The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) is the world's foremost authority on tall buildings. Every year, beginning from 2007, the Council issues seven Tall Building awards annually; two Lifetime Achievement awards and five Best Tall Building awards which recognize excellence in design and construction. Following an open call period for nominations, the Council's Awards Committee selects the winner of each category. The Best Tall Building Overall is selected from the four regional winners and announced at the CTBUH Annual Awards Ceremony & Dinner. One winner is chosen from each of four geographical regions (Americas, Asia & Australasia, Europe, and Middle East & Africa) and a further award presents the title of "Best Tall Building Overall" to one of the four regional winners. The 2010 finalist Tall Buildings were: Bank of America Tower, New York; The Pinnacle @ Duxton, Singapore; Broadcasting Place, Leeds, UK; and Burj Khalifa, Dubai. The Best Tall Building of 2010 from 4 regional finalists announced Broadcasting Place, Leeds, or as it is called "Rusty High rise " for the rusty facade feature of the 70 m high building. A key element in the design of the building is the irregular elevations, which have been tailored to optimize daylight and reduce solar penetration. An innovative analysis of the building facades was undertaken, to calculate the optimum quantity and distribution of glazing/shading at all points on the facade in order to ensure high levels of natural day lighting but without overheating. The design implements natural ventilation where practicable, ground source heat pumps, and a car-free development with bike parking provisions. In 2009, the Best Tall Building 2009 prize was aworded to Beijing residential complex Linked Hybrid. The 220,000 square meter pedestrian-oriented complex, sited adjacent to the site of old city wall of Beijing, aims to counter the current urban developments in China by creating a new twenty-first century porous urban space, inviting and open to the public from every side. Another award from CTBUH-2010 Global Icon Award, received Burj Khalifa, Dubai. The unprecedented height of the Burj Khalifa required design techniques, building systems, and construction practices to all be rethought and in many cases new applications developed in order to create a practical and efficient building. The building's "Y" shaped plan provides the maximum amount of perimeter for windows in living spaces and bedrooms without developing a large amount of internal unusable area.

The wonderful decorated and lighted Christmas tree has become an iconic symbol of the Christmas spirit all over the world. We are going to represent you some of the most interesting and amazing Christmas trees of 2011. The most expensive Christmas tree is in Abu Dhabi (UAE). In the lobby of Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi is the most expensive Christmas tree in the world, with the cost of $ 11 million. A 13 meter Christmas tree is artificial, but the toys that adorn it, are very expensive jewelry from the world's leading manufacturers. There are diamonds, a huge number of pearls and emeralds on the tree in the lobby of Emirates Palace Hotel; necklaces, bracelets, earrings, watches and much other jewelry hanging on it, each worth more than one thousand dollars. However, they can't be stolen, because there is a small sensor on each of these "toys" that will alarm the security if someone tries to make jewelry from the hotel. Note that in this hotel was once installed the world's first vending machine of gold bullion! Christmas Tree in Hong Kong by Swarovski Asians are trying to keep up with the oil sheiks of the Middle East. A famous Austrian company Swarovski made a 30-meter Christmas tree in Hong Kong. Swarovski erected Christmas tree in a conical shape of a skyscraper, with gold and silver diamond-shaped sections similar to the windows are illuminated from the inside all night long. For decorating the tree 20 million Swarovski crystals were used. Swarovski also constructed a Christmas tree in one of the most beautiful and fashionable French ski resorts - Megeve. (Watch video) Christmas Tree from Tiffany in Milan. The most expensive Christmas tree in Europe from Tiffany was placed in Milan. It costs €350 000. Next to this giant tree will open a jewelry store of famous brand. Note that a certain percentage of sales will be donated to the charity fund for the fight against cancer. Shopping Cart Christmas tree, Santa Monica, California. In one of the shopping centers in Santa Monica, California, raised a miracle Christmas Tree with the height at 33 feet. Designer Anthony Schmidt used 56 shopping carts to build this tree. According to Anthony, this tree embodies the hope for abundance and generosity of the coming New Year. Tallest Christmas tree in the World, town of Gubbio, Italian Province. These World Tallest Christmas tree is 800 meters high (2624 feet), 400 meters (1312 feet) wide. On the top of the tree and at the summit of the mountain, a star over 1000 meters (3,280 feet) long sparkles in the night sky. Tree is made up from over 800 lights laid out on the side of Mount Ingino. This tradition started when people of Gubbio decided to celebrate Christmas in a different way and in 1981 the first Mount -tree was illuminated. Since then the tradition is repeated annually thanks to a special committee consisting of volunteers giving up their free time for making the biggest Christmas tree in the world. Chocolate Christmas tree, France. Patrick Roger, a chocolate artist from France, made gigantic Chocolate Christmas tree to raise money for charity, auctioning off some parts of the tree and donating proceeds to an organization which studies neuromuscular disease. Roger unveiled the massive tree in his studio in Sceaux, Paris. The 32-foot-tall, 4-ton Chocolate Tree took a whole month to work on and as talented chocolatier said, making this was a great challenge for him. The Chocolate Christmas tree, hailed as a structural wonder, used $45,000 worth of 65% dark chocolate. (Watch video) The Largest Floating Christmas Tree. The Bradesco Seguros Christmas Tree, according to the Guinness Book of Records is the largest floating Christmas tree in the world, has been adorning the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon since 1996. It is a picture perfect site in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and is now on display for its 15th straight year. (Watch video) Although the Christmas trees in Yerevan are not the most expensive and the tallest, for us they are the most dearest!

