Surfing on the wake of Tokyo-based architect Shigeru Ban's recent Pritzker win, the developers of NYC's Cast Iron House launched sales for his condo conversion plans, which were approved two years ago. Back then, Ban's rehashing of the 132-year-old cast iron building, which makes for 11 duplexes and two duplex penthouses, was described as "magical" and "breathtaking." And, well, it's gotta be considering the least expensive unit, a three-bedroom, is asking $4.975M.

Dubbed by Curbed NY as "the most exciting" upcoming project on New York's High Line, Zaha Hadid's imminent condo complex (which looks a bit like rain drops running across the windshield) is her first New York project. NY Mag once described the 11-story structure—slated to house 37 "expansive" residences—as "the delightful Earth home for the weary intergalactic superrich."

Down in Miami Beach, Dame Hadid also won a contest to design what surely will be the country's swankiest parking garage. Curbed Miami has renderings aplenty.

Bjarke Ingels' pyramid on New York's 57th Street is finally taking shape, over a year after getting approval. When complete in 2015, the 709-unit rental building will peak at 450 feet.

And, of course, there's Ingels twisty towers for Miami, which has captivated building folk for years with its pair of twisty towers. Grove at Grand Bay broke ground almost exactly a year ago.

Sobrequet'd as the "Fortress of Glassitude," Christian de Portzamparc's 400 Park Avenue South has been in the works since the early 2000s, though previews were only announced in April. According to Curbed NY, "The 40-story tower looks like a collection of crystals jutting from the ground, which is an appropriately luxurious image since the 363 units will be ultra fancy." It's supposed to be move-in ready by 2015.

For years, Jean Nouvel's planned Tower Verre has lingered in the "unbuilt" and, seemingly, the "never-ever-to-be-built" phases. That is until the project bagged $1B (with a B) in financing last fall. The money comes from a few sources in Asia—the Kwee family, billionaires in Singapore, are investing $300 million in the building, and a group of Asian banks plans to lend another $860 million. Included? 145 luxury condos and three floors of new gallery space for the city's Museum of Modern Art.

Rem Koolhaas has a smörgåsbord of architectural delights rising in Miami right now, one of which is a three-structure cluster of 20-story buildings. Known as Park Grove, the design has changed quite a lot from Koolhaas' winning competition entry, a forest of skinny towers, though the most current renderings still reveal an ambitious array of curvy white superstructures.

After causing many in the L.A. development scene to clutch their pearls with its outright refusal of Koolhaas' plans, the city of Santa Monica has since allowed for new alternative designs for "one of its most coveted development sites." New renderings "are set to be released any day now," Curbed LA writes.

In Miami, Richard Meier is expanding the historic Russell Pancoast-designed Surf Club. Slated: condos with his signature colorless, minimalist slant.

About a year ago the Richard Rogers-designed World Trade Center Tower secured $1.3B in financing by pinning down ad company and media firm GroupM as office tenants. This means the only World Trade Center tower not picking up speed is Norman Foster's tower, which is too bad because it's unambiguously the purdiest.

Construction for Herzog & de Mueron's crazy, half-played-Jenga tower in NYC's Tribeca neighborhood is now well underway.

When renderings for Herzog and de Mueron's Jade Signature tower for Miami were unleashed, Curbed Miami wrote: "Okay, from some angles the building does appear to be something built in Bal Harbour in the 80s, but Herzog & de Meuron buildings never look their best in renderings." Diplomatic indeed.

After what Curbed NY describes as a developer "catfight," it seems like Robert A.M. Stern's limestone-clad tower at the southern edge of Central Park is officially a go. It will stand 920 feet high with floor-to-ceiling windows, coffered ceilings, ornate fireplaces, and herringbone floors.

When Steven Holl's $30M sports complex for Columbia University opened last year, architects waxed poetic about Campbell Sports Center, which, according to Bloomberg's critic James Russell, "flamboyantly bumps and grinds, showing off its shiny metal stairs that ascend like lightning bolts." New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman called it "a tough, sophisticated and imaginative work of architecture for a devilish site."

