As the death toll in Nepal continues to rise, impacting roughly eight million people according to the UN, one can't help but wonder how the country will ever achieve its former splendor after this devastating earthquake. Arch Daily pulled together a series of news reports detailing how the earthquake leveled several historic buildings, many of them UNESCO heritage sites, with absolute impunity. The iconic Bhimsen Tower reduced to rubble, Kathmandu Durbar Square, unrecognizable. And the site of the beautiful Boudhanath Stupa, forever changed. Talk of architecture may seem trivial in this context, but Nepalese architecture comprises an integral part of a rich cultural tradition that has evolved over many centuries. And it is culture; ultimately, that unites a population after tragedy. Earthquakes disproportionately affect people in developing countries, where building codes are less rigorous, so the same buildings that we all know and love are ultimately responsible for greater death and destruction than an earthquake of a similar magnitude (7.8) would exactly in a developed country. Kathmandu's iconic Bhimsen Tower, for example, killed at least 200 people. This is not the first time earthquakes have destroyed this particular tower, but it may well be the last. Rebuilding it seems like such a daunting prospect. Kathmandu Durbar Square and Patan Durbar Square are hardly recognizable in the ruins. These royal palace squares are all UNESCO heritage sites. They are considered priceless to all of humanity. And now they are gone. The Boudhanath Stupa, which is considered the holiest Tibetan Buddhist temple outside of Tibet, has also been damaged. While the dome appears to have survived, this site too is largely unrecognizable. Drone footage published by the National Post illustrates the extent of destruction.

How cool would it be to tell people you live inside of a wind turbine? Designed for the port city of Rotterdam, the Dutch "Windwheel" is a concept for a sustainable landmark that would be able to house 72 apartments within a circular steel and glass frame, while also serving as a silent, motionless wind turbine. In addition to harvesting energy from the wind, the structure would be equipped with facilities to capture rainwater, recycle tap water and also produce biogas from the residents' organic waste. The "Windwheel" is composed of two rings built on an underground foundation and surrounded by wetlands so as to give the structure the appearance of floating. The outer ring houses 40 rotating cabins to provide visitors with impressive views of Rotterdam-much as the London Eye does in the UK. The inner ring houses 72 apartments, 160 hotel rooms, and commercial outlets and is topped off with a restaurant. Perhaps the most striking detail of the 174 meter tall "Windwheel", other than its appearance, is the turbine that fills the inner ring of the building. The electrostatic wind energy converter (EWICON) is a technology that was developed at TU Delft and converts wind energy with a framework of steel tubes into electricity without moving mechanical parts. This means no noise and much easier maintenance. Within the interior of the massive ringed structure would be a set of steel tubes ringed with electrodes, sort of like a tennis racket. Sprayers would then emit charged water particles, and electricity would be generated when the wind pushes these particles past the electrodes. According to architect Duzan Doepel of Doepel Strijkers, the firm designing the project, the idea is to create an icon like the London Eye that will both attract tourists and showcase cutting-edge technology. He expects they may be able to finish the structure within five to six years, and estimates suggest it may attract up to 1.5 million visitors a year. The proposed "Windwheel" is also equipped with solar PVs and a climactic facade to make the best use of natural resources. The building's water usage is also carefully managed, with rainwater captured atop the structure, and tap water fed into the wetlands that surround the "Windwheel". Furthermore, biogas is also produced from the residents' waste.

Recently Korean architects presented the new hotel project which will host the Winter Olympic Games 2018. The green terrace-lined design snakes in cascading curves that form an infinity shape. The new hotel will be located in Gangneung in Eastern Korea in a prime position for tourism. The resort itself is within approximately 5 kilometers from Olympic stadiums and facilities in the area, most of which are due for completion in 2016. The building, designed by the Seoul architectural firm "Planning Korea", looks like a three-dimensional infinity sign or volume Mobius strip. Architectures also mentioned that the sweeping figure-eight form of the resort draws inspiration from the ecological structure of the plankton, and references the project's conceptual basis of "a strip of healing or recreation." The twisted loop forms the predominant circulation space of the structure, whilst also providing a substantial space frame upon which a glass facade will be mounted. Offering 946 rooms and sprawling across nearly a 30 thousand square meters site, the hotel will offer a combination of marine and mountain leisure activities. The hotel will also feature a swimming pool suspended in a "belt" linking the building's dual cores. Rooftop sky facilities will adorn the hotel's top level, while LED lights at lower levels create a media facade. Approaching ground level the structure assumes a form evocative of Korean traditional housing, the Hanok. Planning Korea hope to "form a village" using these modernized versions of the traditional typology, interspersing restaurants and retail outlets in their midst. It is envisioned that the resort will allow "activities, recreation and healing within the nature" during the 2018 Winter Olympics, after which point it will be used for conventions and other events.

