In 2008 a couple with the last name Sigler built a dome house in Pensacola, Florida.  It was built with the intention of surviving the frequent hurricanes that blast in from the Gulf of Mexico into the Florida panhandle.  And in 2004 the house was tested by Hurricane Ivan.  The dome house won.  But not many of the conventional homes near the dome fared as well. Major damage to those houses.  It just shows that if ingenuity is utilized many big natural hazards can be neutralized.

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Right after Hurricane Ivan

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Nice interior design

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Seattle

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Toronto

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Chicago

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Aqua residential tower in Chicago

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Mexico City

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London

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New York City

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Sana’a, Yemen

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Aalesund, Norway

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Istanbul

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St. John’s

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Norilsk, Russia

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Kansas City Library

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Winnipeg

Norway

England

Central America

San Francisco

Germany

China

Malaysia

New York

Scotland

India

 

Controversial Toronto mayor Rob Ford may be in hot water as it is alleged that there is a video of him smoking crack cocaine.  And this soap opera is all over Canadian, and to an extent, international news.  The media are milking this baby for all it’s worth. 

But whatever this fiasco turns into, one thing is apparent, Rob works in a really cool city hall.  Toronto has to have one of the most interesting city halls in North America.  The complex was ahead of its time architecturally when it was built-in 1965.  And even today, the thing is a bloody marvel.

 

 

 

The City Hall of Toronto, Ontario, Canada is the home of the city’s municipal government and one of its most distinctive landmarks. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell (with Heikki Castrén, Bengt Lundsten, Seppo Valjus) and landscape architect Richard Strong, and engineered by Hannskarl Bandel, the building opened in 1965. It was built to replace Old City Hall, which was built in 1899.

 

 

 

While the building’s base is rectangular, its two towers are curved in cross-section and rise to differing heights. The east tower is 27 storeys (99.5 metres (326 ft)) tall and the west tower is 20 storeys (79.4 metres (260 ft)). Between the towers is the saucer-like council chamber, and the overall arrangement is somewhat like two hands cradling the chamber.

 

 

 

 

I think Rob got hold of the cocaine video.

 

 

 

 

Reports have been swirling that two new high rise buildings will be going up in downtown Winnipeg.  One report is that one will become the tallest building in Winnipeg at 36 stories.  The location of this building is being kept secret, but rumour is that it will go up directly north of the old post office/new police headquarters building on Graham.  The building would be a combination condo/office tower.  The other building would go up right beside the formerly named TD Tower at Portage and Main.  The reported height of this building would be 26 stories.

 

 

 

 

Fortress Real Developments Inc., based in Richmond Hill, Ont., plans to build a mixed-use sky-rise at an unspecified area in Winnipeg’s Sports, Hospitality and Entertainment District (SHED) by 2014 at the earliest, CEO Jawad Rathore confirmed last week.

While speculation is that Fortress will erect twin towers 36 storeys high — which could make it Winnipeg’s tallest structure — Rathore hedged when asked about those details.

“There is a lot of chatter out there and people are pretty excited,” he said. “We are looking to do something pretty iconic and impactful.

“It’s going to be like a little city, but we’re still working on the design.”

 

 

One World Trade Center spire installed in New York City

The spire has been installed atop New York’s One World Trade Center, making the skyscraper the tallest building in the Western hemisphere.

The building in lower Manhattan, still being built, stands at the site of the 11 September 2001 attacks.

The tower stands at 1,776ft (541m), a reference to the year of America’s independence, after building was slowed by bureaucratic and design delays.

Workers watched the event from a work platform at the top of the tower.

 

 

 

‘Tribute to lives lost’

“It’s a pretty awesome feeling,” project manager Juan Estevez told the Associated Press news agency.

“It’s a culmination of a tremendous amount of team work… rebuilding the New York City skyline once again.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the installation of the spire was a proud moment for the city and state.

“This milestone at the World Trade Center site symbolises the resurgence and resilience of our state and our nation,” Mr Cuomo said.

 

 

 

“Today’s achievement is a fitting tribute to the sacrifices made by so many brave and innocent souls nearly 12 years ago – including first responders… who lost their lives while heroically responding to the attacks on our nation,” he continued.

On Friday morning the two pieces of the spire were lifted by a crane and fitted to the 16 pieces of the antenna already in place.

Ironworkers then screwed on 60 bolts at an elevation of 1,701ft in the air.

Below the tower is a memorial to the nearly 3,000 people killed when al-Qaeda militants flew jets into the World Trade Center’s twin towers, causing their collapse.

A museum is also under construction.

 

 

 

When it is completed, the One World Trade Center will house 2.6 million sq-ft (241,000 sq-m) of commercial office space, as well as observation decks, restaurants and other public facilities.

The 408ft spire will serve as a broadcast antenna.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Larung Gar Buddhist Academy, also known as Serthar Buddhist Institute, sits in the Larung Valley at an elevation of 4,000 meters, about 15 km from the town Sêrtar, in Sertar County, Garze Prefecture in the traditional Tibetan region of Kham. The academy was founded in 1980 in an entirely uninhabited valley by Jigme Phuntsok, an influential lama of the Nyingma tradition. Despite its remote location, Larung Gar grew from a handful of disciples to be one of the largest and most influential centers for the study of Tibetan Buddhism in the world. Today it is home to over 40,000 monks, nuns and lay-students.

