An ambitious proposal for a country in turmoil, this 3,780-foot building would be not only the tallest in the world but also taller than all structures currently in planning or under construction.

Composed of four connected towers, The Bride by AMBS Architects aims to exceed the Kingdom Tower slated for construction in Saudi Arabia as well as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

The mixed-use commercial, housing and office project includes a sweep veil providing shade for outdoor public spaces, parks, gardens and smaller buildings below. A net-zero structure, it is designed to produce more renewable energy than it consumes.

Its designers boast that the 1.5 million square foot structure will break new ground in engineering and vertical transportation. They also emphasize that its horizontality makes an intentional statement about inclusivity – the building is meant to serve more than just those who occupy its heights.

“Super-tall towers are perceived as an object in the distance,” said AMBS. “An alien planted in the city, disconnected from the urban scale at ground level. The Bride, on the other hand, will be conceived as a city itself both vertically but also horizontally from the ground.”

“It will be enjoyed by thousands of people in endless ways, within it, on it or under it, from walking in the vast shaded parks and promenades at ground level, to having lunch or shopping in a sky-square hundreds of metres above sea level.”

Aiming to turn Cupertino into the green center of Silicon Valley, this expansive green roof design rolls over 30 acres of central urban real estate, capping a massive mixed-use redevelopment project. The resulting street-crossing expanse is set to include miles of walking trails, vineyards, orchards, playgrounds and an amphitheater.

Developers from Sand Hill Property Company assembled the constituent real estate, including a partially abandoned Vallco Shopping Malls, from separate owners.

Their proposal to create nearly 1,000 apartments and over a million square feet of office space was developed in part by architect Rafael Viñoly with the assistance of OLIN Landscape Architects.

In the buildings below, a cinema, gym, shopping center and ice rink are slated for construction, revitalizing the downtown area and integrating with outdoor elements above.

“The Hills at Vallco features an unprecedented 30-acre community park and nature preserve, which will not only be the largest community park in Cupertino, but also the largest green roof in the world” according to the developers behind the scheme.

The plan has been pitched to the city as a way to secure its position as a hub for technology and innovation in California. The project is currently entering a public review phase. Critics note that feasibility may be an issue, citing the architect’s record with a London skyscraper known for blowing over pedestrians and lighting cars on fire.

The inventor of the suburban American mall as we know it came to hate the effects of his creations, evolving from the creator of this building typology to its most vocal critic. Architect Victor Gruen’s first mall was Southdale, built in 1956 and located in Edina (a suburb of Minneapolis) only miles away from the Mall of America, now the largest indoor shopping center in the United States. Later this month, you can learn more in person about the man and legend at the upcoming Gruen Day celebration, hosted by Tim Hwang of the Bay Area Infrastructure Observatory and Avery Trufelman, producer of 99% Invisible’s episode ‘The Gruen Effect‘.

The episode (embedded above) takes its title from that phenomena we all have come to associate with malls: a compulsion to consume, driven by dazzling displays and careful product placements in stores designed to sell. Gruen had loftier aspirations and nobler inspirations, however, when he first began to illustrate the problem of suburbs and conceive of malls as the solution.

More than just shopping centers, these were to be all-in-one ‘third spaces’ – places in addition to home and work where people could walk, interact and socialize. Following the model of European city centers, he also envisioned them as mixed-use architecture, blending commercial with residential and office spaces, perhaps even including public services like medical centers, libraries and daycares.

Recognizing American reliance on automobiles, Gruen hoped to lure people with ample parking to these centers of activity, then recreate for them the experience of tightly-packed urban streets, vibrant and full of everyday life. Walking into Southdale, you would never guess that this was a first attempt, given its resemblance to other malls around the country.

The shortcomings of this plan were, as we now know, numerous, including but not limited to the privatization of public space. One cannot protest in a mall or walk its halls at any time day or night, and skylights are not a replacement for open skies. Indeed, while malls were popular for a time, the public has fallen out of love with them – the last full-sized shopping center was built nearly a decade ago and there appear to be few if any new ones on the horizon.

In some ways, the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN, built in the 1990s and currently being expanded, embodies more of what Gruen envisioned for malls, containing at its center a series of recreational spaces, rides and amusements, and flanked on its sides by places to stay (albeit temporarily – hotels not homes). People even walk and jog its halls in the early hours before stores open, much as they might on city streets – some even get married within its walls.

Perhaps, though, the relative success of this venture is tied in part to the location – the Minneapolis area is almost unbearably cold for most of the year, then quite hot and humid in the summer, making it a perfect place for a temperature-controlled alternative to being outside.

As for Gruen: he eventually returned to Vienna and rejected his work on American malls, advocating for urban renewal in city centers. Meanwhile, interested Bay Area readers will want to get tickets for Gruen Day, taking place in one of Gruen’s earliest malls and featuring speakers, tours, and (of course) food courts, and read more of this story (and many others) at 99% Invisible (illustration by Victor Gruen, poster by the BAIO and photographs via LIFE Magazine, MallsofAmerica and MNopedia).

Board games may be old fashioned to some but they’re anything but boring no matter how big a board they’re played on. Here are 9 of the biggest.

Triple (Size) Letter Score

Popular word game Scrabble celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1998 and in honor of the occasion, two teams from the United Kingdom’s armed forces played the biggest Scrabble game EVAR, turning London’s Wembley Stadium into a ginormous Scrabble board. The reinforced fiberglass letter tiles measured 2 x 2 meters (about 6 feet per side) and were 40cm (almost 2 inches) thick, requiring two team members to shift each one into position… and you thought soccer was a slow game! On the bright side, just be glad Welsh words weren’t allowed.

Take A Walk On The Boardwalk

Do you know the way to San Jose? Make a left at Baltic and don’t forget to bring your Get Out Of Jail Free card! We’re talking Monopoly here; Monopoly In The Park to be exact. The 930 sq/ft permanent Monopoly board offers anyone a chance to make it big on Silicon Valley real estate. I want the iron… darnit!

Ukraine Not Weak!

Beloved by Kramer and Newman, RISK is the classic game of world domination where the board is as big as the world… or so the players wish! Everyone from be-suited gentlemen to cosplaying geek gamers has tried to imitate Vladimir Putin playing larger-than-life RISK but there’s a drawback: the bigger the board, the harder it is to take the game with you on the New York subway.

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Big Game Hunting The Worlds 9 Biggest Board Games

Always pushing the limits of posh possibility, this latest endeavor aims to put an entire urban center in a temperature-controlled bubble of indoor spaces, centered around a vast Mall of the World.

Everything one can imagine will be found inside the complex, including 100 apartment and hotel buildings, various medical services, a huge shopping mall and the world’s largest indoor amusement park.

This over-the-top megastructure will join the Dubai’s collection of famous and record-breaking structures, from observation decks and submarine hotels to the tallest skyscraper in the world.

Its designers have unabashedly drawn from sources of inspiration around the world, including culturally central parts of New York, London and other historic metropolises.

Like some surreal voluntary version of Stephen King’s Under the Dome, the whole thing can be experienced without stepping outside, particularly in hot summer months. In cooler winter months, some pedestrian street roofs and park domes will be retracted to allow for natural air circulation.

The goal, as expressed by Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum (and envisioned by Dubai Holding), is to create a beacon for year-round tourism both from local visitors and those coming from abroad, transforming the UAE from a seasonal vacation spot to a place people can come at any time.

Its architects also claim the system will be eco-friendly, in part because the active and passive systems integrated throughout will work in concert with one another. Whether such a vast system in the desert can be green in the end (or willed be added to the growing list of failed abandonments in Dubai) remains to be seen .