Tun Mustapha Tower (Kota Kinabalu,SABAH)

Tun Mustapha Tower

Formely known as Yayasan Sabah Building, this 30 storey circular glass building is supported by high tensile steel rods throughout its structure, an architectural and engineering marvel. It is one of only four such buildings in the world. Built with bold architectural and engineering concepts, it is a building that many thought was not possible. There were also many prophets of doom who predicted that it could not be built as designed, as it was the first of its kind in Asia. They were all wrong because Yayasan Sabah (Sabah Foundation) Headquarters has not only been built, but has become one of the most famous and admired buildings in the country.
The tower-like Tun Mustapha Tower has been likened to a modern Taj Mahal, which changes its colours throughout the day, depending on the clouds, sun and ever changing colours of the sky. This might have been a reason for this building to be one of the main tourist and photographers attractions in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

Malaysia (Petronas Twin Towers)

The 88-storey PETRONAS Twin Towers, developed as an integral part of the Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) project, house PETRONAS' new corporate headquarters.

The PETRONAS Twin Towers rise like sentinels in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. Costing a whopping US$1.2bn and uniquely designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates, it rises to 1,483ft (451.9m) in height and is all of 33ft higher than the Sears Tower.

Cesar Pelli, former dean of Yale University's School of Architecture, also designed Canary Wharf in London, and the World Financial Center in Manhattan, New York City.

The floor-plate of the Tower is designed based on geometric patterns common in architecture of Islamic heritage. It is composed of two rotated and superimposed squares with small circular infills. These geometric figures have been described by architects as symbolising unity, harmony, stability and rationality - all important principles of Islam.

Like the exterior design, the Towers' entrance design was also inspired by the country's cultural heritage, incorporating contemporary Malaysian motifs adapted from traditional handicrafts such as songket and timber carvings. The overall character of the building is high-tech and international but distinctively Malaysian.

At the podium level, the PETRONAS Twin Towers feature the following :

• The 864-seat Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS, a venue of architectural and acoustic distinction. It is also home to the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.

• PETROSAINS - the state-of-the-art interactive science discovery centre, carrying the theme "oil and gas". With its entrance at Level 4, Suria KLCC, PETROSAINS is a modern contemporary museum that allows visitors to touch, feel and manipulate displays and exhibits aimed at stimulating interest in science and technology particularly in petroleum science.

• Galeri PETRONAS - With its entrance at Level 3, Suria KLCC, Galeri PETRONAS caters to both traditional and contemporary art enthusiasts. The gallery features various types of art ranging from painting, sculptures, multimedia to experimental works.

• Twin Towers Fitness Centre - Located at the Concourse Level, the centre spreads over an area of 50,000 sq. ft. The centre houses an array of equipment with facilities for sports like badminton, squash, volleyball and futsal.


• A reference library on energy, petroleum, petrochemical and related industries.

The Towers were topped-out in March 1996 and occupation began in early 1997. Tower One is currently being occupied by PETRONAS, the state-owned petroleum corporation. Tower Two is being occupied by PETRONAS' associate companies while the remaining space is being leased out to multinationals.

The PETRONAS Twin Towers are located on the northern boundary of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) and has state-of-the-art communication facilities. MSC is the launching pad to propel Malaysia into the frontline of the information age.

Shang Hai EXPO 2010

AUSTRALIA PAVILION

Featuring sculptured curving walls and a red ochre exterior, the Australia Pavilion's appearance is inspired by the world-famous Ayer's Rock. The color of the pavilion's red facade is made from the use of a special kind of steel, which is commonly used in Australia cities. It will change colors responding to the temperature and humidity of Shanghai.

BRUNEI PAVILION

Visitors can enter the pavilion through tropical rainforests, unique natural landscapes in Brunei. Special revolving patterns can be seen everywhere in the pavilion. The upward trend and vertical pattern of this design symbolize the gradual improvement of Bruneian people's lives and their ambition for developing a better economy. They also show that Bruneian people have made unremitting efforts to protect the environment, rich cultural heritages and traditions.

CHINA PAVILION

The main structure of the China Pavilion, "The Crown of the East," has a distinctive roof, made of traditional dougong or brackets, which date back more than 2,000 years. The dougong style features wooden brackets fixed layer upon layer between the top of a column and a crossbeam. This unique structural component of interlocking wooden brackets is one of the most important elements in traditional Chinese architecture. Dougong was widely used in the Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC-467 BC).

EGYPT PAVILION

The exterior of the pavilion adopts mainly two colors of black and white and boasts a modern look. Interior is divided into two parts with an arch, which allow visitors to pass through. Exhibited items include material objects, films and pictures showing Egypt's long history and rich culture. The pavilion explores how to face the challenges of the present and future based on experiences of the past. The importance of Cairo, capital of the country and mother of the world, to both Egypt and its surrounding regions is also emphasized in the exhibitions.