The campus of Larung Gar is enormous. Houses for monks and nuns sprawl all over the valley and up the surrounding mountains. A huge wall through the middle of Larung Gar separates the monk side from the nun side. Monks and nuns are not allowed out of their designated areas except in front of the main monastery assembly hall which is common to both nuns and monks. The houses are all built in a wood style that is traditionally found in this region, and built so close together that they appear almost on top of each other.

 

 

One of the most surprising elements of Serthar is that more than half of those who come to study are women.  Entry into the relatively small number of nunneries that exist in other areas of Tibet is limited, but Serthar was open to virtually anyone who genuinely sought to become a student of Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok’s ecumenical vision. Another surprise at Serthar is that it attracts ethnic Chinese students as well as students from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia, who attend separate classes taught in Mandarin, while larger classes are taught in Tibetan.

Reaching Larung Gar is not an easy task. It is quite remote and the nearest large city is Chengdu, which is 650 kilometers away and takes 13 to 15 hours to reach by vehicle. Sertar is also a sensitive area that is often closed to foreign travelers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m not exactly sure what is going to be in the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (Puzzle Palace) in terms of content, or what the actual inside design will look like, but whatever this megalithic structure is going to represent, it will be impressive.

 

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) is a national museum under construction in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It is located at The Forks where the Assiniboine and Red River meet. The purpose of the museum is to increase understanding and awareness of human rights, promote respect for others, and encourage reflection, dialogue, and action.

Established in 2008, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights was the first national museum created in Canada since 1967, and it is the first national museum ever to be located outside the National Capital Region.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Building Facts

• Total area of site: 24,166 M² (260,123 square feet)
• Total area of building: 24,154 M² (260,000 square feet)
• Number of floors: 12
• Total length of ramps: 773 M (2,533 feet)
• Average floor-to-floor height: 5.2 M (17 feet)
• Height of the Tower of Hope: 100 M (328 feet)
• Number of concrete caissons: 142
• Number of pre-cast piles: 444

 

 

After decades of construction doldrums Downtown Winnipeg is set for a mini building boom. I say mini in relative terms compared to the highrise construction frenzies in Vancouver, Calgary and especially Toronto. However for Winnipeg, seeing a few construction cranes downtown has been a long time coming. 1990 was when the last big development went up, the Fort Garry Place complex. Now there are 4 buildings going up with plans for a fifth. Here is the list:

 

 

 

Glasshouse Skylofts
Hargrave between Portage and
Ellice
Use: Residential Height: 17 floors Website:
Estimated Completion:
2014

 

 

 

Heritage Landing
300 Assiniboine Ave.
Use:
Residential Height: 28 floors + townhouses Website:
Unknown
Estimated Completion: Unknown

 

 

 

D-Condo

On riverbank side of Assiniboine Avenue between Hargrave and Carleton

Condos 20 floors

Estimated completion 2015

 

 

 

 

ALT Hotel + Stantec Offices
311 Portage Ave.
Use:
Hotel/Office/Residential Height: 20 floors

Estimated
Completion: 2015

 

 

 

The development below is only in the planning stage.  It doesn’t even have a name yet.  However the developers have built a display condo in the centre of CityPlace Mall. The word is they are going to try to sell a dozen or so units before the actual construction would get underway.

It will be located in the current parking lot just southwest of the MTS Centre, between Hargrave and Carleton along Graham St.

 

 

 

Condo sales have proven popular in the downtown over the past few years.  The new condos along Waterfront Drive demonstrate this popularity.

 

Since 1924, five-year plans provided national economic and urban development that was aimed at providing equal services for all. Muscovites primarily live in flats in multistorey buildings. Moscow’s population has tripled during the last 70 years and, in spite of massive municipal housing construction, there are still some people who live in shared flats, or in outdated or dilapidated buildings.

 

 

 

 

The Soviet policy of providing housing for every citizen and his or her family, and the rapid growth of the Muscovite population in these times, also led to the construction of large, monotonous housing blocks, which can often be differentiated by age, sturdiness of construction, or ‘style’ according to the neighborhood and the materials used. Most of these date from the post-Stalin era and the styles are often named after the leader then in power (Brezhnev, Khrushchev, etc.). They are usually badly maintained.

Although the city still has some five-story apartment buildings constructed before the mid-1960s, more recent apartment buildings are usually at least 9 floors tall, and have elevators. It is estimated that Moscow has over twice as many elevators as New York City and four times as many as Chicago. Moslift, one of the city’s major elevator operating companies, has about 1500 elevator mechanics on call, to release residents trapped in elevators.

 

 

 

Moscow as seen from the International Space Station

 

 

 

Moscow  is the capital city and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural and scientific center in Russia and in Europe. According to Forbes 2011, Moscow has the largest community of billionaires in the world.  Moscow is the northernmost megacity on Earth, the second (after Istanbul) most populous city in Europe, and the 6th largest city proper in the world. It’s also the largest city in Russia with a population, according to the 2010 Census, of 11,503,501.  By its territorial expansion on July 1, 2012 southwest into the Moscow Oblast, the capital increased its area 2.5 times; from about 1,000 square kilometers (390 sq mi) up to 2,500 square kilometers (970 sq mi), and gained additional population of 230,000 people.