According to ctbuh.org, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat announced the winners of its annual "Best Tall Building" awards for 2015. This year's winners will be recognized, and the awards conferred, at the CTBUH Annual Awards Ceremony on November 12. All the winning projects and finalists will be celebrated at this gala event. Additionally, from the four regional best tall building winners, one overall winner will be selected and bestowed with the "Best Tall Building Worldwide" award, to be announced on the night. This year's selection was the most competitive yet, with winners selected from a pool of 123 entries, which is up nearly 40% from 2014. Besides this year's winners and finalists are remarkable in that they show a strong commitment to sustainability, with some exemplifying dramatic progress in the use of greenery both to enhance the comfort of the building's users and reduce the environmental impact of the building. Others show dramatic sculptural form and urban presence. The Best Tall Buildings have been named from each of four competing regions in the world, from nominees representing a total of 33 countries. This year are awarded to: "One World Trade Center", New York (Americas); " CapitaGreen " tower, Singapore (Asia & Australasia); Bosco Verticale, Milan (Europe); and The Burj Mohammed Bin Rashid Tower, Abu Dhabi (Middle East & Africa). "One World Trade Center" is a bold new icon for New York City built on the World Trade Center site, whose design acknowledges the adjacent memorial, and whose symbolic importance to the city and the country cannot be overstated. Its form calls to mind several classical New York skyscrapers for which the city is best recognized. The building had high design expectations which the jury felt were met and exceeded. United States and Western Hemisphere tallest skyscraper "One World Trade Center" is 546.2 meters tall, it has 94 over ground and 5 underground floors, 73 lifts and the total area of skyscraper is 325 thousand square meters 40 stories, 242 meters tall skyscraper "CapitaGreen" hasn't any records. It isn't the tallest; more it is only on the 175th place in skyscraper ranking. But Toyo Ito's skyscraper is the green island situated in the heart of Singapore. The building is designed like a plant growing towards the sky. Green living vegetation covers 55 percent of the perimeter of its facade, giving the landmark its iconic appearance. Its innovative double-skin facade features an outer layer of frameless glass and an inner envelope of double-glazed floor-to-ceiling glass that reduces solar heat gain by up to 26 percent. At the top of the tower, a petal-like structure serves as a wind scoop to draw in the cooler, cleaner air from above and channel it though a cool void that penetrates all 34 stories of the building delivering fresh air to tenants. World's first vertical forest "Bosco Verticale" comprises a fantastical pair of luxury high-rises that add nearly 10.2 thousand square meters of lush vegetation to the skyline of Milan, a city notorious for its air pollution. However, "Bosco Verticale", which translates in English as "vertical forest," is more than just a beautiful sight to behold--like a pair of green lungs, its forested facade of 21 thousand plants absorbs CO2 and particulate, dampens noise pollution, lessen the urban heat island effect, and creates oxygen and favorable microclimates. The towers, measuring 80 meters and 110 meters, house 800 trees between 3 and 9 meters tall, over 4 thousand shrubs, and 15 thousand ground cover plants including vines and perennials Middle East & Africa region winner 93-storey, 381 meters high The Burj Mohammed Bin Rashid Tower was designed by Foster+Partners architectural company, and main contractor and developer was Aldar Properties. The Burj Mohammed Bin Rashid Tower is located in the heart of Abu Dhabi at the site of the old Central Market, a traditional crossroads and meeting point in the city. A souk extends the marketplace into the building, facilitating a gentle transition between public and private spaces.

At first glance, the warm, luminous development proposed for a Paris site doesn't look much different than any other mixed-use project rising in other cities. But this village of high-rises is unique in that it would be made completely from wood-even the 35-story tower at the center. If completed, the skyscraper named Baobab would be largest and tallest wooden structure on the planet, rising above two other wooden buildings currently proposed for Stockholm and Vienna. The architect behind the wooden village is Michael Green, a designer who's been an evangelical voice for wood's revival. And he's not alone. The new development Created in collaboration with DVVD and real estate developer REI France. Thanks to incredible technological advances over the last decade, wood has become championed as stronger, safer, and more economical than steel. That's because traditional wood beams are being replaced with prefabricated "mass timber," where sheets of wood with alternating grain are laminated atop one another to make a super-strong building material. This makes wood a far better choice for building a structure It not only requires much less energy to manufacture, it comes from a renewable source and can sequester carbon. And in many ways it's more fire-resistant than steel because burning wood creates a layer of insulation in the form of char (much like how trees protect themselves in a forest fire) which is less likely to structurally fail under the same conditions. The Baobab plan is part of Reinventer Paris, a comprehensive redevelopment program for the city that is turning over 23 sites in the city to innovative urban projects. Pershing, the area which the wooden skyscrapers are proposed for, would be part of a larger eco-minded community with affordable housing, urban farming, and transportation connections. The development claims that the environmental benefit of using wood is the climate equivalent of taking 2,207 cars off the road. The 35-story tower, "Baobab," places a heightened focus on community. With a strategic mix of market and social housing, a student hotel, urban agriculture, a bus station, e-car hub, and other amenities, the proposal hopes to "foster the city's vision for a connected, vibrant metropolis" and "define the next era of city building." A gorgeous, game-changing wood building would be well-suited in Paris, where the Eiffel Tower changed people's minds about the possibilities-and beauty-of iron as a building material over a century ago. In previous years Norway, Canada and Austria also announced about plans to build wooden skyscrapers. In 2012 Architect Michael Green, one of three principals at "McFarlane Green Biggar Architecture + Design", announced about plans for a 30-story wooden skyscraper in Vancouver. Two years later "Bergen Omegn Building Society" started works on the 14 story wooden structure "Treet" or "The tree", which would rise to 49 meters. This year architecture firm "Rudiger Lainer and Partner" has unveiled plans to build the 84 meters, 24 stories "HoHo" wooden tower in the Seestadt Aspern area of Vienna .