GERMANY PAVILION

It is the epitome of a city, boasting the creation of a "harbor image" and a "dynamic tunnel" with urban scenes from Germany. This is the "Balancity," a magnificent crystallization of Germanic originality and technology. The structure is wrapped in silver membrane. A terraced landscape stretches from the ground level up to the third floor of the pavilion. Four exhibition structures appear to hover, creating a perfect roof for visitors.

HONG KONG PAVILION

The three-story metallic structure explores the theme "Hong Kong - the Infinite City," which features Hong Kong's unique connectivity with the mainland and the world in terms of both hardware and software, as well as the city's links to nature, to the past and to the future. The exhibition focuses on the special administrative region's transport network, advanced scientific facilities, financial and trade systems, multinational culture and sustainable high-quality urban life. Highlights include environmental protection, tourism, culture, innovation and the "one country, two systems" principle.

ITALY PAVILION

The design of the Italy Pavilion is inspired by the children's game "pick-up sticks," which is known as "Shanghai" in Italy. The rectangular pavilion has been laced with intersecting lines - representing pick-up sticks. It comprises 20 functional modules of different shapes, bounded by the "sticks." They represent Italy's 20 regions. The modules can be assembled into smaller structures.

MALAYSIA PAVILION

The inspiration of the pavilion design comes from the traditional Malaysian hut in the expression of a unique style and national spirit of union. The building will comprise two streamlined high slopes with a cross on top, the symbol of Malaysian architecture. The facade of the pavilion will be made from a combination of recyclable materials of palm oil and plastic.

SAUDI ARABIA PAVILION

The Saudi Arabia Pavilion features a fine centerpiece: a huge hanging boat shaped like a half moon. The "moon boat" is loaded with dreams and friendship. Date palms have been planted on the top deck of the boat, creating a hanging garden, and thus epitomizing the oases in the desert. Visitors will receive a warm welcome in both modern as well as traditional Bedouin tents set among date palm trees.

SHANGHAI PAVILION

Shanghai Corporate Joint Pavilion is an eco-building with intelligent technologies, dream-like atmospheres, and interactive experiences. The architectural design concept is originated from the Taoist theory "A harmonious combination of heaven, earth and man", and "Zhuang Zhou's dream with butterfly," an ancient Chinese romantic story with philosophical meanings. The Shanghai Corporate Pavilion provides visitors with a 17-minute interactive experience in four different zones - Sound of the City, Close to the Huangpu River, Road of Shanghai and Travel to the Future. Using pictures and music, visitors will be encouraged to think about how to make the city's future better.

SINGAPORE PAVILION

The music-box-like Singapore Pavilion is a two-story structure with an "Urban Symphony" theme. The theme is inspired by the harmony of unique elements in Singapore: progress and sustainability, urbanization and greenery, tradition and modernity and a cosmopolitan mix of residents of different races living peacefully together.

TAIWAN PAVILION

The pavilion design is a transparent cube housing a giant ball in its center. It is mainly made of steel and glass, with the outlines of the island's Mount Morrison and Mount Ali painted on the facade. The main part of the pavilion was built with stone from Jade Mountain and soil from Yin-Ko Town. Taiwan will invite people to fly lanterns for good luck - a traditional island custom - and view its beautiful mountains and lakes at its pavilion. The pavilion showcases the island's scenery, its kind-hearted people and culture with the theme "Mountain, Water, Heart and Lantern."

TURKEY PAVILION

The main inspiration for the exterior of the 2,000-square-meter rented pavilion was derived from one of the first known settlements in the world called "Catalhoyuk" in Turkish, the center of advanced culture in the Neolithic period. The pavilion looks like an amazing red and beige box with an animal sculpture, inviting visitors to explore a maze of dreams.

UNITED KINGDOM PAVILION

The first World Expo came about in the United Kingdom and was then known as the Great Exhibition, held in the Crystal Palace at Hyde Park. This majestic metal-and-glass edifice was not only home to the extravaganza display of products from all over the world, but was also the iconic symbol of the world fair, being considered one of the most beautiful structures in the world until a fire destroyed it half a century ago. Now, the United Kingdom has brought to Expo visitors a new version of the Crystal Palace – a dazzling cube formed by more than 60,000 slim and transparent acrylic rods containing seeds of different plants that were collected in a bio-diversity project.

Casino hotel eyes biggest trade shows

SINGAPORE: Marina Bay Sands, the US$5.5bil integrated resort in Singapore, is expected to see its meeting, incentive, convention and exhibitions (MICE) business run at capacity in three to five years after the resort opens its doors early next year.

President and chief operating officer Michael A. Leven said it would take time for Marina Bay Sands to attract the biggest and leading conventions and trade shows but he was confident that Asia’s largest ballroom would see its enormous capacity taken up in a matter of time.

