The first tower of the world's tallest hotel, JW Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai, has opened its doors adding 804 rooms, reported Arabian Business. Earlier this year, the official site of Marriott Hotel announced, that the JW Marriott Marquis Dubai will open its doors to guests in Q4 this year. Officially recognized as the world's tallest hotel at a height of 355 meters, only 26 meters short of the Empire State Building in New York, the JW Marriott Marquis has been dubbed Dubai's first world-class convention and business destination hotel. The hotel is opening in several phases, with its first tower of 804 rooms and suites in its soft opening phase, and with three of the final nine restaurants. By January, the hotel will have all nine restaurants and five bars and lounges open, with a grand opening scheduled to take place in February. The 82-storey, 1,608-room hotel represents another record-breaking structure for a city that already boasts the tallest building and the largest shopping mall. Till now the tallest dedicated hotel building in the world was Rose Rayhaan in Dubai. 72 story's, 333 meters high and certified as the World's tallest hotel by Guinness Records hotel building opened its doors in 2010. But the world's highest located hotel is Ritz-Carlton housed in 484 meters high International Commerce Center in Hong-Kong. It is situated on 102-118 floors.

A groundbreaking ceremony is hosted last week in celebration of the start of construction of Japan's largest solar and wind power plant, located in Tahara City. The major project will be spread over 800 thousand square meters and is estimated to generate 67.5 thousand megawatt hours of electricity each year which would be enough to power 90 percent of the homes in Tahara City with green energy. It is also thought that the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions each year will be approximately 32 thousand tones. The solar and wind power plant is part of a collaboration of seven firms (Mitsui Chemicals, Mitsui & Co, C-Tech Corporation, Toagosei Co, Toshiba Corporation, Toray Industries, and Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co) who initiated the project last October, with permission granted in September 2012. Design and construction on the plant is US$ 225 million with the majority of the money being sourced through loans from the Development Bank of Japan. The participating companies will maintain a cooperative technological relationship with the Chubu Electric Power Co., and will acquire new technology and knowledge unique to the nation's largest solar energy generation facility.

Two hydro power plants (HPPs)-namely, Meghri and Gharachikar-will be built on the Arax River with Armenian-Iranian cooperation. The groundbreaking ceremony of Meghri HPP was held on November 8 on the Armenian side of the border, reported News.am. The agreement on the hydro power plant construction received in 2007-2008. Two inter-governmental agreements have been ratified by the parliaments of both countries. Meghri HPP will have an installed capacity 130 megawatts and produce about 800 million kW/h electricity per year. The plant will be constructed in compliance with the internationally accepted environmental standards. The investor from the Iranian side is "Tavan Ab Araz Company" which, in line with the already-signed agreement, will resolve all matters connected with Meghri HPP's construction and starting of its operation. The construction will be carried out within 5 years and, 15 years thereafter, the plant will be transferred to the Armenian side at no cost. Also, an agreement is reached whereby solely local manpower will be used for the plant's construction.

Norman Foster presented proposals for a master plan to bring clarity back to Grand Central Terminal at The Municipal Art Society of New York's annual Summit in New York. Grand Central Terminal is one of New York's greatest landmarks and contains perhaps the city's finest civic space. However, over time it has become a victim of its own success. A building designed to be used by 75 thousand people per day now routinely handles ten times that number with up to a million on peak days. The result is acute overcrowding; connections to the rail and subway lines beneath the concourse are inadequate; and the arrival and departure experience is poor. Added to that, the surrounding streets are choked with traffic and pedestrians are marginalized. The rapid growth of tall buildings in the vicinity has all but consumed the Terminal. Within the station, the proposal creates wider concourses, with new and improved entrances. Externally, streets will be reconfigured as shared vehicle/pedestrian routes, and Vanderbilt Avenue fully pedestrianized. The proposal also creates new civic spaces that will provide Grand Central with an appropriate urban setting for the next 100 years. The 42nd street entrance to the south, where access is severely constrained, will be widened to fill the entire elevation by using existing openings, thus greatly easing accessibility. The access via tunnels on the northern approach from Park Avenue will be rebalanced in favor of pedestrians by creating grander, enlarged underground spaces through the Helmsley building. Lexington Avenue to the east will be tree-lined with wider sidewalks and will benefit from more prominent and enhanced tunnel access to Grand Central Terminal. The idea already mooted to pedestrianize Vanderbilt Avenue to the west would be extended. The street would be anchored to the south by a major new enlarged civic space between 43rd Street and the west entrance to the Terminal and to the north by a plaza accommodating new entrances to the East Side Access lines. Trees, sculpture and street cafes will bring life and new breathing space to Grand Central Terminal. At platform and concourse levels where congestion is particularly acute for travellers on the 4, 5, 6 and 7 lines, we will radically enlarge the connecting public areas, to address the huge increase in passenger traffic in the last 100 years. This will transform the experience for arriving and departing commuters and passengers. A generous new concourse will be created beneath the west entrance plaza on Vanderbilt Avenue connecting directly into the main station concourse. This visionary master plan with its focus on pedestrians and travellers will allow Grand Central Terminal to regain the civic stature that it deserves as a major New York landmark and an appropriate twenty-first century transport hub.

Mercury City, the tower Russian retail billionaire Igor Kesaev is building in Moscow's new financial district, overtook the Shard in London as Europe's tallest skyscraper, reported Bloomberg. The tower, which construction began in 2006, reached its full height of 339 meters, 29 meters more than the Shard, Kesaev's Mercury Development announced, citing Hamburg-based researcher Emporis. The 75-story skyscraper, designed by U.S. architect Frank Williams, who died in 2010, and Russia's Mikhail Posokhin, is due to be completed in the first quarter next year. Investment in the project totaled US$1 billion. The tower has about 90 thousand square meters of office space and 20 thousand square meters of apartments, according to the developer's website. The starting price for apartments in Mercury City is US $11.1 thousand for a square meter. The rental price should be at a market level of about US$800 - US$900 per square meter a year, but on this stage of construction tenants expect it to be about US$700. The title of "Europe's tallest building" belonged to London for all of a few months as the Russian capital moves onwards and upwards. But "Mercury city" will not carry the title of "the Europe's tallest building" for a long time, as the under-construction Federation Tower is in the process of being built right next to Mercury City and, upon its completion next year, will stand at a staggering 506 meter.