Work has started on a trio of interconnected energy-efficient skyscrapers with lush rooftop gardens in bustling Taipei, Taiwan.

The Chinatrust Bank Headquarters will use the latest technologies and design tools to reduce its carbon footprint and optimise passive heating and cooling.

Designed by NBBJ Architects with Fei and Cheng Associates, the complex features a 30-storey building, 21-storey office block and a 10-storey hotel.

Each of the towers will include vertical atriums and rooftop gardens to insulate the buildings, reduce rainwater runoff and mitigate the urban heat island effect.

They are due for completion in 2012.

While the rest of the world's cement mixers lay covered in dust, Shenzhen in China is going gangbusters.

The city that is presently building the 439m Kingkey Financial Centre has now jumped on the sustainability bandwagon and is about the show the world how it is done with Shenzhen 4 Tower 1.

Since the name is kind of nonsensical, let's just call it the tetris tower because it kind of looks like the architects at Coop Himmelb(l)au were involved in a particularly taxing round of the game while designing it.

And yeah, yeah tetris tower has been bandied around a bit but too bad.

Now to the important stuff: the wave-like outer skin of the 49m building will be lined with photovoltaic cells featuring mechanisms that will increase wind resistance, provide shade for the worker bees inside, provide natural ventilation and display advertising banners.

The outer skin will also be partially powered by solar and wind energy.

Also, the building will be sectioned. Not in a Britney Spears-on-a-stretcher kind of way but into uses. Inside, offices will be at the top, public areas on the bottom and conferences, meetings and gardens in the middle.

The Middle East better watch out - Shenzhen is fast becoming the new Dubai!

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.