RMJM tower leans over Abu Dhabi, Barbie considers a career in architecture and dead man's body found above architecture firm.
ABU DHABI
RMJM's Capital Gate tower in Abu Dhabi is 160m high and is S-shaped, with one section of the building leaning at an 18 degree angle. It twists as it goes up and the top overhangs the base by 54m. In order to keep its shape, the building has been filled with 13,200 tonnes of steel. The budget has been exceeded by 25 per cent, so completion, which was expected in November 2009, is now due in October 2010.
UNITED STATES
Architecture professor, Despina Stratigakos, is leading a campaign to ensure that Barbie's next career move will be into architecture. She believes that if architecture gets enough votes in Mattel's "I Can Be" online competition, more young women will be inspired to enter the male-dominated industry. Voters can also choose to make the next Barbie a news anchor, an environmentalist or a computer engineer.
UNITED KINGDOM
The body of a 27 year old man has been discovered in the apartment above an architectural firm in Seaford, East Sussex. Staff were shocked when blood began dripping into their office from the floor above. The Telegraph has reported that the man appeared to have been bludgeoned to death, and was found on the floor of his apartment approximately 12 hours after his death.
CHINA
The Water Cube aquatic centre used in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is to be re-made into a water park comprising seven-storey slides, a wave machine, shopping arcades and performance stages. The Water Cube attracted up to 100,000 visitors a day after the Olympics, but since then numbers have fallen significantly. It is hoped that the new park will generate at least $3.4 million during the upcoming summer alone.
RUSSIA
UNStudio and Grigorjev & Partners have signed a contract for the new Dance Palace in St Petersburg. The project is a 24,000 sqm dance theatre and forms part of the European Embankment city quarter masterplan for a new urban square in the city. The firm has extensive experience in theatre design, recently completing the Theatre Agora in The Netherlands and the Mumuth Music Theatre in Austria.
