Last week California's Governor Jerry Brown was joined by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar for the ground breaking ceremony of the world's largest solar thermal facility near Blythe, California, reported constructiondigital.com. Once construction is completed, the site will feature four solar thermal power plants with a total generating capacity of 1,000 megawatts of electricity. This would be enough energy to power 800,000 (corrected by construction.am according to the US Energy Department data) American homes using a clean, domestic source of fuel. Blythe Solar will cover about 7,025 acres of land. Governor Brown praised the solar power plant as a key step toward his goal of building a green economy of the future in California."We're going to be the world leader in solar energy," Brown said during the groundbreaking ceremony. Preparations for the facility have been underway since 2010, with early work already being done on the first two solar power plants that will be able to generate 242 megawatts of electricity. The first two plants are expected to be operational and connected to California's power grid by 2014. In April the Blythe solar project received a loan guarantee of $2.1 billion from the US Federal Financing Bank. The total projected cost of the project is expected to reach about $2.8 billion. The facility is being built by the Solar Trust of America and the Solar Millennium Group, two of the world's top producers of solar thermal technology. The Solar Millennium Group built the first operational parabolic trough power plants in Europe. Parabolic trough is the only type of solar technology that has been proven since the 1980s to be able to produce enough electricity for commercial use in large power plants.

According to site Constructiondigital, a 50-year, multibillion-euro concession contract between French railway infrastructure manager Reseau Ferre de France (RFF) and construction company Vinci set in motion the construction of one of the world's largest infrastructure projects launched in the past decade. This is France's biggest public-private partnership in the railway sector. The new South Europe Atlantic high-speed rail project is one of the largest the world has seen in a decade. The planned South Europe Atlantic high-speed rail (SEA HSR) will span about 188 miles and link the French cities of Tours and Bordeaux. Currently, travel between the cities takes about three hours and five minutes, but the new rail link will cut that time down to just over two hours. "Gaining an hour on the journey time will allow us to take a good slice of the current air travel market and carry four million extra passengers a year," said RFF Chief Executive Hubert du Mesnil. Construction on the SEA HSR will begin early next year and it is expected to take five years to complete production. It will include approximately 24 miles of connecting line to the conventional rail network. About 1,300 construction jobs and 150 permanent operation and maintenance jobs will be created for the project. Created in 1899 by French engineers Alexandre Giros and Louis Loucheur, Vinci has become the largest company in construction and related services worldwide. VINCI is the world leader in concessions and construction, employing close to 180,000 people in some 100 countries. Vinci and its predecessor companies has been involved in many major projects including the Gariep Dam completed in 1971, the Tour Montparnasse completed in 1972, the new visitor entrance to the Louvre completed in 1989, the Channel Tunnel completed in 1994, the Stade de France completed in 1998 and the Rio-Antirio bridge, completed in 2004.

According to ctbuh.org, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat announced the winners of its annual "Best Tall Building" awards for 2011. This year's winners will be recognized, and the awards conferred, at the CTBUH 10th Annual Awards Ceremony on October 27. All the winning projects and finalists will be celebrated at this gala event. Additionally, from the four regional best tall building winners, one overall winner will be selected and bestowed with the "Best Tall Building Worldwide" award, to be announced on the night. This year are awarded to: "New York by Gehry" at Eight Spruce Street, New York (Americas); Guangzhou International Finance Center, Guangzhou (Asia & Australasia); KfW Westarkade, Frankfurt (Europe); and The Index, Dubai (Middle East & Africa). These buildings were selected for their design and technical innovations, sustainable attributes, and the enhancement of both cities and the lives of their inhabitants. Developer of winner in region America "New York by Gehry" is Forest City Ratner Companies. 76 - storey and 265 meters high building's architectural design is belonged to Genry Architects New York. With 102 thousand square meters total area, this building is completed in April 2011. Total budget of this residential tower was US$ 174 million. Developer of Guangzhou International Finance Center is Yue Xiu Group, and architectural design is belonged to Wilkinsone Eyre Architects. With 250 thousand square meters total area 103-storey and 440 meters high world's ninth tall building was completed on 2010. Main contractors of project were China State Construction Engineering Corporation LTD and Guangzhou Municipal Construction Group CO LTD. Total budget of Wilkinson Eyre's first high-rise tower was nearly US$ 410 million. KfW Westarkade is Europe region winner. Developer of 14 - storey, 56 meters tall building is KFW Bankengruppe. Construction of tower completed in May 2010. Architectural design is belonged to Sauerbruch Hutton. Middle East & Africa region winner 80-storey, 326 meters high Index Tower was designed by Foster+Partners architectural company, and main contractor was Brookfield Multiplex. The developer of 170 thousand square meters residential/office tower is Union Properties. Construction works were completed in March 2011. You can read about "Best Tall Building 2010" here.