China will soon finish construction on what will be the world's tallest and longest glass pedestrian bridge, floating 300 meters above a canyon in the Zhangjiajie National Park. Designed by Israeli architect, Haim Dotan, the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge will be 380 meters long, 6 meters wide and feature a transparent glass floor. This extreme bridge aspires to become a "Wonder of the World" and continues the Chinese trend of delivering unique architecture that tests the limits of human ingenuity. The bridge will comprise two side steel beams, a structural glass deck, handrails and side suspension cables, with the capacity to hold up to 800 people at a time. The Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon Glass Bridge will also contain a bungee jumping spot and be used as a runway for fashion shows. Construction is expected to wrap up in July, with the bridge officially opening to the public in October 2015.

One of the biggest homes in U.S. history is rising on a Los Angeles hilltop, and the developer hopes to sell it for a record US$ 500 million. Nile Niami, a film producer and speculative residential developer, is pouring concrete in L.A.'s Bel Air neighborhood for a compound with a 6,9 thousand square meter main residence and three smaller homes, according to city records. The project, which will take at least 20 more months to complete, will exceed 9,3 thousand square meters, including a 465 square meters master bedroom, a 30-car garage and a "Monaco-style casino," Niami said. Niami's project, on a 1.6-hectare hilltop lot, will have 360-degree views of the Pacific Ocean, Beverly Hills, downtown Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. Plans called for removal of almost 30,600 cubic meters of earth, the equivalent of an American football field covered by 6 meters of dirt. Niami's mansion is set to be the largest built in the U.S. this century, surpassing Versailles, a 8,3 thousand square meters chateau in Windermere, Florida, under construction for David Siegel, founder and chief executive officer of Westgate Resorts. Estates with views of the Los Angeles basin are the California counterpart to Manhattan's penthouses or London's Mayfair manors, drawing a global cast of financiers, technology tycoons and celebrities who collect trophy homes like works of art. Around the world, five properties sold for US$ 100 million or more last year, and at least 20 others have nine-figure asking prices, Christie's International Real Estate reported last month. The priciest home ever sold was a US$ 221 million London penthouse purchased in 2011, according to Christie's. The most expensive properties on the market include a US$ 750 million rancho in USA, a US$ 425 million estate in France's Cote d'Azur Villa Leopolda, an almost US$ 400 million penthouse in Monaco and a US$ 365 million London manor.

The world's largest hotel is being planned for Mecca, Saudi Arabia, a remarkable structure that will rise out of the desert and apparently contain 10,000 rooms for worshippers. The hotel will be part of a mixed-use development at Abraj Kudai, a US$ 3.5 billion project intended to look like a desert fortress that encompasses a ring of towers standing on top of a podium. It is due to be completed in 2017 and is being situated in the Manafia area of Mecca's central zone, just 2.2 kilometers south of the Masjid al-Haram (holy mosque). DesignMENA reported that the hotel will have 10,000 rooms in 12 separate towers, which are 44 stores high that will also include 70 restaurants, rooftop helipads, royal floors and a full size convention center. Two of the towers will offer five-star facilities, according to the hotel's architects Dar Al-Handasah. The other ten will provide four-star accommodation. The interiors are expected to be in keeping with the opulent style found elsewhere in the region. The site, which will also include residential facilities, a shopping mall and plenty of car parking for those visiting the mosque and black Kaaba, has an approximate total site area of 60,000 square meters and a total built-up area of 1.4 million square meters. The world's largest hotels up until now have been in Las Vegas. The Venetian and The Palazzo, which operate as a single hotel, offer 7117 rooms. The MGM Grand in Las Vegas is close behind in terms of number of room keys, with 6,852 rooms available.