Paris city councilors have voted in favor of hotly-contested plans for a giant triangular tower that would be the capital's first modern skyscraper in more than 40 years. After construction 42-storey skyscraper "Tour Triangle" will be third tallest skyscraper in Paris conceding only 324 meter high Eiffel Tower and the 210 meters high Montparnasse Tower. The newest project was designed by Basel-based architects "Herzog & de Meuron", who were the creative brains behind the conversion of London's Bankside Power Station into the Tate Modern art museum and Beijing's 'Bird's Nest' stadium for the 2008 Olympics. Europe's biggest listed property group "Unibail Rodamco" is investing US$ 555 million into the project, which is set to be completed in 2018. Inside, the tower will house a 120-room, four star hotel, a restaurant, a cultural center, and 70,000 square meters of office space. The project was first shown to the public in 2008. At that time the skyscraper construction was impossible, as the laws were restricting tall buildings in Paris. Over the years, laws have changed and the project "Tour Triangle" also a little changed. For example at first the office place was 80 thousand square meters, now it is 70 thousand square meters. According to France 24, Paris city council has approved the construction of a controversial tower block "Tour Triangle". On June 30 the project was given go-ahead after getting 87 votes for and 74 against. The project was rejected by the same body in November 2014 amid accusations that conservative councilors had voted against it merely to block the success of a project supported by Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo. The second vote was carried out in private after Paris' mayor Anne Hidalgo dismissed November's ballot as invalid, claiming inter-party fighting influenced the outcome. Tour Triangle is set to be located in Porte de Versailles on the city's south-western fringe in the Porte de Versailles neighborhood, alongside vast convention halls. Many residents are unhappy, however, at the prospect of having to live next to the tower. Politicians have also criticized the project for not being in line with Paris' housing requirements, or being energy efficient enough. Despite skyscrapers being a common sight in many cities, residents in Paris have strongly opposed them, ever since the 324 meters high Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 Universal Exposition. The first and last skyscraper to be built in inner Paris was the 210 meters tall Tour Montparnasse building in 1973.

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 .

At first 15 floors in 6 days, then 30 floors in 15 days, now 57 floors in 19 days... Chinese company "Broad Sustainable Building" again hits a record. BSB Architect Xian Min Zhang has released a time-lapse video of the construction of the company's latest building: a 57-floor, 80 thousand square meters skyscraper, fully built with energy-efficient, factory-produced, Lego-like blocks. He claims BSB is now building its prefabricated skyscrapers at a record three floors per day. The new prefabricated tower, which named "J57", has 19 atriums of 10 meters' height each, 800 apartments and office space for 4,000 people. The use of company's modular construction technique, which won a CTBUH Innovation Award in 2013, reduced the use of concrete by 15,000 trucks, which has nearly eliminated all the dust that would normally be released during conventional construction, an important advantage in pollution-ridden China. Besides this, the air inside the building is 99.9 percent pure, thanks to the tight construction and built-in air conditioning system. The J57 building has quadruple-pane glass and is so energy efficient that it will save more than 10,000 metric tons of CO2 emission compared to a conventionally constructed building of the same size and use. The first attempt to build such buildings company made in 2010, when built its first prefabricated tower. The 15-story Ark Hotel was built in record 6 days . After two years, company built 30-story prefabricated hotel just in 15 days. Then in 2013 the founder of parent company Broad Group Chairman Zhang Yue announced about its ambitious project. The company planned to build world's tallest tower - 838 meter high "Sky City". According to the company, construction of this tower began on June 20, 2013 and would be completed by April 2014. But the project has been halted, apparently for political reasons. This Mini Sky city, while proving that Zhang's techniques work-and quite impressively so-was itself halted at 20 stories and then cut in height from 97 stories to 57; the company states that this was due to its location near an airport.

When American engineer William Le Baron Jenney designed the world's first skyscraper in Chicago in 1884, no one believed in his unconventional technologies. But today swapping cement and steel for timber is the vision of a number of environmentally-minded architects who are planning high-rise building across the world. Architecture firm "Rudiger Lainer and Partner" has unveiled plans to build the world's tallest wooden skyscraper in the Seestadt Aspern area of Vienna. The 84 meters, 24 stories "HoHo" tower will house a hotel, apartments, a restaurant, a wellness center and offices. 76 percent of the structure will be constructed from wood, which will save a phenomenal 2,800 tons of CO2 emissions over similar structures built out of steel and concrete. Speaking to the Guardian, project developer Caroline Palfy, of "Kerbler " explained "I think it is important everyone now... thinks in different ways. We have wood, which is a perfect construction material for building. It was used many centuries and it was perfect then and is perfect now." Not only is the material appropriate for construction of such a building, it is radically more environmentally friendly than concrete. According to research from Columbia University, the manufacturing of cement-a key ingredient in concrete-accounts for a whopping five percent of all global CO2 emissions. Trees, on the other hand, absorb CO2 as they grow-so, if wood is sustainably sourced it can serve as an eco-friendly alternative building material. Currently world's highest timber frame apartment building "Forte" at 32 meters completed in 2012 is situated in Melbourne. Another modern wooden building is in London. Called the "Stadthaus", Murray Grove, it's a nine-story residential building that stands at just less than 30 meters. Even the lift shafts and stairwells are made from wood. In previous years Norway and Canada 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.