Dubai has unveiled plans for the world’s first rotating skyscrapers, designed by Italian-Israeli architect David Fisher, who has never before designed a high-rise.
The planned 80-storey edifices will be prefabricated in Italy to speed up construction time and reduce labour costs. Scheduled for completion in 2010, the towers will sport 79 wind turbines between each of the floors, generating an estimated 40 megawatts of power.
Milan-based Fisher calls it “dynamic architecture”, the same name as his practice, as each tower will be constantly changing shape, with each floor rotating independently of the others around a central concrete core.
Residents of upper level penthouses will be able to control the lateral movement of their floors by voice command, with speeds varying from one to three hours for for a full 360 degree rotation. Those residing below, however, will have to make do with pre-programmed rotations.
For part of the time, at least, all residents will have spectacular views of the archipeligo of artificial islands being built off Dubai’s coast. The building is also going to be fitted with car lifts, so that residents can park their Ferraris inside their homes.
It’s like the BT Tower (originally known as the Post Office Tower) on acid. The video uses ‘Now We Are Free’ track by Lisa Gerrard – the trsack used by Sir Fred Goodwin on RBS’s most swaggering corporate videos.
For the sake of future inhabitants, let’s hope the control mechanisms don’t malfunction and start spinning their luxury pads around at tremendous speed just like so many plates in a Greek restaurant.
This blog post was first published on 25 June 2008. Read my earlier post on Dubai, The extraordinary hubris, questionable taste and environmental naivete of the al-Maktoums
I am a specialist in Tall buildings, so it matters to be a lot that they should be seen in a good light. This sort of rubbish.. from Fisher who hasnt done a tall building before.. puts the cause of Good Tall buildings years back. The press release about it is full of massive GREENWASH about how it will be wind powered. Anybody with the smallest amount of knowledge of the principles of engineering knows that structures do not behave like this without consuming energy. I even had a student write an essay with a considerable chunk of it tearing this rotating skyscraper idea apart.
If he was to build a 12 storey prototype, i would say good luck to him. Launching into it full size is idiotic, and it will consume so much electrical grid energy that it will cause brownouts. 1. Wind does not penetrate with any usable mechanical force into the space between floors. 1a. Vertically axised wind power is inefficient. 2. There is the concept of ‘reluctance’ or ‘inertia’ which is that the energy required to Commence rotation would be immensely more than that to keep it going. 2a. the speed that people could tolerate is so slow that the inertia would never be overcome – it would be a constant ‘grind’. one could say so much more.
I trust that when the proposal goes to real engineers to work out, Fisher will be told all these elementary concepts. Because it will stop the project in its tracks.
Also… the ruler of Dubai has stated he wants future buildings to be GREEN as well as TALL. If this thing could really generate enough wind power to spin the floors, that power would be better employed on supplying the grid, or powering the aircon.