On Friday, December 18, Barack Obama has solemnly signed the law on the extension of tax credits for 2011, thereby continuing the policy of tax stimulus provided by the Republicans. It was some gift to Americans for Christmas and especially for the middle class, which is considered the major driving engine of the US economy... At the beginning of the global economic crisis, the Armenian Government adopted a resolution on stopping planned tax inspections for 2 years period (until 2011), for a small and medium-sized businesses, to create more favorable conditions for doing business and overcome the crisis. For foreign readers this may sound a little bit strange, because there was no any tax stimulus for pushing economy to grow. It was clear only for us - entrepreneurs working in Armenia know what that means, and what a happiness it is to work and live without absurd "planned" tax inspections that lead to repeated increase risk of corruption and create an awful and unpleasant business-doing atmosphere. But let's be objective and say that our today's Government is taking some steps to reduce corruption risks in terms of communication with the tax authorities, as well as steps to reduce the share of shadow economy. However, in the construction industry, particularly in the market of small and medium-sized construction and design companies which mostly serve private customers , shadow remains the main form for the contractor-customer relationships. This problem has been repeatedly raised by us during the last 12 years and there isn't any solution so far. Maybe Santa Claus can help us to draw the Government's attention to our 2011 New Year dreams-wishes about some major industry problems. Our Main desire is to provide opportunities for standing-up and development of the licensed small and medium sized construction companies which are engaged in the market of private house building and repair, by creating the field of equal competition for all market participants (read the article). Not to do so, will be viewed as an anti state activity that leads to huge budget losses, impossibility for licensed small and medium-sized construction companies' legal development, housing is being built and repaired with the break of construction rules. We need completely remove the VAT from the private housing market to open the doors for step-by-step moving toward transparent economy! Our last year's formal request to the Government on this issue was submitted to the Ministry of Finance, which gave us a screen bureaucratic response,- "in order to bring all market participants to the equal competition field, we consider that the best way is to tighten control and force shadow contractors to liability under the law for the illegal business activities.." Dear Finance Deputy Minister, a year later after this response, can You give us an answer; how many shadow contractors were brought to the responsibility by authorities? Or we don't like to realize that it is impossible to prosecute whole nation for what they don't know, no one and never taught them what they have to do or what are the real law requirements? For many years people were learning other laws - the laws of real life, they lived and worked in a society where authorities allowed them shadow acting all the time and even indirectly teaches this illegal thinking way. And now it's too late and amoral to bring somebody to the responsibility and it's time to pull head out of the sand and look at the existing reality. Our second desire is to work and live in a legal "construction environment", relevant to the developed countries of the world. This implies a great work of the Government in the study of the experiences of these countries, finding and introducing the best and appropriate laws, acts or just recommendations. We have many law and regulation omissions in construction industry, which must be turned into internationally accepted laws and regulations to ensure legal protection of all parties involved in construction process. And our most important desire. Yerevan is located on one of the most vulnerable earthquake zones of the world(read related article), but in reality we don't have any modern earthquake-resistant hospital building ... The most urgent measures must be taken to build a basic "skeleton" for Republic earthquake safety -hospitals, schools, kindergartens, office buildings, etc.. There are many unsolved problems not only in our industry but in economy as a whole. They can't be solved by filled up with papers officials, who do not have any time to go out from everyday issues. This conversion requires independent high-level industry professionals and macroeconomics as a whole, who can do it without any bureaucratic pressure, and can provide the legislation and regulations only for mutual State -Entrepreneurship benefits, and create the business environment that can provide fertile ground for decades for the future prosperity of our homeland. We believe and hope that today's Government is able to find this desired gold human potential for reforms and has the will to implement them. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and who knows, maybe all this will be the case in 2011 and then we can work and prosper legally and be proud of Armenia.

