Someone once said Fridays are a good day to break bad news because people have the weekend to vent and do things to cheer themselves up.

In keeping with that (probably) misguided nugget of information, here are the top 15 skyscrapers on hold.

It seems to be a bit of a who's who of interesting projects including the Chicago Spire, Moscow Tower - which was to be the tallest tower in Europe - and the zany 56 Leonard Street in New York.

Dubai takes a particular hit with its' dancing towers (now named Signature Towers and pictured on this post) iced as well as Dubai Towers and more.

Check out the full list at Oobject and don't shoot the messenger.

This is the latest structure designed to address population growth and an increased strain on resources in the world's biggest cities.

Dystopian Farm by Eric Vergne was a finalist in the Evolo Skyscraper Competition and proposes a sustainable vertical farm for the residents of New York City.

Vergne's design cultivates the idea of providing city dwellers with a sustainable food source in a building, which integrates producers and consumers.

The biomorphic skyscraper is modeled after the plant cells of ferns and provides space for farms, residential areas and markets.

Airoponic watering, nutrient technology and controlled lighting are all a part of the design.

Vergne told Inhabitat.com the structure will change city life as the rat race knows it: "Through food production and consumption, this skyscraper sets up a fluctuation of varying densities and collections of people, bringing together different social and cultural groups, creating new and unforseen urban experiences that form and dissipate within the flux of city life."

It is fantastic that all these striking and really visual, leafy, sustainable skyscrapers are being designed.

It would be even better if we could actually get one built in a city like New York. Let's hope the Singapore one comes through.

A Japanese architect has shunned the old 'four walls and one roof' chestnut of home design and is building these futuristic houses across the world.

Like a lot of men before him, Shuhei Endo is all about curves - but not in the way you're thinking.

Dynamic roof shapes are his bag and each project seems to aim for a more imaginative use of shape than the one before.

His buildings don't just look good, they have cool names as well, such as Bubbletecture (top left, bottom left), Rooftecture M (top right), and Springtecture H (bottom right).

Check out more of his mind-bending designs here.

A little town in north western Australia is switching on to solar power in a big way - it is about to be powered 100% by the sun.

Cloncurry, a town with a population of 4,000, is to begin construction later this year on a solar power facility that will provide the town's power 24 hours a day.

The facility will comprise 54, 17m high solar thermal towers. It will also involve the installation of around 8,000 relfective mirrors covering 60,000 sq m.

As explained here, these mirrors will reflect and concentrate sunlight onto the towers, which contain blocks made of a graphite thermal storage medium.

Water is then pumped through the blocks to create steam which generates electricity via turbines.

Because the heat remains in the graphite, the scheme will work at night and on overcast days - not that you get many of those in Cloncurry, which has recorded temperatures of 53 degrees.

Lloyd Energy Storage is behind the project, which is explored in more detail here.

The developer behind London's skyscraper the Shard of Glass loves building tall buildings so much, he is planning three more!

Developer Irvine Sellar has commissioned Beijing Bird's Nest architects Herzog and de Meuron to design towers rising 100, 200 and 250m high.

They are planned for a site near the Shard at London Bridge Station and will stand just south of City Hall.

A planning application is expected within two months and construction should take seven years.

There are plenty of opponents and one estate agent has commented Sellar is "building his own competition" and is already having trouble selling pads in the Shard.

If the latest designs at New York Fashion Week are anything to go by, fashion is all about breaking down barriers and turning simple trends on their head.

For instance, why have a knitted scarf when you can have a gigantic boa constrictor of a neck warmer that would have taken 12 grandmas two years to knit (as seen in 2008)?

So when it came to redesigning the ironically ugly Fashion District in New York for Women's Wear Daily, one architect turned into a fashion designer - but instead of turning buildings on their head he turned them on their side.

Pentagram's James Biber has proposed six horizontal skyscrapers clad in polka dots, stripes, checks, plaid and stocking mesh throughout the district.

He says: "They connect the various showrooms, designers, sales forces and the occasional workshop while housing the most spectacular runway spaces in the world."

Oh and that "fashion gets a home where it deserves one - far about the street - high in the clouds".

Check out the full proposal here.

Are we even able to call these things skyscrapers, since they aren't in the sky?

Within the bay of Azerbaijan's capital Baku, architects have designed a zero carbon community based on the shapes of famous mountains (see video below).

Danish architects Bjarke Ingels Group are behind the masterplan for the development on Zira Island in the Caspian Sea.

