Snøhetta has unveiled its design for "Svart," a hotel for sustainable tourism company Arctic Adventure of Norway. Located within the Arctic Circle, on the edge of Norway's Holandsfjorden fjord at the base of the Svartisen glacier, the building is designed to the "Powerhouse" building standard, a system developed by Snøhetta and a group of collaborators for creating energy-positive sustainable buildings. Designed in a distinctive ring shape that allows visitors to feel in touch with the surroundings, the structure of the building was inspired by traditional Norwegian fishing structures: the “fiskehjell,” an A-shaped wooden structure for drying fish, and the “rorbue,” a type of seasonal house used by fishermen. These two references contributed to the building's supporting structure of poles that support the building above the water while making minimal contact with the ecosystem. These supports also enable a walkway around the ring of the hotel that visitors will be able to enjoy in the summer. The Powerhouse standard used for the design was developed by Snøhetta alongside Entra, Skanska, the ZERO Emission Resource Organization and Asplan Viak. The standard outlines a requirement for the building to not only be energy-positive, but to generate more renewable energy over a 60-year period than the total amount of energy that would be required to both sustain daily operations and to build, produce materials, and demolish the building. In order to achieve this level of sustainability on the design of Svart, Snøhetta conducted an extensive survey of the solar conditions at the site throughout the year, eventually settling on the ring shape in order to place rooms, restaurants, and terraces in locations that make the most of the available solar energy. Meanwhile solar panels on the roof while harvest energy, producing more energy than buildings slightly further south due to the 24-hour daylight conditions over the summer, and geothermal wells will harness the energy from the ground below for heating purposes.

A 100-meter-tall experimental air purifier has been built in Xi’an, the capital of China’s central Shaanxi province, reported The Inhabitat. The tower, which is being tested by researchers from the Institute of Earth Environment at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has noticeably cleaner air over an area of 10 square kilometers since being turned on last year, according to the South China Morning Post. The tower sucks in polluted air and funnels it into greenhouses at the base of the structure. The smog is heated in the greenhouse by solar energy, then rises through the tower, passing through several layers of cleaning filters. The expelled air contains 15 percent less particulate matter than it did before being scrubbed. The greenhouses are powered by solar energy and are able to run in winter as well as summer. Cao Junji, head of research, said, “It barely requires any power input throughout daylight hours. The idea has worked very well in the test run.” Cao and his team are now planning a 500-meter-tall and 200-meter-wide tower, with greenhouses covering 30 square kilometers that would be able to purify air for a small city. Air purifiers have been installed in China before, but only in a symbolic way. Last year a 4-meter-high filter called “CityTree” was tried out in Berlin.

Work has completed on Tribunal de Paris – a tiered skyscraper, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano to become the largest law complex in Europe, reported The Dezeen. Comprising a series of stacked glass volumes, the building will bring together the various activities of the French capital's judiciary system, which had previously been scattered about the city. According to publication, the building is not set to open until April 2018. Renzo Piano Building Workshop won a competition to design Tribunal de Paris in 2010. The long and low ground building is designed as a pedestal for the other three levels to rest upon, with the main entrance located on a 6,000-square-meter plaza on the Avenue de la Porte-de-Clichy. Inside, the 5,500 square-meter space is divided into three atria with room for 50 reception desks to ensure visitors are seen as quickly as possible. Each atrium extends up through the full height of the building, with galleries providing access to rooms above and skylights in the roof to allow natural light to filter through. A total of 90 law courts are housed in the pedestal building, most of which benefit from natural light and are all accessible within minutes from the offices in the volumes above. The buildings above each contain 10 stores of meeting rooms and offices for different departments. The first volume will house the magistrates, the second the public prosecutors, and at the top the presiding judges will occupy the third volume. Each building is separated by landscaped roof terraces planted with trees and vegetation. Solar panels have been attached to the exterior and rainwater is collected. Natural ventilation and the building's thermal inertia contribute to regulating the building's temperature. The Tribunal de Paris will unite the regional court, police court, public prosecution courts and the district courts of each arrondissement. Its location on Paris' northern edge, places it at the intersection between the city's administrative zones and the suburbs. The area is well served by public transport, including a new tramway.