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ASEE Prism, Summer 2008

CONSTRUCTION

DESIGNED TO RISE like a giant steel and glass Christmas tree from a peninsula along the Moscow River, Crystal Island, if built, would be the world's biggest building as measured in floor space-four times the size of the mammoth Pentagon. Foster Partners, the British firm that designed it, calls it "a city in microcosm," with hotels, apartments, offices and shops. The superstructure would act as a thermal buffer, sealed to prevent heat loss during the cold Russian winter and open to breezes in the summer. Moscow, enjoying oil- and gas-fueled prosperity, is in the midst of a construction boom.