The year begins in a sombre mood, especially for those architects who have given up smoking. At Lower Manhattan, the selection of a masterplan for Ground Zero moves into its final stage with a tiebreaker. Each of the six shortlisted architects is asked to complete the sentence "I pledge allegiance to..." in no more than 10 words. Construction of a 1,000-m 'solar tower' is approved by the Australian government, as long as it is built in New Zealand. A major exhibition, Big Green Fat-Free Livin' Machines, opens in Washington - featured projects include a converted car factory with a forested roof, a fog-powered hospital, and a multi-faith fitness centre harnessing energy from 5,000 photovoltaic panels and the Love of God. In Russia, work begins on a 200,000-ton steel shell to enclose Chechnya. Across the world, architects decide there should be no war in Iraq. Several historic buildings in the West Bank city of Hebron go missing. The Royal Institute for the Protection of British Architects launches a research project to discover why so many women drop out of architecture, following a series of fatal falls.

David Childs of SOM wins the Ground Zero commission with his tiebreaker "I pledge allegiance to developer Larry Silverstein". Runner-up is Daniel Libeskind with "I pledge allegiance to the lyrics of John Lennon's Imagine". Urbanist street magician Rem Koolhaas speeds the democratisation of China with a large project, but remains stern-looking and thoughtful. Rafael Moneo wins the Royal Gold Medal - he is praised for being Spanish, and therefore connected to Barcelona. A conference on skyscrapers hears that in future terrorists will be thwarted by ceramic fibrous monoliths, steel tube frameworks filled with 'living gel' and smart polymer fleecing. Bahrain announces a $175m indoor ski resort designed by Zaha Hadid, to be built 'on its own Alp'. In central Africa, the Nike tribe issue tenders for a futuristic googolopolis built of seven Megalithic Lodges, each reaching to Heaven. A computer survey of Versailles' Hall of Mirrors reveals it is smaller than it seems. St Petersburg is won by gangsters in an all-night poker game with the Minister for Architectural Heritage.

The UN building in New York begins to bulge and 'fall out', so the top 10 seeds on the Global Signature Design Index are helicoptered in. Preparations for the war in Iraq get underway with summit meetings between large construction companies and political enabling agencies. At a grassroots architecture forum, individual electronic response calculators allow participants to express their opinions on 44 different issues in two hours. The experiment is applauded for being a slow-motion version of real life. In Dubai, a World's Tallest Hotel competition is suspended when one of the entrants is discovered to be a hoax from the 30th floor up. An orbiting satellite confirms Frank Gehry is now visible from space. A Walking City from the 1960s turns up in Taiwan, asking for cigarettes in a Cockney accent.

Jean Nouvel receives the Blouson d' Honneur for his theoretical redesign of Rio de Janiero, which includes a philosophy complex with mineral water and a chill-out area. A 16th Century fortress in India is classified as a Grade 1 historic structure then immediately declared a ruin. The urban poor crowded inside the fort in makeshift homes are classified a nuisance then immediately declared to be living at sustainable densities. The ancient and modern architecture of Basra, Najaf, Mosul, Tikrit and Baghdad is blended by the media into a complex metaphor with commercial breaks and dust everywhere. Jørn Utzon's 2003 Pritzker Prize is gaffa-taped to the top of Sydney Opera House, for a dare. Rumours begin to spread through Greece that they will be hosting the Olympics next year. There is tragedy in the Far East when architectural study tours are disrupted by SARS.

At Canada's premier digital arts festival - Middle Earth With Hoverbikes - German architect Klaus Luftig unveils his proposal for 'pornographic hydraulicalism', which would allow any building to simulate sex with its urban context, subject to technological advances in engineering. The Nepalese Maoist Design Force issues a cartoon ridiculing Peter Eisenman. Cost estimates for the new Scottish Parliament building reach to Ireland. The South Pole community moves into a new geodesic dome, well away from the historic wooden hut erected by Norwegian explorer Carlsberg Borchgrevink in 1899, which is buried under the shit of 100,000 penguins. Jerusalem's Shrine of the Book, which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls, is redecorated in a 'tongues of fire' motif.

The Baghdad blogger 'Salam Pax' turns out to be a 28 year-old architect who was supposed to be getting on with some CAD renderings. Renzo Piano proposes a 'small vertical town for 7,000 people who all know the words to YMCA' in London. The contest to host the 2016 Olympic Games starts to get mentioned in major provincial towns. Cultural adrenaline swamps Europe. Zaha Hadid's Contemporary Arts Center opens in Cincinatti, from both sides at once. The world's deepest metro station is bottomed off with smart vodka in Moscow. Rubber concrete is invented, then eclipsed by liquid marble. A green live-work pet resort is announced for Maryland, designed to strict design guidelines and with neo-Classicist litter trays.

