The site of 425 Park Avenue now awaits its fate as a star-studded line-up of prospective architects compete for the chance to helm the $750 million project. L&L Holding Co. has tapped Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron, Foster & Partners, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Richard Meier, Renzo Piano and others with high hopes to create a "bespoke skyscraper that will both complement Park Avenue's existing architectural treasures and make its own indelible mark in the world's most timeless office corridor".. — artinfo.com

The fire engulfing Moscow’s Federation Tower has been extinguished. About 300 square meters of the yet-to-be-completed skyscraper were set ablaze, but the centrally located building has been evacuated and no victims have been reported. The fire broke on the building's 67th floor (250 meters above the ground) and spread to several sections on the 66th and 65th floors. Fourteen people working at the floors hit by the firestorm were evacuated. — rt.com

Swapping cement and steel for timber is the vision of a number of environmentally-minded architects who are planning high-rise buildings across the world.

Architect Michael Green has plans for a 30-story wooden skyscraper in Vancouver, while plans are afoot in Norway and Austria for 17- and 20-story buildings that use wood as the main building material, eschewing steel and concrete. — CNN.com

In our previous post, we just published the winners of eVolo's 2012 Skyscraper Competition. This entry here, Coal Power Plant Mutation by Romanian architect Bogdan Chipara, was one of the Honorable Mentions and suggests a radically new design approach towards fossil fuel power plants. — bustler.net

eVolo Magazine has announced the winners of the 2012 Skyscraper Competition. The annual contest—now in its sixth year—honors visionary ideas that redefine skyscraper design through the use of new technologies, materials, programs, aesthetics, and spatial organizations, along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution. — bustler.net

The proposal is for a mixed-use development. On the Howe Street side, there will be a 49-storey residential tower with a 9-storey podium which includes market rental housing, commercial uses, and a childcare facility. The building height is at 150 metres and will be the tallest building on the southern end of downtown and the 4th tallest building in the city, unless the Ritz Carlton site gets developed before this, in which case it would be the 5th tallest. — vancitybuzz.com

Skyscrapers have an 'unhealthy' link with impending financial collapse, according to banking experts. [...]

Researchers pointed to the fact the world's first skyscraper, New York's Equitable Life building, was finished in 1873 during a five-year recession, while the Empire State Building coincided with the Great Depression. — dailymail.co.uk

Danish practice schmidt hammer lassen architects has won the international architectural competition to design a 188 meter office tower in the financial district of central Warsaw, Poland. The 60,000 m2 high-rise building is to replace the existing ‘Ilmet’ building. — bustler.net

Consider for just a moment the modern skyscraper. [...] The Chrysler Building in New York. The World Financial Center in Shanghai. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building in the world. They transform skylines and help define what it means to be a modern metropolis.

But once upon a time, they were just places for people to work. Kate Ascher traces that history in her new book, "The Heights: Anatomy of A Skyscraper." — marketplace.org

Winners have been announced at the first annual CTBUH International Student Design Competition "2011: Why Tall?". From more than 200 projects submitted, 32 finalists were displayed and judged during the 2011 Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) World Conference in Seoul, earlier in October. — bustler.net

It turns out the tower will be even taller, and we have Mother Nature to thank for that. — New York Observer

News broke that Chicago firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture is designing Kingdom Tower, to be the world’s tallest building, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, near the Red Sea. [...] It has been reported that the tower’s height will be at least 173 meters (568 feet) taller than the world’s current tallest building, Dubai’s 828-meter-tall Burj Khalifa, which was designed by Adrian Smith while at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. — bustler.net

Adrian Smith, senior Design Partner at Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture in Chicago, is the 2011 winner of the Lynn S. Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat for his extraordinary contribution to the supertall building typology. — bustler.net

The Mock Firms model aims to help facilitate the formation and function of simulated architectural design firms by collegiate and secondary school students. Entering in its 4th year, the Chicago-based Mock Firms Architectural Competition is already highly regarded on the landscape of student-based design competitions. — Chicago Architecture Today