“It is going to take a couple of years. Usually in the hospitality and convention industry, the problem is some of these conventions get booked four to five years in advance, especially the very large ones,” he said in a briefing.

“It’s going to take some time before that frees up.”

Leven was speaking after the topping-up ceremony of Marina Bay Sands earlier this month.

The Marina Bay Sands construction site stands along a major highway in Singapore. The US$5.5bil Marina Bay Sands hotel and casino project is expected to open in January or February.

When completed, the resort’s MICE facilities would cater to 45,000 delegates.

There will be 250 meeting rooms at the facility and the building is able to host 2,000 booths.

The ballroom alone can cater up to 11,000 people in a single event.

“I view this particular product as being the dominant Asian MICE building and Singapore has tremendous appeal internationally. I don’t see why this won’t be on the circuit of the major trade shows,” said Leven.

“The Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre is sold out and it is not very big, We get a shot at that (business).”

On its own, the MICE business will not be a tremendous profit centre for the resort as Leven said it would feed onto what the rest of the integrated resort had to offer.

The resort would be cashflow positive within the first couple of months of operations, said Leven.

Marina Bay Sands is the most expensive “casino” in the Las Vegas Sands group.

The iconic development features three 55-storey hotels that will have a 375m long SkyPark on the top of the hotels. The SkyPark will have 1ha of open space.

Leven said Marina Bay Sands would have greater variety than the group’s business in Macau in its present configuration.

“Macau is heavily gaming-orientated. We are in the process of building our MICE and tourist businesses there but it is a much smaller situation because of the nature of Macau as a destination,” he said.

Leven said Singapore was more couple- and family-friendly than Macau had traditionally been.

“A higher percentage of our business will come from non-gaming operations than Macau today. Over the future we expect Macau to change its percentage as the Cotai Strip gets more built up. Marina Bay Sands will be more typical of Las Vegas than Macau is today,” he said.

Leven was also cordial when discussing the competition between Marina Bay Sands and Genting’s Resorts World at Sentosa saying the two resorts complement instead of compete with each other.

“I think Genting is a significant addition. I like the idea. I know it sounds strange liking Genting there because I think it’s going to help the overall tourist attraction base to Singapore itself,” he said.

Leven said the promotional activity by both integrated resorts would only help and their respective themes and features would be enough to differentiate one from another.

“From a marketing perspective, Sentosa will be more a family-orientated resort than we will. There will be some meeting and small MICE competition.

“From a competition standpoint and from the business travel, there will not be a significant amount of competition.

“There is a very big difference between the two places,” he said, adding that competition would be limited to the VIP and premium players at their respective casinos.

Leven said that once Marina Bay Sands fully opened, the number of people on its premises should average between 50,000 and 75,000 daily.

It would go as high as 100,000 people on certain days. The visitors to the Macau Venetian is roughly 65,000 people a day.

Marina Bay Sands is counting on attracting a large number of visitors from Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Thailand.

Olympic architecture Top 10:past, present and future

As we say goodbye to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, let's take a look back at the glories of Olympic architecture from the past, and look forward to even more innovation to come. The competition for the honor of hosting the Olympic Games is an intense, worldwide fight, but with that prize comes the tremendous responsibility of building a complex of structures to support the games.

Every Olympic city has risen to the challenge, putting its best design and creative minds into the limelight for all the world to see. Some of the efforts have been more successful than others, and a few of the host countries have spent decades paying off the debt incurred by such architectural ambition. Hit continue to see our picks for the Top 10 best Olympic buildings in history.

Bird’s Nest (Beijing National Stadium) 2008
Beijing National Stadium’s “Bird’s Nest” nickname could be in honor of the U.S. Olympic Team’s numerous eggs laid there, but despite that, its soaring architecture puts it at the top of our list. The Chinese government held a competition in 2002 to see who could put together the most beautiful Olympic stadium yet, and a consortium of architects consisting of the Pritzker Prize-winning Herzog & de Meuron teamed up with ArupSport and China Architecture Design & Research Group to create this wild-looking tangle of steel.]

London Aquatics Centre 2012
Architect Zaha Hadid set out to top any aquatics center ever built with her fantastic design, and it’s so innovative that a lot of engineers are questioning whether such a structure can even be built at all. Don’t fret, Zaha, that’s what they said about the Em pire State Building. The Aquatics Center’s sweeping steel roof will be clad in aluminum, and the interior of this wild-looking roof will be made of wood, the type of which is still yet to be chosen. Construction began on this jaw-dropping structure last month.

