Officials in a Beijing suburb have sidestepped President Xi Jinping's crackdown on government waste by building themselves a lavish office complex reminiscent of the Kremlin. Mentougou, a largely rural district in western Beijing with some 270,000 residents, is now home to a group of government buildings with onion-shaped golden crowns, arched windows and white walls similar to the Cathedral of Annunciation, the five-century-old Russian Orthodox Church located inside the Kremlin in Moscow. The meteorological bureau was the first tenant in the new compound. The three other buildings will house the district's seismological bureau, water bureau, and the bureau of landscape and forestry. The district's meteorological office refused to comment. One of the buildings in the compound cost US$ 3.5 million, and another more than US$ 1.5 million. This was not the first mainland government building to imitate or be inspired by an overseas landmark. One of the most notorious examples was the government headquarters in Fuyang, an impoverished city in Anhui province, which was built a decade ago at a cost of at least US$ 5 million. It has since become a tourist attraction for its purported resemblance to Washington State Capitol.

The world's first floating city is soon to become a reality. The US$ 10 billion Freedom Ship will be big enough to fit 50,000 residents, 30,000 visitors, schools, a hospital, parks and even an airport. Since the vessel will be too large to enter any port, it will simply sail from country to country in two-year cycles. The mile-long floating city is nearing start of construction, according to Florida-based Freedom Ship International Inc. It will boast 25 floors of activities, schools, hospitals, art galleries, shops, parks, casinos, an aquarium and a small airport on the roof with a runway for smaller private and commercial aircrafts. The company is currently trying to raise the US$10 billion needed to make this huge project a reality. The company's vice-president said that they are just US$1 billion short of the amount necessary for construction to start. Once completed, the ship will be 1370 meters long-four times longer than the famous Queen Mary II. The large floating structure would be powered by solar panels and Aeolic energy while navigating international waters. The city would spend most of the year-around 70 percent of the time-anchored off major cities.

Mounib Hammoud, Jeddah Economic Company's (JEC) new CEO, has announced the completion of the piling work for the Kingdom Tower, set to be the future-tallest building in the world, upon completion in 2019. This achievement is considered to be the base of works over ground, according to a press release to Arab News from Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), chaired by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Last year Saudi BAUER Foundation Contractors Ltd. announced that it had signed a deal for the enabling works for Kingdom, the one-kilometer-tall tower planned for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has given the go ahead for the construction of the world's tallest tower in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah by signing a US$ 1.2 billion contract with Bin Laden Group on August 2, 2011. On July of this year the company "Broad Sustainable Building" hoping to build the world's tallest skyscraper in record time held a groundbreaking ceremony in Changsha, China. The company planned to build the 838-meter Sky City using its prefabricated modular construction method. But after several days the company announced, that the construction works stopped because of documents problems.

In 2012 the US Government has unveiled more detailed plans for its new embassy complex at the heart of London's Nine Elms regeneration area. The scheme was awarded outline planning consent in 2010 and the new plans provide detail on the proposed appearance of the buildings, site layout, landscaping and access arrangements. Philadelphia-based architects Kieran Timberlake won the competition to build one of the most expensive embassies ever built. Construction on the new US Embassy in London designed by Philadelphia-based architecture firm KieranTimberlake broke ground on November 13. Slated to be completed by 2017 and located at a former industrial site in London, the crystalline cube will feature air-filled pockets on the exterior, which will help insulate the structure, orientation and shading to minimize heat gain, a large photovoltaic system on the roof and exterior of the building and a beautiful park. Embassy buildings require an extra layer of security, and the embassy park surrounding the building is both a lovely garden space for the employees and dignitaries to enjoy as well as a protective barrier. Although there are no fences or walls, security measures have been integrated into the landscape, which also includes a half moon pond on one side of the building. The exterior of the building is lined with air-filled pockets made from ethylene-tetrafluroethylene (ETFE), which help protect the building from the outer environment by providing optimized shade to minimize heat absorption and work as a thermal buffer. Thin-film photovoltaic will be positioned in the ETFE foils to generate energy, and will also be more visible to birds in order to reduce bird strikes. The roof of the embassy building (8,300 sq. meters) will be covered in photovoltaic, hiding the mechanical equipment and producing 345,000 kWh of energy.

It sounds at best far-fetched and at worst frightening, at least at first, but this unique water-based energy station is already under construction and is designed to (safely) generate power and fresh water to over 200,000 people. The Akademik Lomonosov is being built at a submarine construction facility and is set to launch before 2020. While it is set to be stationed offshore, it opens up a new world of possibilities for fueling remote settlements, temporary outposts, research stations or floating cities. The vessel will produce an impressive 70 megawatts of electricity - more than enough to support a mid-sized city. It will also desalinate ocean water to increase regional freshwater supplies. With the world wondering about the fate of the Fukushima plant in Japan, following its fateful impact by a tsunami and subsequent fallout, it seems like a strange time to be working on projects where water meats nuclear power. Still, in this case the uranium is far less enriched and of the same type being used in Russian icebreakers already. The power plant is a project of LLC Baltiysky Zavod Shipbuilding, a St. Petersburg division of United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC).