A five-year renovation of London's King's Cross Station is now complete and the glorious new hub will formally open to the public on March 19, reported The Inhabitat. Designed by John McAslan + Partners, the renovation was a three part project that included a re-use, a restoration and a new build. The train shed and range buildings were adapted and re-used, the station's previously obscured Grade I listed facade has been delicately restored, and the new Western Concourse is the showcase of the project. The semi-circular concourse also features a 150 meter free spanning roof that floods the space with natural daylight. On top of all that, the US$ 784 million renovation included improved passenger circulation, a photovoltaic system, and new skylights for the train shed. More than 1 thousand tons of steel, 1 million specially-made heritage bricks, 5 million ceramic tiles and five million meters of cabling were used in the building with more than 5 thousand people working on the project. As the station was originally built in 1852 and listed as a Grade I facility, the facade had to remain fully intact. The renovation had to carefully and creatively restore and keep this intact while opening the space up for passengers and providing room for rail utilities and offices, along with new cafes, bars and retail. The Western Concourse will be the new beating hearts of the station when it's officially opened up to passengers come Monday, March 19th. The free spanning roof emerges next to the historic facade and expands up and over the concourse to provide uninterrupted space to move. Naturally daylit through the translucent ceiling, the room is bright and cheery, a welcome departure from the once gloomy station. Beyond the new construction, the train shed was fully revamped to improve passenger circulation, access and the overall aesthetic. A huge new skylight system over the tracks transforms the space into something bright and welcoming. A rooftop photovoltaic system will generate 10-20 percent of the stations energy needs as well. King's Cross railway station, also known as London King's Cross, is a major London railway terminus opened in 1852. It stands on the northern edge of central London and is one of 18 UK stations managed by Network Rail. King's Cross was originally designed and built as the London hub of the Great Northern Railway and terminus of the East Coast main line. It took its name from the Kings Cross area of London, itself named after a monument to King George IV that was demolished in 1845. Plans for the station were first made in December 1848 and the detailed design was by Lewis Cubitt.

The construction of Armenian cathedral in Moscow is planned to be completed by the end of 2012. As reported Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin press center, the Catholicos of All Armenians His Holiness Garekin II and the head of Russian Diocese Artur Chilingarov during their meeting announced, that the great opening ceremony of Armenian Cathedral will take place late in 2012. The temple construction site was allotted by the Moscow authorities in 1996. The construction is planned to be completed in 2001, but project was delayed till 2006. The architect of the religious complex is Artak Gulian, construction is funded by Armenian and Russian patrons. The whole Cathedral site is about 13.2 thousand square meters; the height of Cathedral is about 50 meters and the dome diameter - 21 meters. The main cross height is 7 meters, and the remaining 5 crosses rise by 4 meters each. The complex includes the Cathedral, the small church of "Holy Cross", educational, cultural, administrative and reception facilities and a museum.

The US$ 2.61 billion Hermitage Plaza Towers to be built in Paris La Defense business district have received planning permission and work on the site will start imminently, Emin Iskenderov, chief executive of development company Hermitage Group, said on March 9, during his interview to Wall Street Journal. Hermitage Group, a Paris-based private company with Russian origins, will start clearing the site for the two 320-meter-tall skyscrapers this month. The project will cost a total of US$ 2 billion, with US$ 916 million in bank debt arranged with four banks at a cost of 6.5 percent, and US$ 394 million of equity coming from Hermitage Group itself. The remaining US$ 1.3 billion will be financed through sales of apartments and offices. The Paris real-estate market, which was hit by the financial crisis in 2008, still hasn't recovered completely, and overall property prices remain below their 2007 peak. But Mr. Iskenderov is confident he can raise the US$ 1.3 billion portion needed through sales of apartments and offices as Hermitage Plaza will be La Defense's first building to offer mixed-use space. Hermitage Group will start selling the apartments in a year's time and expects a minimum price of US$ 15.7 thousand per square meter. Hermitage Plaza, designed by U.K.- based architects Foster and Partners, will provide 280 thousand square meters of mixed-use space, housing a five-star hotel, 543 apartments, 35 thousand square meters of offices and 50 thousand square meters of retail and restaurants. The Hermitage Towers will be 200 meters from La Defense's main transport links and will also provide 20 thousand square meters of public space.

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.