Here's the skinny on the city's narrowest town house: It just sold for a fat US$ 3.25 million. The historic, three-story home at 75 1/2 Bedford St. - near Sixth Avenue and Houston Street - weighs in at an underfed 92 square meters. A tape measure would only stretch to a cinched-in 2.54 meters wide in the widest rooms - narrow enough for the lankiest Knick to nearly touch two side walls at once. It's where Edna St. Vincent Millay penned her Pulitzer Prize-winning "Ballad of the Harp-Weaver," in 1923-24. It's Millay who famously coined the phrase, "My candle burns at both ends," suggesting that the poet would have had to orient any such candle longitudinally while working long hours at the address. Other celebrities who have traipsed - carefully - through the gaunt flat are actor Cary Grant, and, before him, John Barrymore. Anthropologist Margaret Meade also lived there, as did popular children's-book writer Ann McGovern, author of "Stone Soup." After moving out, McGovern wrote "Mr. Skinner's Skinny House," a picture book about a man who moves into the thinnest house in the city and then struggles to find a roommate. "For seven years, I lived in the narrowest house in New York. It was only eight and a half feet wide!" McGovern said in a Q-and-A on her Web site, annmcgovern.com. "It's known as the Edna St. Vincent Millay House." "Once I saw a man who was standing in front of the house with arms outstretched," she said. "'Hey,' he said. 'I'm as big as a house,' and he was." Living in her "doll house," as she called it, McGovern said she'd begun noodling about the sorts of characters who could never live in a house so narrow, including an actor who plays Pinocchio - one of the characters in "Mr. Skinner's Skinny House". The latest buyer is George Gund, according to city property records. Although thin, the home's worth has expanded over the years. It was purchased in 1994 for US$ 270 thousnad by architectural preservationist Christopher Dubs. He sold the home in 2000 to Steven Balsamo for a cool US$1.6 million. Then, three years ago, the home sold for US$2.175 million through Corcoran broker Alex Nicholas. That buyer never moved in, instead sinking more money into the place by renovating it top to bottom - the kitchen trapdoor, leading to the basement "recreation room," has been retained. Built in 1873, the three-bedroom home also features floor-to-ceiling French doors opening to a tree-shaded. The inside is more light and airy than its width would suggest thanks to a third-floor skylight and oversized windows. The gussying up allowed it to rent for a healthy US$ 14 thousand a month. It then went back on the market at an overly optimistic US$ 4.3 million. By last year, the asking price had whittled away to US$ 3.495. The thinnest house in the world built between two tower blocks in Warsaw, Poland. The house measures 1.2 meters at its widest point and 71 centimeters at its narrowest. The building has been designed by Jakub Szczesny.

The 200 meter high "InTempo" towers in Benidorm were built as 'a vision of the future' and a symbol of Spain's reemergence from a crippling financial crisis. With 47 floors of living space it was intended to be the tallest residential building in Europe. But with only months until it is due for completion, contractors have hit upon a slight problem. They forgot to build a lift. The towers were originally designed to be only 20 floors high, but ambitious developers decided to double the scale of the project midway through. A lift exists for the first 20 floors, but beyond that there is only the stairs. And reports seen by Spain's El Pais newspaper suggest there is no more space for another lift or motor equipment. It is only the latest in a series of setbacks which have beset the project. It was due to open in 2009, but now joins a series of white elephants that have been caused by the country's deep recession. Furore over the Benidorm towers has grown in recent weeks, after the team of architects left. El Pais was given access to documents which revealed the extent of the catastrophes that have beset the tourist town's biggest project. The newspaper reports that not only did construction workers go for four months without pay in 2010, but they were also forced to walk up and down the half-constructed towers for months as a service lift was not built until the first 23 stories had been completed. The lift that was eventually installed collapsed in July 2011, injuring 13 workers. Ambulances reportedly struggled to reach them, because the area surrounding the construction site had not been cleared for vehicle access in an alleged bid to save money. The architects have resigned, despite the last eight floors - which will unite the two neighboring towers with communal gardens and pools - remaining incomplete. And amid further financial problems, the building has now been taken over by Spain's so-called 'bad bank', which was set up to consolidate the country's most toxic assets. In what has come to symbolize the madness of Spanish boom-time investment, the original bank investor Caixa Galicia asked the developer to raise just 3000 euro in capital in return for it offering 93 million euro towards to the project. Despite plans to open the twin towers to great fanfare in 2009, the block remains only 94 per cent complete. Only 35 per cent of the 269 units have been sold. It is now expected to be finished in December of this year, and the remaining flats will go on sale at a lower price.

Dubai could soon be home to a tower which rotates 360 degrees every 90 minutes, if stalled plans for the project are finally given the green light. David Fisher, the founder and chairman of Dynamic Architecture Group, first proposed the idea in 2008 but the global financial crisis and the downturn in the Dubai property market led to the ambitious plans being put on hold. The new plans for the rotating tower, to be named the Dynamic Tower, will be 80 stories high and will make a complete 360 degree rotation every 90 minutes. The Dubai tower is expected to cost in the region US$ 541 million. The company is also hoping to build versions in Moscow, Paris, London, Milan, Rome, New York and Miami. The design includes nearly 79 giant wind turbines that will generate electricity to power the rotation of the floors. Full details of the tower's location, financing and construction timeframe have not been disclosed as Fisher said he wanted to keep secret so they would be a "surprise". Another obstacle may be the fact Fisher admits he has never designed a skyscraper before, let alone one as ambitious and complex as a rotating one. "I did not design skyscrapers, but I feel ready to do so," he said in an interview with the Associated Press news agency. "You can build anything."

The unusual 321-room Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort, located on the Taihu Lake between Nanjing and Shanghai, is set to open its doors. The oval-shaped building was designed by MAD Architects, as a part of the Starwood chain which is currently undergoing a drastic international expansion project. The US$ 1.5 billion resort measures over 100 meters high and 116 meters wide. The 27-storey Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort rises proudly in the Yangtze River Delta, the water covering the lowest two stories so that the form appears as a horseshoe shape rather than a complete ring as is really the case. As darkness falls, the form is illuminated with bands of LED lighting in different hues which reflect off the lake below in ripples of vivid color. In total the 2,200 square meter hotel has 321 guest rooms with 44 suites and 39 villas, all of which benefit from private balconies. The marble bathrooms include sunken bathtubs which look out over the waterfront and walk-in rainforest showers for a touch of luxury.

The government of Vietnam has constructed the world's largest dragon-shaped bridge over the Han River. Not only it is the steel bridge the largest of its type in the world, but it is covered in over 2,500 LED lights - and it breathes fire! Construction began on the bridge in 2009 and cost a reported US$ 85 million. Connecting the city's international airport and beaches, the structure simulates the shape of the dragon in the Ly Dynasty, a symbolic creature that is part of Vietnam folklore. The 166-meter-long steel arch is the longest such structure in Vietnam, with the dragon's body measuring a total of 568 meters and more than 9,000 tons in weight. The Dragon Bridge has a total length of 666 meters and 37.5 meters in width, with six lanes. The Louis Berger Group designed the six-lane bridge to emulate the shape of the dragon in the Ly Dynasty. It is also currently the only the bridge with a single steel arch in Southeast Asia.