One of Australia's most recognisable landmarks, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, is celebrating its 80th birthday, reported BBC. The 1.149 thousand meters bridge, which took almost 10 years to build, was officially opened on 19 March 1932. Construction began on the span in 1923, and involved 1.4 thousand workers and 52.8 thousand tons of steel. The attraction is listed as the world's widest long-span bridge by Guinness World Records, reported The Huffingtonpost. The bridge cost US$ 9.9 million to build and 16 men reportedly lost their lives in the construction process. When the bridge - also known locally as "the coathanger" - was opened, it connected the northern and southern shores of the harbour for the first time. In its early days about 11 thousand vehicles crossed the bridge daily. Now, it sees daily traffic of about 160 thousand vehicles. Born from the mind of Dr. JJC Bradfield, who is considered the "Father of the Bridge", the contractor's consulting engineer, Ralph Freeman, carried out the elaborate design and the acute plans for the erection process. Known for their fierce competition with each other, and a very heated disagreement about whose idea the bridge originally was, the two men endured a bitter rivalry. Mr. Freeman later received knighthood for his contribution to this spectacular site.

The beautiful Windshape pavilion by nARCHITECTS stretched across the limestone walls of Lacoste, France like a luminous billowing spider's web, reported The Inhabitat. Perched at the top of Lacoste on the castle of the Marquis de Sade, the Windshape pavilion was composed of thread-like walls made from a simple assortment of materials - including white plastic pipes, aluminum braces, and threaded string. Woven from gauzy nets, the pavilion was designed to move and morph in the local wind, creating a spectacular art installation for the locals to enjoy. The surfaces of the pavilion would ripple, move, and even make noise, depending on the speed of the winds that blew through it. Over the course of five weeks, SCAD students worked closely with nARCHITECTS to install Windshape. The netted arcs took shape through bending and tension, and they were held in place by steel structural collars that ensured the structure's sturdiness. The strings were woven to provide enclosed spaces as well as more open areas to vary the usage of the different parts of the temporary pavilion. The resulting pavilion was a translucent web that elegantly embellished the Medieval architecture of the historic town. Taking advantage of these new meeting points, the town used the space was used to host concerts, exhibitions and ceremonies. At night, Windshape was illuminated and visible to neighboring towns miles away.

A beautiful 1870s barn located within the luscious Danish countryside was recently refurbished and turned into a creative cultural hub, reported The Inhabitat. Local architects Praksis were commissioned by the Realdania foundation to renovate the thatched roof wooden shelter on the outskirts of Mogeltonder, near Sonderhaven. Owned by HRH Prince Joakim, the centenarian space is now a green and gorgeous environment that hosts exhibitions, films, and music events. Located close to an area of marshland, the old barn has undergone a complete renovation that kept its original features intact. Externally, the building features a red brick wall topped by a thatched straw roof. Inside, the original bent wooden walls have been refurbished to their former glory, and their curvature actually yields great acoustics for musical performances. The exhibition space's floor was made using the terrazzo technique. The builders recycled a ballast of large local fieldstones to cover the entire 300 square meters space. Praksis designed the exhibition space so that it's flexible enough to be used for diverse cultural events including exhibitions, films and music. Three black fiberglass boxes containing the toilets, a cinema and a digital projector can be moved around to serve different functions. The old refurbished Danish barn is a great cultural hub in the country.

