According to Reuters, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, whose firm designed the building said, that the much-delayed but striking steel, concrete and glass headquarters for Chinese state television is expected finally to fully open in the new year. Dominating the skyline of Beijing's central business district, the building was among several projects the city undertook to reinvent itself for the 2008 Olympics, along with Norman Foster's US$ 3.6 billion new airport terminal and French architect Paul Andreu's egg-shaped National Grand Theatre. But the Olympics came and went and the state television building failed to open. According to website e-architect, construction of the 600 thousand square meter project began in September 2004 on the 20 hectare site of an abandoned motorcycle factory in Beijing's new Central Business District. After connecting the two leaning towers in December 2007 and topping out structural steel works on March 2008, the CCTV building planned to complete at end of 2009, but a 2009 fire at a hotel being built next to the television tower had caused the delay. The 600 million euro project consists of two buildings. The new China Central Television Headquarters (CCTV), at a height of 230 meters and a floor area of 405 thousand square meters, combines administration with news, broadcasting, studios and program production. The second building, the 116 thousand square meters Television Cultural Center (TVCC) includes a hotel, a visitor's center, a large publc theatre and exhibition spaces.

Beijing has started construction on a new mega-airport that will be roughly the size of Bermuda and have nine runways, reported The Telegraph. The new airport will be called Beijing Daxing International and when it opens in 2015, the Chinese capital will become the world's busiest aviation hub, handling around 370 thousand passengers a day. It is only three years since the opening of Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital Airport, a sweeping structure designed by Sir Norman Foster that is far bigger than all of Heathrow's five terminals combined. But an enormous boom in China's aviation industry has already left the capital's existing facilities stretched to breaking point. "It is impossible to add even one more flight to the tight daily schedule of the Capital airport," said Li Jiaxing, the minister in charge of China's Civil Aviation Administration. The existing airport in Beijing has an annual capacity of 75 million passengers. Last year it handled 73 million. In two years, it will be totally packed. And it cannot be expanded infinitely. Instead, Beijing's planners have found a 54 thousand square meters site to the south of the city, in the suburb of Daxing. Currently the site is around an hour's drive from the city centre, but planners are pencilling in an extension to Beijing's metro, and perhaps even a high-speed train line. The new facility will not only serve Beijing, but also Tianjin and parts of Hebei as the Chinese capital morphs into a mega-city, its suburbs merging into those of the cities around it. The airport will be Beijing's third, after Capital and the smaller, primarily military, Nanyuan airport. Beijing Daxing is likely to have eight runways for civilian use and a ninth for military use, according to Yao Weihui, the general manager of China United Airlines. "The suggested location is a place with few residents and buildings, so a lot of runways can be built," he added.

According to news agency Xinhuanet, Shanghai, China's economic center, plans to build a super-sized exhibition center that is likely to become the world's largest, announced a municipal official Sha Hailin. The Shanghai municipal government has set up a headquarters to command construction of ancillary facilities to the China Expo Center, which will be located at the Shanghai Hongqiao Central Business District, said Sha Hailin, deputy secretary general of the Shanghai municipal government, at a press briefing. The center, composed of a main exhibition hall and ancillary facilities, will cover an area of about 104 hectares, with an indoor area of 400 thousand square meters and 100 thousand square meters of outdoor exhibition areas. The project will cost US$ 3.6 billion, and the first-phase investment has been secured, without elaborating on the amount.

As reported by Chinadaily, developers working on a new skyscraper, which once built will be the capital's tallest building, say they will break ground on the project on September 19. CITIC Group (China International Trust and Investment Corporation), which won the rights to the 11.478 square meters land in the Central Business District (CDB) with a bid of US$ 563 million on last December 21, plans to build a 510-meters tall office tower with 104 floors above ground and four basement levels. The final design hasn't been decided yet, as the group is waiting for municipal governmen's approval, but the building will be higher than 500 meters. The new skyscraper is called Zhongguo Zun, which means China Goblet, as the inspiration for the design came from an ancient ritual vessel. Construction will be completed in five to seven years and the completed building will offer 350 thousand square meter of space. The land where the building will stand is in the north of the CBD, which houses many international companies. The capital's tallest building now is Tower 3 of China World Trade Center, which is 330 meters tall and is also in the CBD. The skyscraper is expected to serve as an office building for CITIC Group. The design of the new skyscraper adopts many elements from traditional culture, such as the Kongming (Floating Paper) Lamp. The building will remind people of the ancient Chinese city, representing Beijing's image perfectly.

As reported by chinadaily.com, the world's longest cross-sea bridge, spanning Jiaozhou Bay of Qingdao in East China's Shandong province, opened to traffic last week. The 41.58 kilometer, eight-lane Qingdao Jiaozhou Bay bridge, connecting the urban district of the city to its Huangdao district, cost US$ 2.3 billion. Construction started in May 2007. The bridge will shorten the route between the two centers by 30 kilometer, cutting travel time from more than 40 minutes to about 20 minutes. The bridge was built in four years, with several world records and national prizes achieved. Before that, it took more than 17 years for the authorities and experts to finish the exploration, planning, design and bidding for the project. According to telegraph.co.uk, the bridge is supported by more than 5,200 columns and was designed by the Shandong Gausu Group. The bridge is expected to carry over 30,000 cars a day. A staggering 450,000 tons of steel was used in its construction - enough for almost 65 Eiffel Towers - and 2.3 million cubic meters of concrete, equivalent to filling 3,800 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Chinese officials said that the bridge will be strong enough to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake, typhoons or the impact of a 300,000 tonne vessel. Previously, the longest cross-sea bridge in the world was the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway built in Louisiana back in the 1950s. China is already home to seven of the world's 10 longest bridges, including the world's lengthiest, the 163 kilometer Danyang-Kunshan rail bridge, which runs over land and water near Shanghai. And with Beijing pumping billions into boosting China's infrastructure, the Qingdao Bridge will not be the world's longest sea bridge for very long. In December 2009, work started on a 49.6 kilometer bridge that will link Zhuhai in southern Guangdong Province, China's manufacturing heartland, with the financial centre of Hong Kong. The project is expected to be completed in 2016.