Liverpool wins the bid to be European Capital of England by beating five other UK cities in a pub quiz. Jan Kaplicky of Future Systems, Will Alsop, Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and Richard Meier appear in the same sentences. Taipei takes the World's Tallest Building Award for the second month running. A new war crimes court in Sierra Leone extrudes itself in firm but fair-faced concrete. Dublin architects win a hotly-contested competition to design a museum of antiquities at Giza in Egypt, beating more than 1,500 practices, plus all those who didn't enter. Swiss multiple-personality Herzog de Meuron's Prada store in Tokyo opens and everyone crams in. Zaha's Segway Flashmob terminus in Strasbourg wins the Mies van der Rohe Cigar for being really good and in Germany. In a deal with the BBC to mark British Heritage Day, members of the Royal Family are filmed spending a week in kilts at Brynich Caravan Park in Wales, making occasional excursions to country houses disguised as common folk.

Bangkok shoots to the top of the World Class City League with plans for a giant ferris wheel, a shopping mall bigger than the city itself, and fireworks. Dubai becomes synonymous with luxury, thanks to an arrangement with Google. A poverty housing theme park in America is forced to close after a scorpion infestation is discovered in one of the shanty zones. Rem Koolhaas wins the Praemium Imperiale but remains stern-looking and thoughtful. A building audit of Moscow's 500 year-old St.Basil's Cathedral concludes it is falling apart in a world without God or Communism. Oscar Niemeyer, the 96 year-old colossus of modernism, beats Herbert Muschamp at table tennis. The Vatican says it is minded to beatify Antoni Gaudi, the Catalan genius whose amazing sense of form and movement failed to alert him to an approaching tram in 1926.

A '$2.25bn, 11.6-hectare mega-complex' opens simultaneously in Tokyo, and as a hologram orbiting the Moon. The Brazilian city of Curitiba, for many years thought to be in existence, is finally confirmed as real by a Hollywood location spotter. Johannesburg's Nelson Mandela Bridge is opened by Nelson Mandela, and Washington's Twat Center is opened by President Bush. Bombed fragments of Bosnia are reassembled into an expensive sculpture depicting the futility of war. 'Poet of the train station' Santiago Calatrava is appointed to Ground Zero and given a fortnight to come up with a suitable rhyme. An urban beach in the middle of Paris encourages French seaside towns to initiate traffic jams. In Chile, the city of Valparaiso is designated a World Heritage Site for its unpolluted architectural style, attracting a rush of interest from developers and retailers. The ancient oasis city of Merv in Turkmenistan remains hazy.

A media village in Austria is the first to be constructed from Thinkpaulin - plastic sheeting embedded with ultra-thin solar panels, organic diodes and active lifestyle tips. In Oregon, a nanotechnology family house with double garage rises from a pool of chemicals in just nine days. UK design experimentalist Nigel Coates follows spirals or zigzags in his mind, testing them in their arbitrary overlap with an urban web of tangled threads. There is panic throughout the world when he runs out of ideas, then relief at the news he's just having a nap. Bombay is officially renamed Mumbai - almost immediately, key heritage buildings are attacked by suicide mumbers. The Shanghai Municipal People's Congress admits all the tall buildings are causing the city to sink, and proposes balloons filled with 'happy gas'. A Lutyens bungalow in New Delhi is accused of racism. Cambodia's ministry of tourism announces plans to convert a former Khmer Rouge camp into a Genocide Experience.

Tadao Ando's dog 'Le Corbusier' bites Philippe Starck in a boutique hotel in Beirut, mistaking him for a juicy post-Freudian functionalist. New Urbanism becomes compulsory in California, with fines for people exceeding body mass thresholds by more than 15%. Malaysia's Petronas Towers go into a sulk. The World Monuments Fund issues a list of the 100 most endangered sites on Earth; half are still under construction. A range of footwear by Birkenstock - the Architect Collection - wins an award for industrial design excellence; they are aimed at 'sophisticated urbanites who value comfort, cherish the built environment, and moan a lot'. A Festival of Hip-Hop Architecture in Seattle is marred by poor detailing and gunfire.

An international team of explorers and archaeologists announce an expedition to a submerged archipelago in the Straits of Gibraltar, where they believe the lost city of Atlantis lies, or at least pretends. Parisians are warned that a 30 year-old ban on tall buildings in the city could soon be abandoned in order to accommodate demands for more aloof apartments. Plans for a Dracula-themed 'extreme suburbia' in Romania cause nervous laughter throughout Europe. The £1.2bn commission to extend Beijing airport is taken by Norman Foster in a leather coat and dark glasses. Baggy Urban Zoomorphism defers to Pre-Modernism, to avoid further bloodshed in architecture schools. Rem Koolhaas wins the Royal Gold Medal but remains stern-looking and thoughtful.