Engineering Topic #7: The Dynamic Tower

I saw this on bbc.co.uk earlier in the week and meant to do something with it, so...

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Dubai plans 'moving' skyscraper

The world's first moving building, an 80-storey tower with revolving floors giving a shifting shape, will be built in Dubai, its architect says.

The Dynamic Tower design is made up of 80 pre-fabricated apartments which will spin independently of one another.

"It's the first building that rotates, moves, and changes shape," said architect David Fisher, who is Italian, at a news conference in New York.

"This building never looks the same, not once in a lifetime," he added.

The 420-metre (1,378-foot) building's apartments would spin a full 360 degrees, at voice command, around a central column by means of 79 giant power-generating wind turbines located between each floor.

The slender building would be energy self-sufficient as the turbines would produce enough electricity to power the entire building and even feed extra power back into the grid, said the Italian architect at the unveiling of the project in New York.

The apartments, which will take between one and three hours to make a complete rotation, will cost from $3.7m to $36m.

There are also plans to build a similar, 70-storey skyscraper in Moscow.

"I call these buildings designed by time, shaped by life," said the Florence-based architect, who has never built a sky-scraper before.

"These buildings will open our vision all around, to a new life."

The skyscraper will cost an estimated $700m to build and should be up and running in Dubai in 2010.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7472722.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKg1BPXNzzk
http://www.dynamicarchitecture.net/home.html

Sherifu

Looks cool. Would it be fair to say it's harder to solve that a Rubik's cube?

godtabh

How do the lifts or fire escape work?

If its always on the move and it can take some time for a full revolution seems a total fire hazard

Sherifu

kearnsr wrote: »

How do the lifts or fire escape work?

If its always on the move and it can take some time for a full revolution seems a total fire hazard

"The 420-metre (1,378-foot) building's apartments would spin a full 360 degrees, at voice command, around a central column"

The lifts and stairs are inside this column on the drawing above.

Yeah they remain in the centre at all time.

The 'voice command' bit has me intrigued. If your neighbour is having a party, does this mean you can just move your apartment away from his?

staker

i think it looks a bit trashy tbh. like the revolving idea but a more uniform structure (circular)would look better....

godtabh

Sherifu wrote: »

"The 420-metre (1,378-foot) building's apartments would spin a full 360 degrees, at voice command, around a central column"

The lifts and stairs are inside this column on the drawing above.

The apartments, which will take between one and three hours to make a complete rotation, will cost from $3.7m to $36m.

Maybe I'm missing something?

Tails142

Why are there pictures of cars in the cross section, are you supposed to be able to drive up to the 80th floor or bring your car up in a lift?

I'd imagine that the large grey box with the car is a car lift.

Sherifu

kearnsr wrote: »

Maybe I'm missing something?

What do you mean?

godtabh

Sherifu wrote: »

What do you mean?

If it takes 3 hours for the thing to rotate what happens if you want to escape in the event of a fire or an emergeny?

I'm just wondering how the lift and rotation works

Sherifu

kearnsr wrote: »

If it takes 3 hours for the thing to rotate what happens if you want to escape in the event of a fire or an emergeny?

I'm just wondering how the lift and rotation works

Ah, it seems the area between the rooms and center column, like a round hallway stays in place.

That's my understanding of the plan in the OP.

Pure Cork

I'd love to test a model of that tower in a wind tunnel. I wonder how much it'll cost to maintain the building and turbines.

sebastianlieken

put in a wind-tunnel? why There wouldn't be any more drag on that building than a standardly shaped and equally sized building, in fact, the drag would be less, and would be more stable. Take for example the dimpled golf-ball analogy, less drag on a dimpled golfball because it's surface is rough, therefore you get a laminar flow over the ball, and therefore you would get a laminar flow around the building.

also, I'm pretty sure that its JUST the cenrtral column, (until the grey circle) that remains stationary, from the hallway outwards rotates.

The only bugger would be always having to find the correct of the four doors into the central column to leave. Your orientation would constantly be changing, youd constantly have to search where the stairs leading down are going...

IM sure the correct stairs would light up in a fire situation so you can find it promptly.

It is a fantastic idea though, although; the last shape of the building looks like it belongs in a shanty town

Pure Cork

I'd still like to see how the air moves around the building in different orientations/configurations...

Dirty_Diesel

I wonder how services are going to be fed from the central to outer parts of the apartment? I doubt it could revolve constantly, but 360° clockwise then 360° anti-clockwise.

Silenceisbliss

i wonder if its noisy at night time

devinejay

Very interesting and the problems raised by the innovative concept (specifically their real world solutions) would be interesting again!

Services are key, how will they transfer electricity, water and waste across the interface of the static and rotating parts of a given apartment?

What kind of gaps will there be between floors t allow enough wind through to power the thing, and how inefficient would it be when there is no wind and the rotation has to be subsidized by the grid.

Also who decides the degree of rotation? If it's up to the apartment owners then it will almost always be in the "shanty town" configuration. Once the apartments are occupied will we ever see it in it's more fluid and aesthetic forms?

Finally maintenance of such a complex system is a huge concern, so much untested technology that people have to live in!

Still though, awesome!!!