The first phase of the historic expansion of Saudi Arabia's Grand Mosque in Makkah has opened in time to accommodate 400 thousand more worshippers this Ramadan, according to Arab News. Three floors of a newly constructed annex have been completed, as well as the northern, southern and western plazas of the mosque. The annex had been decorated with chandeliers and air-conditioning and water fountains had been installed for visitors. There are telephones for visitors to make inquiries about matters related to Umrah or other religious issues. Zamzam water taps have been installed in open plazas to supply cold water to visitors. The new annex's escalators have begun operating to facilitate movement of pilgrims and worshippers to upper floors. Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz laid the foundation stone for the historic expansion project of the Grand Mosque on August 19, 2011. Now the Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest site, is undergoing its largest ever expansion, worth US$ 21.3 billion, to increase its capacity to 2 million pilgrims. The entire expansion is expected to take several years.

Munich, Germany now boasts the greenest office building in the world. NuOffice is off the charts in all sustainability metrics, easily achieving LEED Platinum status. European research project DIRECTION and scientists from Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics banded together to help design the uber-green building, hoping it will serve as a model for future new construction across the globe. In order to raise the bar on the building's energy efficiency, the science and research team sought to maximize the building's passive energy use, driving down energy consumption and introducing renewable energy sources as main suppliers to the building. NuOffice's roof alternates between lush, insulating greenery and a powerful photovoltaic array that adds to the building's power needs. Radiant heating and cooling systems, which are connected to a complex district heating system in the basement that also employs well water to cool in the summer, help to keep energy usage low and the interior comfortable. The building's inner courtyard design fosters not only an additional green space, but also creates natural cross breezes and an influx of daylight on both the inside and outside perimeters of NuOffice. Thickly insulated exterior walls and triple-glazed windows also keep the interior climate comfortable. The newly opened building's energy usage is being closely monitored and recorded. The team hopes that by the end of the year the energy consumption will consume just 30 killowatt hours per square meter per year, compared to the average of 100 to 150 killowatt hours in a standard office space.

At the beginning of this year Google announced, that it has completed a US$ 1.6 billion deal to build a new UK headquarters on 10 thousand square meters of disused land behind King's Cross Station, underlining the global technology industry's commitment to London. Now Google just unveiled images of its newest campus, a 270 thousand square meters, 11-story behemoth that will be designed by award-winning architectural firm AHMM. Prior to this building's announcement, Google's London operations were split between two offices--one in Covent Garden and one in Victoria. The new headquarters, which will be located near London's prestigious King's Cross Station, will consolidate operations into a single building while attempting to blend into the neighborhood. The new office will be made from industrial materials like steel, glass, and cross-laminated timber panels, and it's designed to achieve BREEAM Outstanding certification. In decades past, the construction of a new office building in London would hardly be a newsworthy event, but the ingenuity of companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple have changed that. Everyone wants to know-what kind of building do you create when money is no object and you employ some of the most creative and technologically savvy minds in the world? If the early looks at Google's King's Cross HQ are any indication, it won't disappoint. "This building is underpinned by cutting edge design intelligence and technologies to provide a sophisticated twenty-first century working environment for Google's staff," AHMM director Simon Allford told Dezeen. The building, which many are calling a 'groundscraper' will be multi-leveled, growing from seven stories high at one end to 11 at the northern end overlooking Regent's Canal. It's been suggested by some that buildings comprised of more wood than steel are actually better for the environment, leading to far less carbon emissions during the production process. Google appears to be testing the waters of this theory. "Much of the internal structure will be constructed using steel framing with cross-laminated timber panels - a first for a contemporary building of this scale. The building has been designed to meet the highest standards of environmental sustainability, ensuring low energy usage and incorporating state-of-the-art materials," Google stated. It's said that bold primary colors will adorn the steelwork, taking inspiration from architectural elements nearby. There are also rumors that the roof will feature a garden. Ultimately, Google and its design team hope to achieve BREEAM Outstanding and LEED Platinum ratings and deliver an overall carbon reduction of 40 percent. The new building will boast around 93 thousand gross square meters new, with approximately 67 thousand square meters dedicated to office space and around 4600 square meters slated for retail space at ground level. The new site is likely to include a 1860 square meter area for bike parking (about the size of seven tennis courts), and features a climbing wall between floors, a source close to the project told Reuters. If all goes as planned, workers will break ground on the new UK headquarters early in 2014, with completion scheduled for late 2016 or early 2017. The building is expected to create 1,500 construction jobs, and while there are only about 2,000 Google employees in the UK, the new office will have room for about 4,500, which means the tech giant is likely to be hiring in the next few years.