Water Cube (Beijing National Aquatics Center) 2008
Set up a huge steel frame and hang hundreds of asymmetrical plastic bubbles on it and the result is the other-worldly-looking Beijing National Aquatics Center, affectionately known as the Water Cube. It's not really a cube at all, though, but a rectangular box that’s 102 feet high. We especially like its squeaky-clean design, punctuated by colorful LED lighting embedded into the exterior that makes the building look like an ’80s disco taking a bubble bath.

China Central Television (CCTV) Headquarters Building and Television Cultural Centre 2008
While it’s not an official Olympics building, construction of the China Central Television Headquarters building was finished just in time for the opening of the Olympic Games, and many of its facilities were used for the 17-day broadcast. One of the largest office buildings on the planet, the 49-story building looks like it’s about to fall over. Not to worry — the structure, dubbed “Big Shorts,” its specially designed and built to withstand huge earthquakes.

11 Incredible Buildings From The Future

1.James Law Cybertecture International designed this 32,000 square-meter Cybertecture Egg, commissioned by Vijay Associate (Wadhwa Developers) for Mumbai, India.

2.Graft Lab's architects created this energy-efficient Vertical Village, to be built in Dubai, with the most advanced solar panels and cells to maximize solar energy production.

3.ACME, a design firm, submitted this stunning hive-like design to South Korea's design competition, which called for designs for a memorial space in a United Nations Peace Park. Individual cells are combined to form this cube structure.

4.Architect David Fisher designed a skyscraper made up of pre-fabricated floors that can each rotate independently, resulting in a tower whose shape is able to constantly change. Each floor can complete a full rotation in 90 minutes. Residents, if they own the entire floor, are able to control the speed and direction of the rotation by voice command: wake up watching the sunrise, have dinner watching the sunset.

5.Vincent Callebaut's architects designed the "Dragonfly" vertical farm for the New York City skyline. The 132-floor, 2,000 foot-tall structure (resembling a dragonfly's wing) would contain residences, offices, farming space, and even areas dedicated to growing and studying both produce and livestock.

6.Atkins' five-star resort hotel set would be set inside a water-filled quarry in the Songjiang, China. The 400-bed hotel would include underwater public areas and guestrooms. An extreme sports center, offering rock climbing and bungee jumping, would be suspended over the quarry.

7.Crescent Hydropolis, currently being constructed in Dubai, will be the world's first luxury underwater hotel. To enter the 200 submarine suites, guests will arrive at a land station, then be transported via train to the main area of the hotel offshore. The 1.1-million-square-foot area will include a shopping mall, restaurants, movie theaters, and missile-defense system, all 60-feet underwater.

8.Part rumor, part legend, the Cobra Tower is a vision for a twisted skyscraper that would adorn Kuwait's cityscape.

9.Design Act designed this incredible building, made up of permutated cubes, for the World Expo 2010 Singapore Pavilion competition.

10.Daniel Libeskind conceived this striking skyscraper for Gazprom City, St. Petersburg.

11.Zaha Hadid's Performing Arts Center will form part of a multi-billion dollar cultural district in Abu Dhabi. Hadid describes the structure as a “biological analogy”, with branch and leaf-like components that are “transformed from these abstract diagrams into architectonic design.”

ARCHITECTURE, "the most useful of the fine arts and the finest of the useful arts," may be defined as the art of ornamental construction ; not ornamental in the sense of decorated but in harmony of distribution of mass, in beauty of proportion. For all its vast variety, it is based on three simple constructive principles.

The first is the lintel, in which two uprights support a crosspiece, the form seen in the majestic temples of Egypt and the classic beauty of the art of Greece.

The second is the arch or vault, the use of which was perfected by the Romans and which is characteristic of Roman architecture and its derivatives for the spanning of large spaces.

The third principle is the truss or compound beam, made up of several subordinate members, each one of which is intended to resist a particular stress, which is seen in its highest development in the modern steel bridge.

These three principles have guided the development of the art in every land, but their incorporation in the typical architecture of each nation has been influenced by the three great formative factors of race, climate and religion.

These factors have conjoined to produce certain well defined styles, or varied phases of the art, which are commonly taken as the basis for architectural classification. The architecture of Egypt is the oldest now extant, and with it the story of the art in this little book opens. Almost contemporaneously with Egyptian architecture another style arose in Mesopotamia, and both of them influenced the architecture of the Greeks.

The Romans in turn applied the Greek details to the arched construction of the Etruscans. After the division of the Roman Empire the Byzantine school arose in the East and inspired the Mohammedan or Saracenic style, which swept westward through northern Africa into Spain and eastward into India.

In northern and western Europe, meanwhile, an evolution from the Roman basilica culminated in the Gothic style of the Middle Ages.

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Gothic gradually gave place to the Renaissance style, a revival of Roman forms. Other styles arose in India, China and Japan, and among the Aztecs and Incas of America, but they have had little influence on the modern electric architecture of the West, which is based almost entirely on the styles which had their origin in Europe.