Moscow's South West area will be graced by a giant "flying saucer"- shaped building "Galaktika" (Galaxy), which will "hover" over the busy intersection of Michurin and Lobachevski streets. It will include a shopping center, hotel, plenty of parking and even helicopter landing pads.

Irina Laur, the author of this unique UFO idea, and the main investor - "MOST / SKM Holdings" - presented these designs in Cannes, which generated a considerable interest. A 60-meters high, 213,000 sq. m. structure will also contain a luxury hotel, a shopping mall with various restaurants and enough space to park 2500 cars. It still remains to be seen if this project will see completion (with 250-300 million dollars estimated cost and possible logistic nightmares). Construction will start at the end of this year and is expected to be completed by 2010.

If construction starts on schedule, it would probably be reported by the Google Earth community as a weird thing in the middle of familiar Moscow streets. Some kind of an alien visitation of the architectural kind?

Saint Petersburg is going to get a new skyscraper, as well.
Here are some preliminary designs of the GazProm building.

The age of alien archi-forms has arrived

David Littlefield explains the thinking behind Space Craft, his new book on computer modeling

It features the work of both regular users whose working lives have been transformed by the products that software vendors put on the market, and people who mix and match software — fiddling around with it, pushing it in unexpected directions and writing their own programs.

Is geometry the essence of form — or just a convenient means of description?

At the level of philosophy or of science, this question could be debated without ever reaching a conclusion, while to most architects it is almost rhetorical. However, in the digital age when computers are increasingly used in design, fabrication and construction to explore the art of the possible, the answer is no longer clear-cut. This is because approaches to design are as much a matter of style as the resulting form. The design medium, and the materials and methods used for construction largely determine the most effective means of description.

A UFO LANDS IN DOWNTOWN NANNING, CHINA

The language of UFOs is universal. That's why, when you travel across countries and continents, you'll always find structures that look like UFOs. More importantly, you'll find spaceship-esque buildings that somebody out there has called a UFO on Flickr. In other words: The only thing more universal than the UFO is the compulsion to call any freaky round building a UFO.   Above, you can see a UFO that landed in the middle of a city in Nanning, China and then captured on film by Peigianlong.

Down in Rio, Brazil, the flying saucers look a little inverted but are still sleek and lovely.

In Spain, meanwhile, this glorious building looks just like a landed UFO

How about a UFO Yacht in your slip



Low income housing?

And a playhouse for the kiddies.



And of course the getaway!



And the grand finale - everyone's dream home
or rather restaurant, be it the case.



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