Facebook's new headquarters for London and Dublin will receive the same treatment as the company's Silicon Valley campus with designs by architect Frank Gehry. The London office will take over three floors of a preexisting office space in Regents Park, giving Gehry the opportunity to redesign a renovation, while Facebook's Dublin office will be built from scratch in iconic Gehry style - both inside and out. The social media giant first linked up with Gehry last year, when they commissioned the architect to redesign their Menlo Park campus, an expansion that doubled the employee capacity. Now they have commissioned Gehry to help out with the two UK offices as the company continues to expand. Having outgrown its Covent Garden office, Facebook will have 86 thousand new offices at 10 Brock Street, an address familiar to social media as Twitter is also a tenant. The three floors will provide space for twice as many employees as the Covent Garden address, and may make some Twitter executives a little uncomfortable! Dublin employees will relocate to a new building designed by Gehry on Grand Canal Square, which will provide working space for thousand employees at an enormous 11 thousand square meters facility. While the project is still in the works and designs have not been started, it seems the Facebook/Frank Gehry partnership is going strong.

More than 150 years since it was first dreamed up by an Ottoman sultan, Turkey on October 29 unveiled the world's first sea tunnel linking two continents. The tunnel, which has taken nine years to construct under the Bosporus straits, is part of Istanbul's metro service, and will connect the European and Asian sides of Turkey's biggest city. Known as the Marmaray metro link, it is slated to revolutionize the city, where public transport is limited and traffic jams are the stuff of legend. First suggested by Ottoman sultan Abdoul Medjid in 1860, it wasn't until 2004 that Erdogan - then Mayor of Istanbul - gave the final go-ahead for the tunnel, as part of a series of lavish construction projects for the city including a third airport, a parallel canal and a third bridge. Nine years after Erdogan gave it the green light, the US$ 4.6 billion first stage of the Marmaray project is now opened - four years behind schedule. Presenting something of a technical challenge, the 1.4 kilometer long undersea tunnel was constructed by lowering steel-lined pre-cast concrete sections into a trench excavated 60 meter down on the seabed of the Sea of Marmara, where they were then buried. A further 12.2 kilometer of on-land tunnels connect the three stations which make up the project's first phase. The rail tunnel is said to be earthquake-proof, an important consideration in an area plagued by strong seismic activity.

Israel is blessed with abundant sunshine and has long been a pioneer in solar energy. With construction starting in early 2014 on a 121 Megawatt solar power station, the country will be taking a big step in achieving its goal of producing 10 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. The Ashalim power plant will be located in the Negev desert near Kibbutz Ashalim south of the city of Be'er Sheva, and when it's completed in 2016 it will be the biggest solar power station in Israel with enough capacity to power 40 thousand homes. The new solar station is being developed by Megalim Solar Power - a joint venture between U.S. based solar power company Brightsource Energy and French power and transport company Alstom. Brightsource originally started in Israel as a company called Luz, so the Ashalim power plant will be a homecoming of sorts. In addition to breaking ground on the US$ 1.1 billion solar thermal plant in Israel, Brightsource is developing the world's largest solar thermal plant - a 377 Megawatt solar farm in California's Mojave desert called Ivanpah. Brightsource solar thermal plants deploy heliostat mirrors that direct sunlight to solar power towers that create steam to drive turbines. The BrightSource-Alstom Megalim plant is one of three projects at the Ashalim site, which will generate 250 MW of electricity at full capacity - that's enough to cover 2.5 percent of Israeli energy consumption. When all three projects are online, Ashalim will become the fifth largest solar power station in the world.

The Emirate is building what is set to become the world's largest man-made lagoon. The 40-hectare lagoon, part of the US$ 7 billion Mohammed bin Rashid City project, will dwarf a 12-hectare lagoon in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh, which now holds the title, according to Guinness World Records. The developer Crystal Lagoons has already started work and hopes to finish it in 2020 - the deadline for the whole project. The lagoon has been designed to include wide beaches with a Caribbean feel, and offer swimming and other water sports in clear, filtered water. Its filters will reportedly use only 1 percent of the chemicals that more traditional systems do, and 2 percent of the energy. The lagoon will be at the heart of the District One residential community in Mohammed bin Rashid City. District One, less than 3 kilometers from the Burj Khalifa, will cover more than 445 hectares and comprise freehold land, luxury homes, parklands, waterways and high-end shopping and dining. It is being planned as a low-density development and will feature a public green space larger than London's Hyde Park. Work is being carried out on a show village that will display nine villas and a portion of the lagoon to interested investors. About 80 percent of the show village has been completed and the rest should be finished by next month. Mohammed bin Rashid City District One is poised to become a monumental destination in Dubai, offering a residential development in the heart of the city that is currently unique to the region. The development includes various attractions ranging from parks, man-made beaches and the largest crystal lagoon in the world, to sports fields with cycling tracks, an equestrian club and a shopping and dining promenade.

London's Victorian era Crystal Palace will soon be resurrected, thanks to Chinese developer ZhongRong Group and architectural firm Arup. The light-filled glass structure will be rebuilt as a gift to the city of London, bringing back an important landmark that was destroyed by fire in 1936. Arup's design echoes the original Joseph Paxton-designed building and includes a large, lush park for South East Londoners to enjoy. The original Crystal Palace was designed for the 1851 Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, London, and moved to the south eastern neighborhood of Bromley shortly after. There it was used as a glittering public building until the fateful fire in 1936 that completely destroyed the landmark. Always regarded as an architectural masterpiece in China, the ZhongRong Group proposed the US$ 800 million project to Bromley officials as a gift to the city. Arup's design will restore not only the building, but the 73 hectares Crystal Palace landscaped park surrounding it, including a tree-lined boulevard, lushly planted grounds, and beautiful Italian style terraces. The complex will also include a cafe, visitor center and a restored concert bowl. According to the renders, the glassy light-filled structure emulates its original Victorian splendor, attracting locals and tourists alike as a contemporary cultural destination deeply rooted in history. The exciting Crystal Palace restoration project will be headed up by an advisory board led by the Mayor of London, to create a project that reflects the design's deep history while employing modern design practices.