Their plans show a 1m sq m show-pony with seven residential developments based on the shapes of famous mountains in Azerbaijan.

Check out more pics and vitals here.

This planned Huaxi city centre for Guiyang, China is the latest project to come from the desks of those crazy kids at MAD Architects.

It was developed by 11 different firms, all overseen by MAD and aims to mimic the natural environment (more pics here).

Somehow it looks more like a cyclone has blasted through a futuristic city, leaving wobbly buildings and giant pieces of coral strewn across the surrounding hills.

Maybe this is also a comment on the effects of global warming?

Needless to say it probably won't ever be built. But it's a lot of fun, right?

Looking more like a futuristic bachelor pad, this eco-house was actually designed using Medieval techniques from hundreds of years ago.

The zero carbon building was developed by architects at the University of Cambridge as a prototype for modern living.

It is based on a technique called timbrel vaulting that originated in Spain about 600 years ago.

Showcased on UK television show Grand Designs, the £445,000 home is apparently easy to build since it consists of one great arch covered on the outside with plants and earth.

It also includes solar panels, a wood chip burner and triple-glazed windows.

Michael Ramage, from the university, told the Daily Telegraph: "The design is cost-effective in that the home is relatively simple to build and, once you know what you're doing, it's quick. Many of the costs come from the new technology it uses for energy storage and generation. If those become more widely available, making a similar house cheaply in much larger quantities may be possible."

So one day we could be seeing a few more of these pop up.

Tough new building standards could be rushed through in Victoria, Australia following horrific bushfires that killed at least 189 people and destroyed 1800 homes.

The Victorian government has decided to go it alone, backing out of a national building code being developed to Australian Standards.

The cabinet met today to sign off on the rules, which restrict the types of materials used in construction as well as the way houses are designed to resist ignition by flying embers.

Under the new building standards, the use of cedar in homes could be restricted as it burns much faster than other hardwoods.

And schools destroyed in the fire could be rebuilt with fire bunkers.

But the move is not without controversy.

Major Aussie newspaper The Australian reports that the Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities Council has refused to sign off on changes to a national building code to be implemented next month.

Fire officials say the new national code is flawed because it requires houses to resist a lower flame intensity than would normally be experienced in bushfires.

Either way, the new standards could add between $10,000 and $80,000 to the cost of a home, which sucks when you are starting life again from scratch.

Hopefully the Aussie government's disaster relief funding offsets a bit of this cost.

Today's casualty of the economic crisis comes to us courtesy of New York City.

Boston Properties, the biggest owner and developer of office space in the States, has pulled the plug on a 39-storey skyscraper it had started work on in Hell's Kitchen.

Builders working on the foundation of the sheer glass tower at 250 West 55th Street will be told to stop work after a key tenant pulled out of the project.

It seems the law firm that Boston Properties had lined up to lease almost half of the building pulled out weeks before the deal was expected to be signed off and - this has got to hurt - after a full year of negotiations!

Work will be suspended and it is not known when it will restart.

Interestingly, this project hit a speed bump earlier in its life when one property owner wouldn't give Boston Properties access to his building so the tower could go up.

Read about the cat fight here!

That maestro of modern architecture Frank Gehry is creating history in New York with a skyscraper critics are already calling revolutionary in many different respects.

The Los Angeles native has designed a 76-storey tower in Lower Manhattan - not too far from Ground Zero - that will become the city's tallest residential building.

And why is the architectural and construction press going crazy about it?

1. First of all, Beekman Tower (as it is known) is hypnotic and dynamic. The exterior steel cladding appears crinkled, allowing the apartments little bays. The effect is as the NY Times puts it: "rivulets of water, crinkled sheets of aluminium, melted ice".

2. Its impressive height, without the need for bulk, suggests the city's 9/11 scars are fading from the psychology of the skyline. And being so close to Ground Zero, it seems an elegant reassertion of New York's architectural might.

3. On the ground, construction workers are using one of the most sustainable concretes on the market - iCrete. This high-performance material touts a 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from less cement paste needed to bond the aggregates. This also results in lower material costs, less excavation and less labour and makes construction faster.

4. Finally, in a world beset by financial problems, Gehry has designed his own modelling programme to keep costs on track. Digital Project models, in three dimensions, every odd shape an architect envisions and then lets engineers and architects reconcile the shape with the site and other features. And thanks to its use, the project is reportedly on budget.

