A recent announcement stated that the go-ahead has been given for a new £4.7m project to build a youth centre in the London borough of Havering. The buildings caterpillar shape has been developed to be ‘future-proof’ with alterations and development very much in the forefront of thinking.

The building is planned to the Borough’s first carbon-neutral structure and will contain a local radio station and a career advice section showing that not only the future of the building is important in this structure! During the development process, young people from the area were consulted to ensure that they were provided with a youth centre that will be of great benefit to them.

At the back end of 2009, the climax of Russia’s Building Festival resulted in the announcement of their annual Building Award. The award is presented to the best building that has been constructed within the previous seven years. Furthermore, the building must have been in use for a period of at least 12 months.

The process of choosing the winner is very democratic in nature. Each member of the jury can nominate one building with the winner decided by the most number of votes. The winner this year was chosen by the award’s sponsors and was won by Sergy Kiselev & Partners and its developer Forum for Hermitage Plaza. This office complex combines brick and glass and has the unusual (at least unusual by Moscow standards) advantage of overlooking a large plaza.

Following on from my post recently about TV shows raising awareness of architecture in young people, schoolchildren in Edinburgh are being encouraged to take note of the buildings around them. The Looking Up! project is a five week programme that take high school students around the Old and New Towns of Edinburgh examining the architecture and the changes over time.

Following this tour, the children are then to design their own building that ideally should complement existing structures. The programme then concludes with a talk from an existing architect and an awards ceremony that gives the students the chance to showcase their designs in front of an audience of friends and parents.

From March until May of this year, a new exhibition will take place in the J Paul Getty Museum entitled Building the Medieval World: Architecture in Illuminated Manuscripts. This exhibition combines the art and literature from medieval and renaissance periods with the architecture of the time.

This fascinating exhibition will display how the artists and writers of the time were influenced and how their works were changed by the architecture of the time. From entirely fictional scenes and simple framing of paintings, through to showing how the people of the time interacted with the buildings, the scope of this exhibition should fascinate those with an interest in the history of architecture.

828M or 2717 ft
Formerly known as Burj Dubai, Renamed after the man in the suit of aurmour who paid for it to be finished after Funding dried up. This my friends is the biggest thing ever made by man., at 828 m (2,717 ft) It took 5 years to build with Construction beging on 21 September 2004, The building opened on 4 January 2010. After the Shenanigans with funding.. Its set in what will be called flagship intersection.
This behemoth was Designed primarily by a Chicago based architect called Adrian Smith and the design was brought to life by the Samsung corp, who have been responsible for other massive buildings in the past.
Total cost to make? A smidgeon over 1.5 Billion Dollars.
Fancy some estate in this mansion? Well it will set you back anywhere up to $43,000, per square feet. Well if you’re an oil tycoon I guess that’s just a drop in the ocean.

This building is actually 1,076 ft tall if you include the ariel. Set on the stylish Rajprarop Road in the district of Bangkok known as Ratchathewi. (Is that where they got the name for the film Rattatui perhaps?) Built including 86 floors, the 85th floor actually rotates; this is the only hotel outside of Dubai to make the top five list.
The Building was completed back in 1997, with the Ariel being added two years later. In fact the height of the building seems to be in some discussion with the hotel website actually stating this is in fact a 309M building.. Come on guys, like its not big enough already without having to exaggerate!
However, in 2012 The Ocean One Tower will take the top spot as the tallest residence in the world at a massive 367M Until then Thailand has to be happy with 5th spot.

The dwindling awareness within the younger generation of many of our most famous and prodigious architects can be dispiriting but understandable. However, I was pleasantly surprised the other day to come across an aspiring young architect by the name of Ted Mosby.

This is one young man who is rapidly becoming extremely well known within the younger age group. OK, so he might be the lead character in How I Met Your Mother, an American sitcom, but his dynamism and enthusiasm for his career cannot help but increase the number of young people taking an interest in architecture. Something that I for one celebrate.