Elevated land-based islands are what one architect is proposing for the Tohoku region of north-east Japan, the area that was devastated by last March's magnitude 9 earthquake and the mega-tsunamis it triggered. As reported The NewScientist, Keiichiro Sako of Sako Architects in Tokyo has created a blueprint in which groups of these islands form entire towns. They are designed to protect people living in low-lying areas from future tsunamis. Tohoku Sky Village is not just an architect's flight of fancy: one municipality in the affected region is making moves towards building one in its locality and others could follow. Most islands will be used for residential purposes, with between 100 and 500 houses and apartments. Fuel stations, waste disposal and storage facilities, and car parks are on lower floors. Commercial islands, meanwhile, will house factories and processing facilities for industries such as fisheries and agriculture. As well as lifting residents high above the destructive power of the waves, the design comes with a number of safety features. A reinforced gate at the back of each island automatically closes after a tsunami warning, while steps up the sides let people climb to safety. Power is off-grid, from renewable energy sources including wind and solar, to ensure supply following a disaster. Lithium-ion batteries act as backup. The islands' oval shape is also important. Flat surfaces take the full force of a body of water, but an oval one allows water to flow around. Each three-storey island would offer 90 thousand square meters of usable space and be bolted deep into the bedrock via vast steel pillars. The exterior walls are made of 50 centimeter-thick reinforced concrete, while utility spaces on the bottom floor are compartmentalized in a radial formation for even stress distribution - rather like the spokes in a bicycle wheel. At the centre of each cluster of islands would be the administrative area, home to municipal offices, schools, businesses and leisure facilities. The ambitious plan also features the world's first indoor marina to protect the local fishing fleet. Critics point to the complex issue of how the reconstruction will be funded. Yasuaki Onoda of the Department of Architecture and Building Science at Tohoku University says that while the idea is sound, estimated costs of US$ 250 million per island are prohibitive. To mitigate these costs, Tohoku Sky Village will recycle debris from the disaster for use in some building components. Sako also believes the islands will become a tourist attraction. Previously, we wrote about another project named "Levitating Home" developed by a Japanese architectural firm Air Danshin Systems which also aimed to protect the public from the earthquake.

Azrieli Group controlling shareholder David Azrieli laid the foundation stone on March 25 for the US$ 400 million Sarona Center, a single 200-meter, 50-story building in Tel Aviv's nascent southern Kirya business district, reported The Jerusalem Post. Azrieli Sarona will become Israel's largest office tower upon its scheduled completion in 2016, offering 125 thousand square meters of working space, a three-story, 11 thousand square meters mall and a seven-story underground parking lot for 1.6 thousand vehicles. It will be the country's second-tallest building, behind Ramat Gan's 244-meter, 68-story, multipurpose Moshe Aviv Tower. Azrieli Group purchased the land from the Israel Lands Authority for US$ 140 million last year. The building will be constructed at the eastern end of the Sarona compound near Menachem Begin Road and Kaplan Street, almost diagonally opposite the three existing Azrieli towers. Architect Moshe Zur teamed up with David Azrieli Architects Firm to design the building, using simple geometry to produce the effect that the entire building is facing the sea, which lies almost 3 kilometers to the west.

Venice has approved a 60-storey tower designed and funded by fashion designer Pierre Cardin, reported British online publication BDonline. It will be the centerpiece of a vast project to build a whole new suburb on reclaimed land north of the historic city. City governor Luca Zaia described the Palais Lumiere project as Venice's Eiffel Tower and likened Cardin to Lorenzo the Magnificent, Florence's great Medici patron. Cardin, who was born near Venice 89 years ago, described the scheme as the "pinnacle" of his career. The tower will be built in the former industrial area of Porto Marghera and will be at the heart of a 1.6 million square meter project that will clean up polluted brown field areas and reclaim further land from the lagoon. Cardin's striking design involves 3 separate fins joined at a number of levels by six horizontal discs accessed by lifts. Its height and diameter will both be 244 meters. Conceived as a gateway to Venice, it will be a hub for the creative industries including a fashion and design college, exhibition space and incubators for start-up businesses. Some reports said it would also contain a hotel, restaurants, indoor and outdoor pools, a cinema, roof gardens, a heliport and even a hospital. The wider development will include 35 thousand square meter of residential, 25 thousand square meter of hotels and restaurants, 115 thousand square meter of offices, 600 thousand square meter of landscaping, 100 thousand square meter of parking, plus new infrastructure. The city authorities this week gave Cardin permission to enter a simplified planning process.

Spanish soccer super-team Real Madrid have announced plans to construct a US$ 1 billion luxury resort in the United Arab Emirates - and to ensure a truly unique location, the sports company plans to construct an archipelago of artificial islands upon which it will be located, reported The National Post. The resort, which has also been described as a theme park for the soccer obsessed, will include five-star hotels, luxury villas, a 10 thousand seat ocean-side football stadium, a marina and a hi-tech museum devoted to the history of the Team. Real Madrid has announced that the 430 thousand square meter project will be constructed in partnership with the UAE government, and they hope to open by 2015. Executives of the investment group behind the project, the RAK Marjan Island Football Investment Fund, said its location, 45 minutes from Dubai airport. In recent times due to a lack of coastal land there are more and more artificial islands designed and constructed for ambitious projects like this. Azerbaijan recently released designs for the World's Tallest Tower "Azerbaijan Tower" on an artificial archipelago located over active oil pipelines, while Qatar is at work on their own man-made island resort the "Amphibious 1000". Dubai, on the other hand recovering from the embarrassing sinking of its island resort "The World".

Instead of concrete jungles could our cities become urban forests of wooden skyscrapers? Swapping cement and steel for timber is the vision of a number of environmentally-minded architects who are planning high-rise buildings across the world. As reported CNN, Architect Michael Green, one of three principals at McFarlane Green Biggar Architecture + Design (mgb), has plans for a 30-story wooden skyscraper in Vancouver, while plans are afoot in Norway and Austria for 17 and 20-story building that use wood as the main building material, eschewing steel and concrete. The modern wood materials have been around for 20 years, but until recently they have been quite niche or used only in low-rise buildings. What has changed is the way in which architects and builders are thinking about using wood. The real change came when people started about climate change. Steel and concrete are great but not environmentally friendly. Cutting down trees to make buildings doesn't immediately sound eco-friendly either, but if sourced from sustainably managed forests (like those in Europe and North America), it can be more environmentally sensitive. Wood buildings lock in carbon dioxide for the life cycle of a structure, while the manufacture of steel and concrete produces large amounts of CO2 -- the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimate that for every 10 kilos of cement created, six to nine kilos of CO2 are produced. Green's "Tallwood" structure is designed with large panels of laminated strand lumber -- a composite made of strands of wood glued together. Other mass timber products use layers of wood fused together at right angles that making them immensely strong and able to be used as lode bearing infrastructure, walls and floors. Currently one of the highest modern wooden buildings is in London. Called the Stadthaus, Murray Grove, it's a nine-story residential building that stands at just under 30 meters (98 feet). Even the lift shafts and stairwells are made from wood. According to Craig Liddell, the commercial director of KLH UK, the company that developed the cross-laminated timber for the building, the 15 stories is possible before having to use other materials like steel. The cross-laminated timber used on the Stadthaus is classified as air-tight, making it one of London's most energy efficient buildings. As a pre-fabricated structure it also took less time to construct and was cheaper than a conventional steel and concrete building.