The Spanish government has approved a plan to sell of a quarter of its state-owned properties in a bid to raise hundreds of millions and boost the government's empty coffers. In plans approved last week by Spain's cabinet, some 15 thousand properties - from office buildings to agricultural land - will be put up for sale over the next seven years. The measure is the latest in a series of moves to bring Spain's budget deficit to within the EU target of 3 percent by 2016 from 7.1 percent of GDP last year. A parliamentary commission has drawn up an extensive list of assets that will be sold to private investors in the hope of raising millions to reduce its public deficit. Among those being offered include disused army barracks, an aerodrome on the island of Minorca, a military shooting range and thousands of office buildings. The government said the portfolio will include around 10 buildings "considered unique" that it hopes will be snapped up by potential investors. Among those is a mansion house on Madrid's central avenue, the Paseo de la Castellana, that used to house the Secretary of State for Security, and a country estate in Andalusia comprising 35 thousand acres of natural parkland planted with cork trees. Mariano Rajoy's conservative government announced plans last year to set up a commission to draw up an inventory of all state-owned property and identify those that could be sold off. The first properties to go under the hammer include the former headquarters of RTVE, Spain's state television and radio channel in Madrid and Galicia, and a disused army barracks in Seville. The government has not yet released the portfolio of properties for sale over the next seven years or said whether they will be sold by auction or by public tender. The government is yet to outline how much money it hopes to raise in the asset sell-off. Last year Spain's government raised 90 million euros in sales of state-owned buildings that had lain empty and made a further 37.5 million euros saving by renegotiating rental contracts. Much of the rural property that will be put on the market will be offered with the opportunity for development to create local jobs. For example, La Almoraima, a finca in the Natural Park of Alcornocales, which has been owned by the Ministry of Environment since 1983, is being sold with the option to develop a resort with two golf courses and a five-star hotel. Several months ago Greece's cash-strapped government also detailed its plans to sell 28 state-owned buildings on long-term lease, including tax offices, ministry buildings, and the main police headquarters in Athens.

In recent years China has witnessed lots of phenomenal constructions. The world's longest high-speed rail line (2.298-kilometer-long), which spans over half of China, began operating at the end of last year. In April, 2012 the world's highest and longest tunnel-to-tunnel bridge was commissioned in China, which linked together two tunnels 1176 meters apart, and 355 meters above Hunan's Dehang Canyon. Again in 2012 Chinese mass media reports, that Changsha, China's Hunan province will be home to world's tallest building, which will be built in just 7 months. 220-store building will be 838 meters high. Today China put into operation world's largest building - New Century Global Center . The superlatives in China continue -- the latest symbol of China's "bigger is much, much better" ethos is open for business. Located in Chengdu (population 14 million), capital of Sichuan province in southwestern China, the New Century Global Center is the "largest freestanding building in the world," Chinese officials say. Though the words "world's largest" usually bring to mind an image of a towering skyscraper, this project actually isn't all that tall. But it's certainly big. At 500 meters long, 400 meters wide and 100 meters high, the 1.7-million-square-meter mega-structure is capable of housing 20 Sydney Opera Houses and almost three times the size of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The Global Center, which opened June 28, is home to business offices, hotels, movie theaters, shopping malls, a faux Mediterranean village and family-themed attractions such as a water park called Paradise Island.