Dubai Puts a New Spin on Skyscrapers - Graphic Design Forum and Web Design Forum

Toon · #1 (**permalink**) 20-05-2007, 11:20 AM

Dubai Puts a New Spin on Skyscrapers

Planned 68-Story Rotating Tower

In skyscraper-crazy Dubai, tall isn't enough. In a design to be unveiled today in the oil-rich emirate, David Fisher, an Italian-Israeli architect, has dreamed up a 68-story combination hotel, apartment and office tower where the floors would rotate 360 degrees. Each floor would rotate independently, creating a constantly changing architectural form.
Each story of the tower would be shaped like a doughnut and be attached to a center core housing elevators, emergency stairs and other utilities. Wind turbines placed in gaps between the doughnuts would generate electricity.
The doughnuts won't rotate fast enough to give guests upset stomachs. A single rotation would take around 90 minutes. "It's quite slow," says Mr. Fisher.

Mr. Fisher's isn't the first plan for a rotating tower in Dubai. Last year, a local developer showed off plans for a 30-story 200-unit condominium tower that would rotate one revolution per day. Solar panels would drive the rotation mechanism.
It is hard to say whether the plans are simply rotating pies in the sky -- or projects that will actually be erected. But given what has been built in Dubai already, anything seems possible so long as oil prices remain high.
Dubai has become a playpen for architects, where the deep pockets of oil-rich developers drive some of the most eccentric building projects in the world. There is an artificial archipelago shaped like a map of the world and an underwater luxury hotel. There is also an indoor ski slope, a sail-shaped hotel and a fake chain of islands in the form of a palm frond dotted with homes.