The Zaha Hadid-designed MAXXI(National Museum of XXI Century Arts) Museum in Rome was announced as a winner of 2010 "World's Best Building of the Year" during the third annual World Architecture Festival (WAF) in Barcelona. Jurors included Arata Isozaki, Barry Bergdoll, Enrique Norten, and Hanif Kara. When Zaha Hadid entered into competition in 1999 for Museum design, she employed only 30 people. Today, her staff numbers more than 350 and she is building major projects around the world. Due to its complex geometry, the building is not easily understandable at first. On both the inside and the outside, the museum works as a series of connected ribbons, a composition that conjures the spirit of Baroque architecture with its play of convex and concave forms. And like buildings designed by Borromini and Bernini, MAXXI manipulates daylight in an almost mystical way - bringing it in from above, through glass roofs shielded by metal grilles, adjustable louvers, and concrete fins. Earlier this year, the Royal Institute of British Architects announced MAXXI Museum the winner of the2010 Stirling Prize with £20,000 award.

Creative artists from all over the world arrived to Swedish Lapland to create the largest Ice Hotel in the world. The winter season 2010/2011 will be the 21th for the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi, Sweden. The idea of Ice Hotel was born in 1990's; Jukkasjarvi has been always attracting ice carving artists, as it is located beyond the Arctic Circle. One winter day in 1990, when French artist Jannot Derid was holding an exhibition of his ice carvings in the igloo (a snowhouse originally built by the Inuit) , the number of visitors turned to be larger than it was expected and lack of available rooms forced some of them stay in that igloo at night. Locals covered blocks of ice inside the igloo with reindeer skin and let visitors sleep on them, inside their sleeping bags. In the next morning, the visitors, who spend the night in igloo, were enthusiastically speaking about the "magic" opportunity to sleep inside the ice shed and also clamed that it was not cold inside at all. In the second half of November, when in Jukkasjarvi temperature drops, locals scrape tons of ice blocks and snow from nearby Torne River. This year merely 22 tones of snow and ice was used to create the Ice Hotel on 5500 square meters area. Main bearing columns are equipped with steel rods from inside, which help to prevent them form collapse. These columns are created by spraying snow on the steel construction and allowing it to freeze into rock solid mass. Then, ice walls are built around the columns and large blocks of ice are placed inside the rooms, to let the artists to carve on them. The construction works continues for at least one month. Usually the Ice Hotel is completely ready at the end of December, but this year visitors can admire a real "Ice Miracle" from the beginning of the month. The guests can stay in any of 60 rooms, and also visit the ice church, bar, Art Suits and etc. The price for per night stay in world's original and largest Ice Hotel starts from $458! Yes, it's not cheap, but given the fact that it takes one month work of 50 skilled artists, and soon in Spring the hotel will melt back into the Torne River, the price is quite acceptable. Well before the opening of the next Ice Hotel-tourist season, Jukkasjarvi invites everyone to special snow carving lessons.