The Egyptian government has announced plans to build a new capital to the east of the present one, Cairo. The project would cost US$ 45 billion and take 5 to 7 years to complete. This announcement was made on March 13 at an investment conference that aims to revive the Egyptian economy. The new city will be built by Capital City Partners, a private real estate investment fund led by Emirati Mohamed Alabbar. Dubai businessman Mr Alabbar built the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. According to planners, the proposed city's site is situated along the corridor between Cairo and the Red Sea, providing linkages to significant shipping routes. The new city - the name of which has not been revealed - is planned to be built over 700 square kilometers with 200 square kilometers of preserved natural areas and house about 5 million residents. According to the brochure, there will be exactly 21 residential districts, 40 thousand hotel rooms, 700 kindergartens and schools, 663 hospitals and clinics, 1,250 mosques and churches, and 1.1 million homes housing and one of the largest city park systems in the world. The new capital of Egypt designed by SOM (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP) architectural and design company. Especially on the project worked architects Phillip Enquist, Daniel Ringelstein, George J. Efstathiou. According to SOM the new city will be compact in urban form and anchored by concentrated development districts, including a central business district, a government administrative district, a cultural district, a knowledge and innovation district, and a residential neighborhoods. Every neighborhood will be centered on a community public space surrounded by local shops, schools, religious buildings, and civic amenities. SOM City Design Practice Director Daniel Ringelstein mentioned that the future city will strengthen and diversify Egypt's economic potential by creating attractive new places to live, work, and welcome the world. This is very ambitious and significant project, but many doubt whether it will become a reality. According to Guardian, in Egypt, even the best urban plans have tended to go awry. Egypt has a history of building unfinished towns in the desert, the product of a decades-old belief that satellite developments will curb overcrowding in its main cities. In theory, the strategy is based in logic: around 96% of Egyptians live on just 4% of Egyptian land, and as the population mushrooms, relocating some of the former might solve the congestion in the latter. But experience, time and again, has suggested otherwise. These 22 existing "new towns" - some of them more than 30 years old - still collectively hold little more than a million residents, and contain thousands of empty homes. Far from Cairo's madding crowds, they are in theory an attractive prospect for many Egyptians. But in practice, most cannot afford to move there.

A day after his death, German architect Frei Otto was named the 2015 winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the field's highest honor. The award typically goes to a living architect. Otto died on 9 March at age 89, so the announcement of the prize, scheduled for March 23, was hastily moved up. The executive director of the prize, Martha Thorne, a former architecture curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, told Otto of the award before he died. Mr. Otto's work grew out of a time of scarcity after World War II, when a shortage of construction materials encouraged him to innovate. One inspiration, he said, was the soap bubble, which showed him how to create the maximum enclosure with the minimum material. Without Frei Otto, many of the structures and buildings of the past 50 years wouldn't exist. Because Otto wasn't just an architect-he was also a brilliant inventor and engineer who pioneered some of the most far-fetched feats of structural engineering ever completed. "Throughout his life," said the citation from the nine-member Pritzker jury, "Frei Otto has produced imaginative, fresh, unprecedented spaces and constructions." Otto's major buildings include the German pavilion at the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal, roof for Olympic Stadium, Munich in 1972, Tuwaiq Palace, Saudi Arabia, with Buro Happold in 1985 and the Japan Pavilion at Expo 2000 in Hannover, Germany. The award comes with US$ 100,000 and a bronze medallion. It will be presented, presumably to representatives of the architect, on May 15 in Miami Beach. Founded in 1979 by Jay A. Pritzker and his wife Cindy, the award is funded by the Pritzker family and is considered to be one of the world's premier architecture prizes; it is often referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture. The Pritzker Prize won such architectures, as Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano, Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, Oscar Niemeyer, Wang Shu, Toyo Ito . Otto is the second German architect to win the award. The first was Gottfried Boehm, the 1986 winner.