We ran across this impressive modern home located in the northern part of Madrid, Spain. The residence has a total living space of 9,421 square feet (875 square meters) and accommodates no less than seven bedrooms. No matter what the standpoint, the exterior of this contemporary Madrid villa is unusual, some might say even picturesque. A large pool swimming pool mirrors the landscape gardens and the colorful exterior of the main building, providing a great setting for outdoor activities. Near the pool, there is a lovely dining area, fit for various family events. The interiors are defined by floor to ceiling windows, each of the rooms benefiting from unobstructed views of the lush green environment. The ground floor of the villa includes a guest suite with direct access from the exterior, a staff apartment, home cinema projection room, gym and garage. The residence is currently up for sale here, listed at USD $10,333,781.

 

The most expensive apartment ever sold in Manhattan went for a cool $88 million this week.

 

The penthouse apartment on Central Park West was formerly owned by Citigroup founder Sanford Weill. It was bought for the original asking price in a deal that closed Feb. 15.

 

The apartment was bought through a trust under the name of Ekatarina Rybolovleva, the 22-year-old daughter of Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

 

The 4-bedroom apartment has a wraparound terrace, windowed chef's kitchen and roof garden. It's approximately 6,744 square feet with 4 1/2 baths and an oval-shaped master bedroom, according to the listing on realtor Brown Harris Stevens' website.

 

In addition to the record price, the transaction also marks the highest price per square foot ever paid in Manhattan at over $13,000. The previous record residential sale in Manhattan was the $53-million purchase of a townhouse on East 75th street, near Fifth Avenue by J. Christopher Flowers in Oct. 2006, Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller Samuel, a New York appraisal firm. But, the former Goldman Sachs partner later sold that property in 2011 for $36.5 million, resulting in a 31% loss.

 

Weill had much better luck with his real-estate investment. He bought the apartment in Sept. 2007 for $42.4 million, according to public records, more than doubling his money on the place.

 

"The fact that this property sold does not say much for where the market is going, it represents a very narrow sliver of the market, which is essentially a trophy property market," noted Miller.

 

"That [segment of the] market is performing well, aided by foreign buyers and wealthy individuals," he added.

 

Overall, Manhattan home prices averaged $1.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to Brown Harris Stevens' most recent data. The median price, which measures the middle of the market and is less impacted by the very high end, fell 8% to $785,000 in the fourth quarter, down from $850,000 in the previous period.

 

Casa dos Ipês in Sao Paulo, Brazil, was a project embarked upon a decade ago by Marcio Kogan, a design of exposed concrete that many builders deemed practically impossible. The heavy material has been given amazing grace in this construction, with the magnitude appearing to float above the glass volume of the lower floor.

 

In the upper mass, bedrooms surround a central TV room, and receive light via a wooden panel on the façade that is broken into shutters. Both thermally and aesthetically pleasing, when closed these shutters maintain the solid box like appearance of the upper floor, contributing to the elegance of the lower quarters.

Downstairs the living room accesses the veranda and garden via doors that retract almost the entire length of the building, and a huge set of pivoting wooden panels open up the side, making the living area an outdoor space.

Work on the second tallest mixed-use tower in the world has been halted following fears that it could disrupt the take off and landing of flights in Doha, Qatar.

 

Once completed, the 551m, the 112-storey Doha Convention Centre and Tower project will become the second tallest tower in the world.

 

Recently however, the developer suspended work on the tower following the discovery that it would impact the takeoff and landing routes of aircraft from the current international airport.

 

The problem is expected to be resolved once the new runway  is built parallel to the existing one, approximately 1km closer to the east coast, on reclaimed land.

 

Mohammed bin Ali Al Hadfah, chief executive officer of Qatari Diar, developers behind the project, told the local Arabic language daily, Al Sharq, that once the New Doha International Airport had been inaugurated, the direction of flights would be changed.

 

Just because you work from home doesn't mean you should be lying on the couch in your pj's til noon. Sure, it can also mean that—no judging—for some professions fuzzy slippers just don't count as proper work attire, whether you commute to an office or to your dining room table. In fact, the latest project from Synthesis Design + Architecture proves that even small home spaces can be snazzy, at least if you have $11,000. That's what it cost to turn a London investment advisor's home office, a modest 8' x 11' room, into a sleek, CNC-milled birch work space.

 

The birch wood ribbing serves the very functional purpose of hiding storage (files, paperwork, supplies etc.), office equipment and electrical cords from sight. See if you can spot the "hidden" cabinets and panels in the curved wooden surface. The horizontal spacers you can see in the images that hold the ribs together are in the shape of a world map "created by converting an image into a high contrast graphic bitmap."

 

 

Synthesis collaborated with woodworkers, swapping 3D renderings back and forth until all the structural concerns were addressed and the final product was reached. This may be out of reach for many homebound workers, but allow it to serve as inspiration for creating an office that feels separate enough from your living space so that at the end of a long day you don't feel like a shut-in.