Beekman tower is presently under construction and will incorporate a school when it is completed. This school is located in a lower red-brick section that takes nothing away from the dramatic building.

The tower is slated to open in 2010 and will undoubtedly become an icon on the New York skyline and yet more proof of Gehry's genius.

In a competition only open to billionaire developers, the Burj Dubai has seen off early efforts from Saudi Arabia's royal family to build a skyscraper taller than the 800m plus tower.

The Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), which is owned by Saudi Arabia's royal family, has shelved plans to build a skyscraper to rival the Burj.

In October the company announced it would build the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah but that the final height was a secret and would be well over 1km high.

But sources now say the tower is on hold after KHC lost £5.6bn in the fourth quarter of 2008 due to the downturn in equity markets.

Project manager Bechtel is in the process of ending its involvement with the project.

It is unknown how long the development will be delayed.

The 612m Russia Tower planned for Moscow could be scaled down to just 200m on the orders of officials who want construction work restarted.

Work on the super tall skyscraper - to be the tallest in Europe - was suspended in November 2008 due to financial woes associated with the economic crisis.

But Moscow mayor Yury Luuzhkov has told investors that he wants work to restart this year - worldwide economic crisis or not.

According to the Moscow Times, a decision to speed up work on the tower but limit its size was made at a closed Moscow City Council meeting last week.

Shalva Chigirinsky, of the developer Russian Land, would not reveal who would be redesigning the project.

Foster + Partners were the original architects on the job and have refused to comment.

It will be a shame for architecture if this landmark building is scaled down, but good for the construction industry struggling to survive during the downturn.

Below is a video of the original plans.

An unfinished luxury hotel next to Beijing's iconic CCTV tower has caught fire on the last night of celebrations marking the Lunar New Year.

The TVCC tower designed by Rem Koolhaas caught fire on China's Monday night and has been almost totally destroyed.

The cause of the blaze is unknown but locals say it had been sprayed by fireworks as part of the New Year celebrations.

Construction workers were transported to hospital. No one is believed to have been seriously injured.

The TVCC tower was to open later this year and stood beside the striking CCTV tower constructed in the Beijing Olympics boom.

Christopher Hawthorne of the LA Times said the CCTV complex of a whole "depends on the shorter hotel tower (TVCC). It is the hotel, in fact, that helps give the main tower its strange, shifting sense of scale. From certain angles the smaller section -- no shrimp itself at 34 stories tall -- looks like the tail of the big tower's dragon, from others like a fleeing creature about to be devoured by the CCTV's gaping mouth."

In his interesting blog post on the fire, he predicts it will be rebuilt.

The CCTV tower was not harmed in the blaze.

Private developers in Philadelphia are pushing ahead with plans to build a 460m skyscraper in the US city, despite the debilitating financial crisis.

Developers behind the American Commerce Centre say the iconic skyscraper - which would be among one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world - would employ thousands of builders and boost jobs when it opens in 2012.

Zoning changes have been passed to make way for the 63-storey tower and council officials claim funding for the project is on track.

Councillor Darrell Clarke told the Associated Press most of the money was coming from union pension funds and that the project had a 50/50 chance of going ahead.

"If they don't build it, then we're where we are currently with a vacant lot," he said.

The developers say the biggest hurdle is finding tenants for the project but that they hope to commence construction later this year.

New Zealand's Yellow Pages has taken lofty advertising claims to a whole new level - building a restaurant to prove a point.

The phone directory wanted to prove its claim that it "helps you get any job done" so it set about building a complex restaurant in a tree - finding all contractors for the job in the Yellow Pages.

Advertising agency Colenso organised and built the restaurant in four months and it opened in January near Auckland.

Auckland architects Peter Eising and Lucy Gauntlett of Pacific Environment Architects were behind the design, which took the form of a chrysalis that could be illuminated at night.

Timber construction was used for flexibility and sustainability, and the structure was attached to the tree trunk with steel collars and pins.

Unfortunately the restaurant was only open in January. Maybe we should try to convince them to keep it up?

This is the latest design in the war against environmental damage.

A group of engineers from Nectar in California have designed a skyscraper that it hopes will become a gigantic filter for the sky - undoing pollution generated by all the other skyscrapers.

Basically it holds about 200-400 large trees that absorb pollutants and converts CO2 into nice, clean and breathable oxygen.

It is made of concrete and includes a windmill powered water system that gives the trees the water and nutrients they need.

There are no plans for its construction yet, but its designers hope one day it will spring up near some of the world's worst polluting factories.

