Russia’s state-controlled energy giant, Gazprom, has unveiled a new design for a major new office building it has been planning for several years in St. Petersburg. The new design proposes to use plants to control the building’s temperature.

It’s been described as the first building to be given a “green fur coat” a glass tower with double walls, in between which hundreds of trees and plants will provide heat in the winter and cooler temperatures in the summer. With temperatures in St. Petersburg rising to 30 degrees Celsius in the summer and plummeting to minus 30 in the winter, the design will be able to regulate the temperature without the need for expensive air conditioning or heating systems.

But according to a recent poll, more than 40 percent of residents thinks that would ruin the skyline of St. Petersburg, designated by the United Nations as a World Heritage Site. Built by Tsar Peter the Great at the start of the 18th century, its Venetian-style buildings and winding canals attract thousands of visitors every year.

But the architects say the project will revitalize a city that has been in decline since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Construction is planned to start later this year with completion scheduled for 2012.

Dubai has garnered much attention in recent years with a never-ending supply of architectural wonders being built, or proposed, at a head spinning pace. Mostly these towering structures are grand and tall, but some are also green

An ambitious project by David Fisher’s firm Dynamic Architecture looks set to be yet another new addition to Dubai’s skyline.

The building’s 59 floors will be capable of rotating about a central axis, their continuous motion allowing residents in the tower’s 200 apartments to choose a new view at the touch of a button.

The Strata Tower, a forty-story, luxury residential building designed by architects Hani Rashid and Lise Anne Couture of Asymptote, has broken ground on Al Raha Beach and is now under construction.

The landmark Strata Tower is designed to signify a dignified and important future for Abu Dhabi and the region.

As a signature architectural statement, the Strata Tower’s articulate, striking physical presence seeks to encapsulate meaning through the use of abstract form drawn from both local cultural landscapes and motifs and dynamic forces of global influence.

In Tel Aviv, Israel, the G Tower offers Tel Aviv’s most expensive apartment, a flat priced at $34 million.

The new apartment has 360 degree views of the city and measures 1,500 square meters (around 15,145 square feet) for a price of over $22,000 per square meter.

The Gindi Group, which developed the G Tower recently announced the selling price for the triplex flat which combines a former duplex and penthouse apartment on the 24th, 25th and 26th floors.

The 18-story Pixel Tower by James Law Cybertecture, which is planned for Dubai’s Waterfront, is inspired by the moving bubbles in a champagne glass with a design that targets the young and trendy.

The geometry of the openings minimizes in the southern direction of the sun to minimize heat gain, and maximizes in the northern direction of the sun to maximize views to the sea.

Due for completion in 2010, the building forms part of the agency’s ‘Cybertecture’ series, a range of high-tech solutions that thinks of structures as intelligent, customizable spaces. No matter where they are in the world, residents are always able to control and view their apartment, as well as the appliances within it, using mobile phones and PDAs. Fiber optic projections and animatronics presentations will also be incorporated.