Every year since 2006 eVolo Magazine is announcing the winners of the annual Skyscraper Competition. Established in 2006, the annual Skyscraper Competition recognizes outstanding ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the use of new technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations, along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution. This is also an investigation on the public and private space and the role of the individual and the collective in the creation of a dynamic and adaptive vertical community. The award seeks to discover young talent, whose ideas will change the way we understand architecture and its relationship with the natural and built environments. This year eVolo Magazine received 714 projects from all 5 continents and 95 different countries. The Jury of the 2012 edition, which was formed by leaders of the architecture and design, selected 3 winners and 22 honorable mentions. The first place was awarded to Zhi Zheng, Hongchuan Zhao and Dongbai Song from China for their project "Himalaya Water Tower". Housed within 55 thousand glaciers in the Himalaya Mountains sits 40 percent of the world's fresh water. The massive ice sheets are melting at a faster-than-ever pace due to climate change, posing possible dire consequences for the continent of Asia and the entire world stand, and especially for the villages and cities that sit on the seven rivers that come are fed from the Himalayas' runoff as they respond with erratic flooding or drought. The "Himalaya Water Tower" is a skyscraper located high in the mountain range that serves to store water and helps regulate its dispersal to the land below as the mountains' natural supplies dry up. The skyscraper, which can be replicated en masse, will collect water in the rainy season, purify it, freeze it into ice and store it for future use. The water distribution schedule will evolve with the needs of residents below; while it can be used to help in times of current drought, it's also meant to store plentiful water for future generations. The lower part of the Himalaya Water tower is comprised of six stem-like pipes that curve and wind together and collect and store water. Like the stem of a plant, these pipes grow strong as they absorb their maximum water capacity. In each of the six stems, a core tube is flanked by levels and levels of cells, which hold the water. The upper part of the building - the part that is visible above the snow line - is used for frozen storage. Four massive cores support steel cylindrical frames that, like the stems below, hold levels that radiate out, creating four steel tubes filled with ice. In between the two sections are mechanical systems that help freeze the water when the climatic conditions aren't able to do so, purify the water and regulate the distribution of water and ice throughout the structure. At the bottom of the structure, surrounding the six intertwined water tubes is a transport system that regulates fresh water distribution to the towns and cities below. The curving channels connect the mountains to the villages, and are also hold within them a railway for the transport of people and goods. The second place was awarded to Yiting Shen, Nanjue Wang, Ji Xia, and Zihan Wang from China for their project "Mountain Band-Aid", a design that seeks to simultaneously return the displaced Hmong mountain people to their homes and work as it restores the ecology of the Yunnan mountain range. The recipient of the third place is Lin Yu-Ta from the Taiwan for a "Vertical Landfill" to be located in the largest cities around the globe, both as a reminder of the outrageous amount of garbage that we produce and as a power plant that harvests energy from waste decomposition. Among the honorable mentions there are underwater projects for ocean research, mobile skyscrapers, floating cities, and temporal buildings that attach to existing structures. These proposals offer us an exciting view of the world to come.

Architectures have spoken about "Vertical farms" for many years. Today, despite the skepticism, such projects transformed from "green dreams" into reality. Several years ago a Swedish-American company called Plantagon International unveiled plans for a series of massive skyscraper greenhouses that stood to transform urban farming in large cities. As reported The Inhabitat, while the spiraling vertical farms seemed too good to be true at the time, Plantagon International just broke ground on its very first vertical farm in February, 2012 in Linkoping, Sweden. The "Plantscraper" will grow and supply fresh vegetables while creating solutions to some of the most vexing city pollution issues. Inside the 17 storey globe with massive glass walls, vegetables will be grown in pots and then transitioned to trays positioned around a giant central helix. The plants grow as the trays slowly migrate down the central core and are ready to be harvested once they reach the bottom. Plant residue and manure will be collected along the way and transformed into biogas to run the heating and cooling systems of the greenhouse. Scientists want the vertical farm to not only grow food but also help in developing sustainable solutions for energy, heat, waste, and water issues of daily city life. Construction on the company's first enormous vertical greenhouse is expected to take 12 to 16 months. Before this project there were 3 attempts to build "Vertical farms" in Japan, South Korea and Netherlands. As reported the Speigel, a small prototype of the "Vertical farm" was launched in one of Tokyo's skyscrapers in 2005. Then, in 2011 a 3-storey greenhouse built in Suwon, South Korea. From the outside, the so-called vertical farm has nothing in common with the luxury high-rises surrounding it. Inside the building, heads of lettuce covering 450 square meters are being painstakingly cultivated. Light and temperature levels are precisely regulated. And about at the same time first products form "Vertical farm" appeared in Netherlands supermarkets. These vegetables were grown in underground "vertical farm", which constructed "PlantLab" company. According to studies of Columbia University, New York, who invented the project "Vertical Farm", by the year 2050, nearly 80 percent of the earth's population will reside in urban centers. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming. "Vertical Farm" can be put in a big city. It should be very effective. Manufacture of food products it will not depend on the vagaries of the weather. This farm will produce several harvests per year. Another benefit - Isolated plants can be protected from infections that affect the field. The same is true of the pests.