It takes a lot of clout and a lot of balls to ask flourish-happy starchitect and controversy-magnet Frank Gehry to design an "anonymous building" that "blends into the neighborhood." Apparently Facebook has enough of both. The company asked Gehry to draw up low-key plans for the company's 433,555-square-foot Facebook West complex in Menlo Park, Calif. Perhaps more surprising? Gehry delivered with aplomb. His renderings for Facebook's up-and-coming facility (above) show a low-slung complex seated under grassy spreads of rooftop park. Wired wrote "there's no question the building will blend in well with its surroundings," and notices how the new design is congruent with Facebook's "hacker ethos, which emphasizes functionality over form."

So it seems that the now totally drawn out boondoggle that is Gehry's Eisenhower Memorial won't actually happen, but between its "Disneyfied diorama" and "Iron Curtain to Ike," Gehry's "temple to nothingness" has been inexpicably slaughtered and reslaughtered so much in the last year, it seemed a crime to leave it out.

In January, developers got approval from the Powers That Be in Los Angeles to move forward with Gehry's designs for a multi-use project on downtown's Grand Avenue. It's a step in the right direction, but an actual, real-life building is still super far off. Construction will hopefully begin in early 2015, with the building hopefully up and running by 2018.

Piano recently completed his Hahvahd (Harvard.) project: the combining of the university's three art museums (one of which is in a protected 1920s Georgian revival building) into one reorganized and upgraded facility.

When the Kimbell commissioned Piano to create an expansion for the Fort Worth art museum, they made it clear that they didn't want a knockoff of the main building, but a continuation of the same ambient light conditions, which are considered "the gold standard" for the museum. How did the Italian architect deliver? Piano's pavilion at the Kimbell Art Museum uses motorized louvers to dial in the right amount of natural light for each exhibit. Well-played.

The 9/11 National Memorial Museum may have just opened, the area's soaring, eagle-like transportation hub, designed by Santiago Calatrava, won't open until 2015—150-foot high glass and steel "wings" and all.

This month construction will wrap on Calatrava's Innovation, Science and Technology Building at the Florida Polytechnic University, the newest member of the Florida State University System. Inside the 160,000-square-foot building: classrooms, auditoriums, research and teaching labs, and offices for faculty and academic administrators.

Construction on Chicago's new boathouses, by certified genius Jeanne Gang recently wrapped. To glean inspiration for her design, which was commissioned by Chicago's mayor Rahm Emanuel, Gang studied prints of a photographer of the 1800s. Eadweard Muybridge shot stop-motion images that demonstrate in rigid form the movements of rowers. As New Yorker writes: "Her design re-creates the rhythm with structure: the roof undulates like an oar's rise and fall. Because the peaks repeat, so do the clerestory windows."

About a year ago we got a first look at Gang's new dorms—err "house hubs." Curbed Chicago has the renderings.

In 1939 American architecture overlord Frank Lloyd Wright drafted plans for a single-story house that, like others of his middle class-friendly Usonian House series, boasted a flat roof, small kitchen, overlarge living area, and airy, if anachronistically plain-jane, aesthetic. The house turned out to be one of hundreds of Wright designs never to be realized ... until this year. Florida Southern College built the house, with grand plans to turn it into a gallery and visitors center filled with exhibitions of Wright's work. It's all made of 2,000 concrete blocks and 6,000 colored glass blocks. More photos, this way.

Slated for a 2015 opening, David Adjaye's Museum of African American History and Culture will sit on DC's National Mall.

Norman Foster's controversial plans for New York's Public Library may have curled up and died, but his condo development in NYC's West Chelsea is still alive and well. In fact, a few months ago, the developers unleashed interior renderings. The architects describe it as "a very elegant, well-proportioned, quiet building—a very urbane building—it's a building that will mature and it will become a classic over time." Pricing is said to start at $5.75M. The penthouses? Upwards of $35M.

Miami Beach's Faena District (currently under construction) includes Norman Foster's Faena House tower, which has just topped off, and Rem Koolhaas' Faena Bazaar and Arts Center.

No contemporary starchitecture map would be complete without Norman Foster's mind-boggling Apple Campus 2, a donut-shaped mothership that now $2B—that's billion—over budget and a year delayed. Of course, those could simply be natural hiccups in the process to create a 2.8M-square-foot ring that will "visually banish" cars and make room for some one thousand bicycles.

Piano's glassy science center, built for the neurological sciences students and faculty at Columbia University, is well underway on Manhattan's 125th Street. Curbed NY has renderings.