A Chinese official who helped to build some of China's tallest buildings has been jailed for life for taking almost £2m in bribes.

Kang Huijun, 51, formerly vice governor of Pudong - Shanghai's financial district - took bribes from developers keen to build in the area.

Pudong is home to the tallest skyscraper built in 2008 - the Shanghai World Financial Centre - and is China's financial hub.

Huijin was in charge of all major land deals in the area and would award big contracts and approve land sales for cash payments, which he then used to buy property at below-market value.

He apparently had accumulated more than 12 million yuan (£1.2m) in unjustifiable assets.

According to investigations, he used his connections to get his friends jobs and lived a lavish lifestyle with his wife Wang Xiaoqin - luxury flats and a private-school education for their son in England.

His wife was also jailed for five years for taking 880,000 yuan (£89,000) in bribes.

This office block oasis wears its sustainability credentials on its sleeve - a mighty fragrant sleeve at that.

Designed by Enrique Browne Arquitectos, this building in Concepción, Chile is wrapped in a striking green facade of fragrant bougainvillea, jasmine and plumbago.

A building with a scent!

However, it doesn't just smell and look pretty.

Its green wall is made of local wood and shields the structure from the sun in all directions except south, while also acting as insulation.

The south wall is constructed from a high-performance local corrugated metal that insulates the inside and makes it highly energy efficient.

While sustainable buildings don't always have to be so literally green, it is certainly an effective way to spread the message to those passing by.

As the economic crisis reduced financial markets to rubble in 2008, tall buildings hit a high - literally.

New figures show the average height of the top 10 tallest buildings completed in 2008 rose to 319m - 31m above the previous highest average set in 1998.

The 492m Shanghai World Financial Centre - also known as the bottle opener - was the tallest building, followed by the 363m Almas Tower in Dubai. See the full list here.

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has named 2008 the most successful year of skyscraper construction and is predicting even better results in 2009 and 2010.

The international research group points to the 818m Burj Dubai, the 577m Makkah Clock Royal Tower in Saudi Arabia and the 414m Dubai Towers in Doha - all to be completed in 2009.

The council also predicts the Burj Dubai will hold the title of the world's tallest building until 2020 and that building heights will fall until 2017.

I wonder what Saudi Arabia's Al-Waleed bin Talal - the man who wants to beat the Burj with a 1km high skyscraper - thinks of that?

The tallest skyscraper in Vancouver, Canada opened on the weekend - but with two whole floors missing.

The 201m building Living Shangri-La is a combination hotel and luxury apartment block featuring a public sculpture garden that started construction in 2005.

It is the first location in North America for the luxury hotel chain and incorporates its Asian superstitions - in that there is no fourth floor as that is considered unlucky in Asia.

In fact, the Asian pronunciation of the number four is actually the same as for the word "death."

And what about those more western superstitions? Well, they've also done away with the 13th floor to prevent bad luck.

With hotel rooms going for £3,400 they might need all the luck they can get in the current financial climate.

Construction of South America's tallest skyscraper has been put on hold due to the global financial crisis.

The 300m Torre Gran Constanera in Chile's capital of Santiago was intended to soar 72-storeys but has been abandoned at the 22nd floor.

More than 700 workers have been made redundant and unions say a total of 2,000 jobs will be lost.

The building was to be the tallest in South America and the biggest in the southern hemisphere.

Chilean group Cencosud said that if the project had been finished on time they would have struggled to rent space in the building.

Workers have gathered in front of the unfinished building to express their anger at the decision.

A self-contained floating habitat designed to solve the twin problems of population expansion and the environmental degradation of land is under construction in New York.

Named the Waterpod, this floating eco-habitat designed for rising tides was the brainchild of artists artists Mary Mattingly and Mira Hunter and will sail New York's waters from 1 May 2009.

Eco-smart builders in the city commenced work on it last year and will construct the floating home using recycled materials including wood, metal, plastic and fabric on top of and adjacent to an industrial barge.

It will resemble a triple-domed island, measuring 25m by 7m and also incorporate the use of salvaged pieces of sunken vessels raised from river bottoms in the area.

It will be powered by a hybrid solar and wind system.

Waterpod's largest dome will be dedicated to community and artistic activity, the second to hydroponic and vertical agriculture, greywater recycling and alternative power sources. The final dome will be the living quarters.

The unique structure will be open to the public and monitored online.

More pictures and information at the official website.