continuous lines enclosing the complex geometry of the building, which twists and increases in size as it rises. By results of another 2010 award conducted by the CTBUH (Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat) the first prize for 2010 best skyscraper was awarded to Broadcasting Place, Leeds, or as it is called "Rusty High rise", and the Dubai's giant Burj Khalifa won another prize from the CTBUH-2010 Global Icon Award.

As reported Bahia Fenicia Residencial S.L, it is expected that the construction of the first seven-star hotel in Spain will begin in the end of 2011, when all necessary formalities are settled. Bahia Fenicia will be built at the resort of Almunecar Costa Tropical Spain, in the province of Granada, on the coast of the Costa Tropical resort. It's to be conducted in three phases, with phase I - the hotel and 50 private apartments - due for completion in 2013. Almunecar Town Hall said Phases II and III will be under construction in 2014 and 2015 respectively. According to Ria Novosti, for the construction of the hotel authorities of the Spanish coast have allocated 13.3 thousand square meters of land. It will be designed for 200 rooms with a total area of 32 thousand square meters. A new ambitious project will be realized by the Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts hotel chain. The project cost is estimated at 230 million Euros. As expected, the hotel's construction will create on the Costa Tropical 600 new jobs. The hotel Bahia Fenicia will be one of the few seven-star hotels in the world. The first seven-star hotel in the world is Dubai's famous hotel Burj Al Arab. Seven-star hotels of the world are Seven Stars Resort on the Caribbean islands, the Milan Town House Galleria, Morgan Plaza Beijing and Flor de Oriente in Iran. There are plans to build seven-star hotels in Istanbul, Islamabad and in the Peruvian Sacred Valley of the Incas.

The official opening of Niemeyer Center (Centro Niemeyer) was held this week in Aviles, (Asturias, Spain). That ambitious cultural project was carried out by legendary and brilliant Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer (he was born in December 15, 1907). The first stone was laid 4 years ago, in April 2007. This unusual structure with spiral staircase consists of a three-storey dome-shaped museum, an auditorium for 1000 spectators, almost 4.000 square meter open-plan exhibition site and a viewing tower over the estuary and the city panoramic view. This cultural complex will also contain a multi-use building with rehearsal areas, conference and meeting halls, cinema house and an open square to hold entertainment and cultural activities. The Niemeyer Center is the only creature by Oscar Niemeyer in Spain. The first sketches, drawn with a thick black marker, later where transformed into an ambitious cultural master plan and in his own words, it's the one he most loves of all he has done outside of Brazil: "I am making such a unique work for my first time, and it represents one of the highest points of my ongoing effort to transform architecture into a piece of art". According to the author, the center opens the doors to culture in of all its directions and forms, traditions and styles; music, theater, cinema, indoor and outdoor exhibitions, conferences and educational programs. Oscar Niemeyer is one of the founders of the of modern Brazilian architecture school, a pioneer in exploring the formal possibilities of reinforced concrete solely for their aesthetic impact. Niemeyer architecture is distinguished by plasticity, expressiveness and warmth. As he said: "It is not the right angle that attracts me, nor the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. What attracts me is the free and sensual curve - the curve that I find in the mountains of my country, sinuous course of its rivers, in the body of the beloved woman."