Kingdom Tower, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's project to erect the world's tallest building in Jeddah, is designed to imitate the contours of a sprouting desert plant. Adrian Smith's task is to make sure it doesn't sway in the wind like one. The American architect has the right resume for the job. He already grappled with effects like horizontal wind divergence and negative pressure high above the Persian Gulf desert when he designed Dubai's "Burj Khalifa", today's highest tower. As explained Adrian Smith during telephone interview to news agency Bloomberg, Kingdom Tower will rise from three separate bases in continuous slopes that end at different heights, helping to balance the building's weight and stabilize it against winds that can reach 190 kilometer per hour at the top. The tower is designed to move about 1 meter side-to-side at 500 meters in the most severe storms that occur once every 50 years or so, he said. The movement will be much less in more typical weather conditions. Designing the world's tallest buildings presents numerous challenges beyond high winds. The observation deck will stick out from the building in an 24 meter-wide disc that was originally designed as a helicopter-landing platform, Smith said. The idea was abandoned after several pilots judged that landing there would be too risky. Water must be pumped up the 163-floor Kingdom Tower in stages, using holding tanks at various levels, to avoid too much pressure building up in the pipes and causing them to burst, Smith said. Evacuation also requires special planning. The Jeddah tower will have emergency refuge rooms every 20 floors, where people can stop to get water and protection as well as emergency instructions while descending to the ground. Smith said he's looking at ways to use the elevators in emergencies rather than following the common practice of banning their use. Smith's design includes a system that collects moisture out of the air and from mechanical systems within the tower, producing enough fresh water each year to fill 14 Olympic-size pools. Summer temperatures in Jeddah, the gateway to Islam's holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, can soar to 40 degrees Celsius with 80 percent humidity. The Kingdom Tower's exterior walls will be made of glass with insulation behind it to help the structure control the heat, Smith said. "We use glass because it's easy to maintain and has longevity," Smith said. "It also reflects the sky and helps the tower feel lighter and more elegant." Apartment prices in Kingdom Tower will probably be comparable to luxury homes in Dubai and a two-bedroom apartment will probably sell for around US$ 800 thousand.

The opening ceremony of Matenadaran new building will be held at 20-year anniversary of Armenian's Independence Day on September 21. The competition to design the new Matenadaran building was announced back in 1987-1988, and it won an architectural studio headed by architect Artur Meschyan. Construction began, but stopped because of Spitak earthquake in 1988, and resumed only in 2008. The project mainly funded by Russian businessmen and philanthropist Sergey Ambartsumyan (US$ 7.120 million). The second largest investor is Zangezur Copper and Molybdenum Combine (US$ 2.840 million). With 11358 square meters total area 30.5-high Matenadaran building can withstand an earthquake of 9 points. There is a separate depository of precious manuscripts in the building, reading rooms, a department for manuscripts digitization, observatory, 220-seat hall and so on. A new building is only the first phase of the project. At the second phase it is planned to renovate the old building of Matenadaran and make it a museum complex. In the third phase the part of the road connecting Mashtots avenue to Matenadaran will be renovated.

A new hotel complex will be built at the "Republic Square" subway station in Yerevan. The construction is planned for 2011-2014. The government allowed Yerevan city mayor to provide an area of 5850 square meters for new hotel construction site. According to a data provided by the city hall, the hotel will contain conference room, sports and game rooms, beauty salon, restaurant and a cafe. Responsible authorities announced that the hotel will be built based on a number of existing features of the historic city center, which will ensure the integrity of the neighborhood. Hotel will be developed by "Tashir Group" with which the city administration has already signed an agreement. The proposal to build this hotel was made last year, but official discussion started on July 21 at the Yerevan Urban Council meeting. As a result of voting, at a ratio of 24 "for" and 3 "abstained"Counsil approved new hotel development project. It should be noted, that many architects are protesting the project, as they believe that by doing so the city is losing its architectural and historical heritage. But let's don't make premature conclusions and try to see the positive aspects of this project. Such projects are very much important for Armenian investment-hungry economy, they create new jobs, and finally, create new earthquake-resistant buildings. Recall that almost all old historic center buildings of Yerevan must sooner or later be reconstructed because of their poor earthquake resistance. Of course, it's strategically much more correct that the future development of Yerevan and especially its center to be done without further increasing the density of the building and plan new developments on the sites of an old and the most earthquake-dangerous buildings, and as a result gradually gain more and more earthquake-secure capital.

The new US Apple headquarters, which is scheduled to put into operation in 2015, will exceed the size of the Pentagon-the building of US Department of Defense, reports macobserver.com. According to publication journalist's calculations, the diameter of the building of Apple is about 492 meters. A circle that would circumscribe the Pentagon has a diameter of 477 meters. It should be noted, that Pentagon is the largest office building in the world. It has approximately 26 thousand employees, and building's 5 floors have about 604 thousand square meters total area. As mentioned by Mac Observer, the diameter of new headquarters will exceed Empire State Building height in New York (443.2 meters high), and cruise ship and US nuclear aircraft carrier length. According to another source cupertino.org, construction of the complex is due to start next year. The 260 thousand square meters campus will be designed for 13 thousand employees. The campus would comprise an office, research and development building, thousand seat corporate auditorium, fitness center, research facilities, central plant and associated parking. Currently, the project must undergo environmental review and studies for impact on traffic in the Cupertino City, and finally it will be adopted. Apple is now vying with oil giant Exxon Mobil for the title of most expensive company in the world.

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.