Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio plans to build an eco-resort on the Caribbean Sea Island, reported the New-York Times. "Blackadore Caye Island" owned by DiCaprio located off the coast of Belize in Central America. It is a 15-minute boat ride from the nearest big town. The total area of the island is about 42 hectares. A well-known environmental activist and actor bought this island with partner Jeff Gram in 2005 for US$ 1.75 million. According to New-York Times Gram is the owner of "Cayo Espanto Island Resort", a luxury vacation spot on another private island in Belize, where prices in April for two guests ranged from about US$ 1,6 to US$ 2,2 a night. Now Mr. DiCaprio has joined with Paul Scialla, the chief executive of Delos, a New York City-based developer, to create an eco-conscious resort there. When it opens to guests in 2018, "Blackadore Caye, a Restorative Island" will feature the trappings of many luxury resorts, with sprawling villas, infinity pools and stunning sunset views. But the "Restorative" in the title refers not just to the impact the island might have on visitors, but to the island itself. Blackadore Caye has suffered from overfishing, an eroding coastline and the deforestation of its mangrove trees, and the partners mean to put it back to rights. This island also was a popular spot for fishermen, who would stop on their way to markets in Mexico and cut mangrove, using the wood for fires to smoke their catch and the conch that they took from the reef, littering the island with thousands of empty shells. The villas for guests on "Blackadore Caye" will be built atop a massive platform that stretches in an arc over the water, with artificial reefs and fish shelters underneath. A nursery on the island will grow indigenous marine grass to support a manatee conservation area, and mangrove trees will be replanted, replacing invasive species. A team of designers, scientists, engineers and landscape architects, some of whom have spent more than 18 months studying "Blackadore Caye", will monitor the resort's impact on its surroundings. Almost 45 percent of the island will be designated a conservation area. The resort will be built using as many native materials as possible, and the developers hope to rely on local laborers, who will be trained in green-building techniques. The 68 guest villas will have access to nearly a mile of secluded beach, grassland and jungle. Prices for a stay at the villas have not been announced. For those vacationers who prefer their own houses, 48 will be built on the island, with price tags ranging from US$ 5 million to US$ 15 million. Some of the houses will boast both a sunrise and a sunset beach, and homeowners will pay a monthly fee for housekeeping, meals and other services. Each building will have several functions, with the platform, for example, not only sheltering guests on top and coral and fish underneath, but also harnessing the breeze that comes off the water to keep the villas cool.
Russia has announced big plans for a superhighway that would effectively connect all the continents in the Northern Hemisphere, making it possible to travel from New York westward through Russia and on to London without the need for an airplane or a boat. The exact route hasn't been determined yet, but what is clear is that a plan such as this would create the largest, longest superhighway on Earth. The idea, dubbed the Trans-Eurasian Belt Development (TERP), would see a high speed railway and motorway built from Eastern Europe, across Siberia and over the Bering Strait to Alaska. At a meeting of the Russian Academy of Science, the head of the Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin presented the idea for the Trans-Eurasian belt Development (TEPR). Mr Yakunin has been engaged in the development of the project with academic Gennady Osipov and the rector of Moscow State University, Viktor Sadovnichy. During the meeting Vladimir Yakunin told that the project could link existing networks and supercharge global economic growth. The project would see not only a new train network built alongside the Trans-Siberian Railway but the construction of major roads, pipelines for oil and gas, and the laying of facilities for electricity and water supplies. "This is an inter-state, inter-civilization, project. It should be an alternative to the current model, which has caused a systemic crisis. The project should be turned into a world "future zone", and it must be based on leading, not catching, technologies," he said, according to the Siberian Times newspaper. If the idea is successful, it is expected that could create 10 to 15 new industries, new cities and a huge number of new jobs, as well as further development of Siberia and the Far East. Talking about a rough estimate for the costs of the project he said that it will require trillions of dollars, but insisted the economic returns would outweigh these investments. Today not all countries can provide high-speed railway network needed for this project. In Eastern Europe the European Union is separately drawing up plans for a high speed rail corridor to connect the Baltic States to Western Europe's high speed rail network - which runs through the Channel Tunnel to London. North American passenger railways are comparative undeveloped, however. Plans drawn up by President Obama to develop high speed rail corridors across the United States have stalled amid opposition. Bridges and tunnels spanning the Bering Strait have been proposed since the late 19th century but none has ever been built. The Russian government has expressed public support for a number of proposals in recent years but ground has not been broken on any of them, reported The Independent. China and Russia also unveiled a separate plan last year to connect, as well as a plan for a continent-spanning rail network that could cross the Bering Strait .
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.
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.
New York's first "micro apartment" building "My Micro NY" is constructed in Brooklyn Navy Yard (New York, USA). According to New York Times, the end of construction is planned for this spring and the building will begin leasing studios in summer. The project was designed by "nArchitects". The firm won a closely watched design competition in 2013 that was sponsored by the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development and enthusiastically endorsed by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The city's first "micro" building will have 55 rental apartments, all ranging from 23-34 square meters with kitchenettes, wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, ceilings over 2.7 meters high and big windows. And to help make living in a small space more palatable, tenants will have access to storage units and common spaces scattered throughout the building. The building will begin leasing studios this summer for around US$ 2 - 3 thousand a month. The project is being watched with interest by both housing advocates and developers, and not just because of its modular construction. Housing advocates say the creation of more micro-apartments could open up many more reasonably priced living options. More units dedicated to singles could eventually bring down rent prices across the city, as more two- to four-bedroom apartments would then open up to families. The contest was developed to address the growing need in New York City for affordable studios, one person- and two person-households. It was originally a part of Mayor Bloomberg's New Housing Marketplace Plan, a multi-billion dollar initiative to finance 165 thousand units of affordable housing for an expected 500 thousand New Yorkers. Under current zoning laws enacted in 1987, all NYC apartments must be at least 37 square meters, but then-mayor Michael Bloomberg said in 2013 that the new micro-units would be an exception.