According to Daily Mail, the most expensive country house in the UK has gone up for sale for US$ 122 million. Updown Court has 103 rooms, five swimming pools, two penthouse apartments and a helipad. It stands in 234,7 thousand square meters of grounds. The enigmatic owner behind Updown is bricklayer's son-turned-property developer supremo Leslie Allen-Vercoe, 67. His company Rhymer Investments purchased it in 2002 out of receivership for US$ 32.8 million - and has since spent at least US$ 49 billion on renovation work. Now, an Irish bank has requested a drive to sell the mansion with a new price tag which reflects the vast sums ploughed into it. The neo-classical California-style mansion was built in 2002 on the site of an earlier property which was owned during the 1970s by Prince Sami Gayed of Egypt. The original Updown Court was built in 1924 and had been left as a shell after it had been damaged by fire in the Great Storm of 1987 - when a tree apparently fell and ruptured the gas main. It was subsequently acquired by two investors who themselves were bankrupted and Mr Vercoe then stepped in. The house, which has 24 bedrooms and 23 bathrooms, has been built with some of the world's rarest materials - mainly Italian marble. Visitors approach the mansion, which is 30 miles from Central London, along a heated marble driveway. The mansion has a 50-seat cinema, a two-lane bowling alley, a gymnasium, a squash court, a flood-lit tennis court, a lake, a wine cellar for 3,000 bottles and a 'panic room'. Neighbors include Sir Elton John and Queen guitarist Brian May.

The Scandinavia's largest hotel opened recently in Copenhagen, Denmark. It symbolizes not only the identity of the modern Orested area of Copenhagen, but also marks the Capital's increasing importance on the international convention and congress scene. Its location also ensures direct access to the international conference and exhibition venue, Bella Center, Copenhagen Airport and the historical Copenhagen city center. Project's customer is Bella Center, and 3XN architectural company has designed The Bella Sky Hotel. Ramboll Cosnculting engineering Group participated in the project as consulting engineer on structures, sewers and earthworks and the senior project manager is Kaare K.B. Dahl. "One of our biggest challenges was to grasp and handle the very complex geometry and to do this TEKLA has proved invaluable" Kaare K.B. Dahl explains. All calculations and drawings used by Ramboll on the project were extracted from a 3D model. The calculation program ROBOT worked together with the design program TEKLA. This 3D structural building information modeling (BIM) system provides you with the ability to create all types of complex structures. The combination of these two programs made it possible to calculate things such as: How will the earth deform when the building settles? How far will the top of the building move sideways in the present conditions? Every detail was entered into the model which incorporated all changes into the 2D drawings generated directly from the 3D model. The Bella Sky Hotel Consists of two towers. The two towers lean 15 degrees to each side. Two towers leaning in opposite directions at an almost four times that of the leaning tower of Pisa. The geometrical dare continues as the top nine floors of tower one and the bottom nine floors of tower two both twist an additional 19 degrees horizontally. They are 76.5 meters tall with a total of 814 rooms and a building area of 44,173 thousand square meters. Accommodating 814 rooms, 32 conference rooms, 3 restaurants, lounge, a sky bar and a 850 square meter wellness centre the hotel will meet the wishes of a much needed extension to the Bella Centre Conference facilities and prepare Copenhagen to host large international events in the future. Kim Herforth Nielsen, Principal and Founder of 3XN said "Most international convention hotels have a formal and impersonal style. We wanted to address this by doing the opposite. We designed the interior of Bella Sky in a style reminiscent of a tasteful Scandinavian home with warmth, light and connection to nature."