High Rise Buildings

The day started with an easy boat trip from Osaka to the partly reopened port of Kobe, a city once again teeming with activity. It ended after a 12-mile trek, with a grimly unsuccessful rescue attempt that left the executive director of California's Seismic Safety Commission, L. Thomas Tobin, saying he wished that some of Sacramento's politicians could see this place.

A Santa Monica architect known for his high-rise designs is working on what may be the ultimate "spec" building -- a 224-story skyscraper with green ambitions that would be the tallest structure in the world. The tower is envisioned for a man-made island in Abu Dhabi, if leaders of the oil-rich emirate decide they want to make a statement to rest of the world and perhaps one-up neighboring Dubai. A conceptual design for the $3.5-billion project in the United Arab Emirates is under consideration by an Abu Dhabi planning committee, said Tommy Landau, the architect who created the design and is part of an unusual team of U.S. real estate players trying to get the ambitious project launched.

Four Westside homeowners groups have reached a settlement that will allow construction to proceed on two 47-story and one 12-story luxury condominium buildings in Century City. The settlement calls for the developer of the Constellation Park project, Century City Realty LLC, a subsidiary of JMB Realty Corp., to pay $2.25 million to a mitigation fund overseen by four groups representing homeowners near Century City.

In this upscale city just north of Chicago, a plan to build a skyscraper -- one nearly as tall as the Washington Monument -- has fueled more than a simple debate over urban planning. To many residents, the idea is outright heresy.

If you hate to sit in traffic at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards, prepare to discover your inner reserves of patience. To the dismay of residents wary of overdevelopment, the Beverly Hills City Council has approved a high-rise condo and retail project for the eight-acre site of the defunct Robinsons-May department store.

Renzo Piano, the Italian architect who designed the New York Times tower on 8th Avenue at 40th Street in Manhattan, made a point of keeping the building transparent at ground level. His goal, he said before the building opened last summer, was to avoid the forbidding, fortress-like appearance that marks other post-9/11 towers in Manhattan. He wanted the final product to look inviting. He may have succeeded too well.

The owner of the Beverly Connection mall has agreed to withdraw plans for two high-rise residential towers as part of a settlement with two community groups that challenged the expansion in court, citing concerns about density in one of the city's most congested areas.

In the late 1960s, it was Los Angeles' tallest building -- and a first piece of what became downtown's modern skyline. Now, the 42-story tower at 6th Street and Grand Avenue is making history again, this time as what appears to be the largest "adaptive reuse" project in Los Angeles history.

Tom Testa comes home each night to his 12th-floor condo and props his feet onto the sill of a picture window that wraps around his entire home. The breathtaking view he takes in while sipping chardonnay with his fiancee isn't Los Angeles or San Francisco; it's Irvine, part of what used to be Orange County's flat suburban landscape. "Everything is within reach," Testa, 51, said. "It brings a New York way of life to Orange County."

The Ventura County skyline is a flat and featureless expanse of suburbia and cropland except for two office towers that rise conspicuously above the Oxnard plain. But if developers have their way, those twin towers could get some company. Six more high-rises are proposed near the junction of Pacific Coast Highway and the Ventura Freeway. The tallest, a 37-story residential building, would dwarf an existing 21-story bank tower at the Topa Financial Plaza.