News

London, March 11 -- An American man has earned himself a Guinness World Record after he built the world's largest ever house of cards.

Dubai's Burj Khalifa has been officially confirmed as the world's tallest building by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has confirmed the Burj Khalifa's status as the world's tallest building at a height of 828m, following detailed examination of drawings submitted by building owner Emaar.

The American Bird Conservancy says it applauds a U.S. House bill designed to prevent the deaths of millions of birds that collide with building windows.

A construction crane owner got a bargain-basement repair job on a giant rig, which fell apart and killed two workers when the fix failed, prosecutors said Monday in announcing manslaughter charges against the owner and a former mechanic. The owner, James Lomma, and mechanic Tibor Varganyi hired a little-known Chinese company over the Internet to weld a critical component, the Manhattan District Attorney's office said. Lomma and Varganyi didn't follow rules intended to ensure the repair was solid even after the company they hired warned that it wasn't confident about the weld, prosecutors said.

The Empire State Building's 6,500 windows will be retrofitted as part of an energy overhaul designed to reduce the iconic skyscraper's energy use by 38 percent.

Alcoa (NYSE:AA) announced today that its Alcoa Architectural Products (AAP) business received the Metal Construction Association's President's Award for Overall Excellence, an annual designation given for outstanding building projects.

The amount of construction projects being put on hold is markedly down on this time last year, according to industry monitor Glenigan The number of shelved projects in January 2010 was 384, a third of what it was a year ago when 939 schemes, worth £5.5 billion, were stalled.

It's a sobering fact: Earthquakes alone don't kill people; collapsed buildings do. But can people engineer buildings that wouldn't crumble when subjected to the rumblings of the Earth? In the wake of the Haiti and Chile earthquakes, such a question has more importance now than any time in recent memory. The simple answer is yes. The technology exists to make buildings nearly earthquake-proof today. However, installing those safer buildings all over the world isn't so simple. Neither is figuring out who will pay.

Having outgrown its 1960 embassy, a Kennedy-era modernist design by Eero Saarinen, the U.S. State Department has decided that London is too important to build one of its conventional insults to local sensibilities.

KARACHI, Feb. 27 -- Sindh Minister for Local Government Aga Siraj Durrani has said establishing of high-density zones in Karachi would be a milestone in the journey towards development.He said this while addressing in a special meeting at Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) on Thursday.The meeting was held to finalise the arrangements of inaugural of a project of modern high-rise buildings in Clifton under high-density zone concept.The meeting was attended by Chief Controller Building, senior officers of KBCA, Karachi Water & Sewerage Board, Master Plan Group of Officers, relevant expert architects and builders.The minister was briefed on the project, and told that it would be a 40-storey building having latest facilities and modern system of water supply and electricity generation. The building would also have facilities of security system, car parking and recreational area.The minister asked the officials that all legal formalities should be followed in the construction of the high-rise buildings and no negligence would be tolerated in this regard. Published by HT Syndication with permission from South Asian Media Network. For more information on news feed please contact Sarabjit Jagirdar at htsyndication@hindustantimes.com

KARACHI, Feb. 27 -- Sindh Minister for Local Government Aga Siraj Durrani has said establishing of high-density zones in Karachi would be a milestone in the journey towards development.He said this while addressing in a special meeting at Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) on Thursday.The meeting was held to finalise the arrangements of inaugural of a project of modern high-rise buildings in Clifton under high-density zone concept.The meeting was attended by Chief Controller Building, senior officers of KBCA, Karachi Water & Sewerage Board, Master Plan Group of Officers, relevant expert architects and builders.The minister was briefed on the project, and told that it would be a 40-storey building having latest facilities and modern system of water supply and electricity generation. The building would also have facilities of security system, car parking and recreational area.The minister asked the officials that all legal formalities should be followed in the construction of the high-rise buildings and no negligence would be tolerated in this regard. Published by HT Syndication with permission from South Asian Media Network. For more information on news feed please contact Sarabjit Jagirdar at htsyndication@hindustantimes.com

The California Department of General Services announced today that 11 state office properties, totaling nearly 7.3 million rentable square feet, are now on the market and expected to draw significant interest from capital investors worldwide, potentially eliciting offers in excess of $2 billion for the state. DGS' broker, CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc. (CBRE), has listed the properties online . Offers are due by April 14, 2010. In June, Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature authorized the sale of the properties located in Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco and Santa Rosa. Once sold, the state anticipates retiring more than $1 billion in bond debt, saving California hundreds of millions in interest payments over the next two decades. The sale is also expected to net at least $660 million in proceeds that will be funneled directly into the General Fund, helping to save Californians from increased taxes and deeper cuts in state programs and services.

Contractors have been asked to submit informal tenders for the 180m London skyscraper the Walkie Talkie, according to sources at the developer, Land Securities.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates _ Water gushed from a leak in a shark-filled aquarium in a ritzy Dubai mall on Thursday, sending startled shoppers scattering and shutting down nearby shops in one of the city's proudest attractions. Amateur video footage posted on the Web site of Dubai newspaper Gulf News showed what appeared to be hundreds of gallons of water showering down on the polished tiled floor of the Dubai Mall, which sits in the shadow of the world's tallest tower.

Dubai's battered real estate prices have nearly bottomed out and should start to recover, but probably not until at least next year, the head of one of the troubled emirate's most prominent property developers said Monday.

Iowa State University issued the following news release: The King Pavilion addition to the Iowa State University College of Design has been awarded LEED Platinum certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). It is the first higher education building in Iowa to achieve LEED Platinum status. LEED is USGBC's rating system for designing and constructing the greenest, most energy-efficient and high-performing buildings. Platinum is the highest rating given.

Michael Burnham, E&E senior reporter Can a big box have a little environmental footprint? Office Depot Inc. thinks so. The Boca Raton, Fla.-based office supplies retailer said today that it will pursue the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification for the insides of new U.S. stores. Developers seeking the LEED for Commercial Interiors certification are awarded points for allowing sunlight to penetrate deep into the building, using energy- and water-efficient fixtures, integrating recycled materials, and providing access to public transportation.

Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company's Engineering Technology Center (ETC) in Chicago has received LEED Silver certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), further advancing the company's goal to leverage high-performance design across its existing facilities.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says it is time to move ahead more quickly with building at the World Trade Center site while material and labor costs are low.

What does it take to turn silver into gold? For NASA scientists, the answer is "two protons." For Manhattan Construction Company in Washington, it is creative green building solutions which have resulted in the Exploration Sciences Building project becoming the first at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to receive LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).