The financing and construction of mega-structures may have experienced a slowdown in the past year or so, but that hasn't stopped architects from honoring and celebrating what has been built.

This week, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has announced the winner of its 2009 "Best Tall Building Overall Award": Steven Holl Architects' recently completed Linked Hybrid complex in Beijing.

The complex comprises eight towers, linked by a ring of sky bridges, that house more than 750 apartments as well as a hotel, a school, a fitness center, as well as other public, commercial, and recreational facilities. There are 2,500 inhabitants. It includes special geo-thermal wells that provide heating and cooling costs and recycles all its water, reducing usage by 41 percent.

“This project is so rich in thought, both programmatically and architecturally," CTBUH awards committee chairman Gordon Gill said at the award ceremony. "It presents an advances typology for dense urban living.”

Linked Hybrid was the overall winner, and the winner for Asia. Other categorical recipients included: for the Americas, the Manitoba Hydro Place in Winnipeg, Canada, by Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects / Smith Carter Architects and Engineers Inc. / Transsolar Energietecknik GmbH; for Europe, the Broadgate Tower in London, by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP; and for the Middle East/Africa, Tornado Tower in Doha, Qatar, by CICO Consulting Architects & Engineers / SIAT Architekten + Ingenieure München GmbH.