Can a Skyscraper Really Change Its Shape?

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A proposed skyscraper in Dubai is designed to change shape, with each floor capable of rotating independently, powered by wind turbines. The project, led by architect David Fisher, aims to create a unique tourist attraction, despite skepticism about its feasibility and Fisher's lack of skyscraper experience. Critics highlight the poor working conditions for construction workers in Dubai, drawing attention to the ethical implications of such ambitious projects. The discussion also touches on the perceived technological gap between the US and other countries, particularly in architecture and innovation. Overall, the skyscraper represents Dubai's extravagant ambitions and desire to attract global attention.
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"Shape-Shifting" Skyscraper Plan

Architects have revealed a plan to build a skyscraper in Dubai that changes shape:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/25/duibai.tower/index.html

Each floor would be capable of rotating independently, powered by wind turbines fitted between each floor.

In the article there's a link to an animation of the building twisting around. Wow!

Apartments are a bargain - from $4 million to $40 million :eek: .
 
Physics news on Phys.org


That's pretty bad@ss... Why aren't we doing stuff like this??
 


Dubai is like that spoiled rich kid in High School who gets stuff for free because of rich parents and thinks that makes him superior.

Is there anything in Dubai besides oil?
 


WarPhalange said:
Dubai is like that spoiled rich kid in High School who gets stuff for free because of rich parents and thinks that makes him superior.

Is there anything in Dubai besides oil?

Actually...there is depleating oil in Dubai. Hence why they are a huge market for port and trades.
 
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g33kski11z said:
That's pretty bad@ss... Why aren't we doing stuff like this??

Because despite what people would have you believe, the US is pretty far behind when it comes to technology. Europe gets better medicine faster, Japan is ahead in electronics. Everybody has better cars.

When camera cell phones came out here in the US, Japan already had the ones where you can make movies for years.
 


WarPhalange said:
Because despite what people would have you believe, the US is pretty far behind when it comes to technology.

Indeed. One thing that comes to mind is SMS: you guys were way behind even us Europeans on that!
 


g33kski11z said:
That's pretty bad@ss... Why aren't we doing stuff like this??

WarPhalange said:
Because despite what people would have you believe, the US is pretty far behind when it comes to technology. Europe gets better medicine faster, Japan is ahead in electronics. Everybody has better cars.

I guess neither of you noticed that the building was designed by New York Architect David Fisher's company, Dynamic Group.
 


WarPhalange said:
..the US is pretty far behind when it comes to technology...
.. is that manufacturing the technology, or developing it? Don't we {the US} export most of our ideas anyway..??
 


Fisher said that plans to build a second rotating skyscraper in Moscow were at an advanced stage and that the group intended to build a third tower in New York. He said developers and public officials in Canada, Europe and South Korea had also expressed interest in the project.

But some have expressed skepticism. Fisher has never built a skyscraper before. He says he has teamed up with reputed architects and engineers in the United Kingdom and India.

I wonder how "real" this project is.
 
  • #10


Saw this on FOX too. The CGI version looks incredible. Dubai is crazy so I don't have any reason to believe this isn't in the works.
 
  • #12


The guys in Dubai are crazy. What a way to spend money.
 
  • #13


Gees and just think, we helped make them rich.

Hmmm can it dodge airplanes?
 
  • #14


edward said:
Hmmm can it dodge airplanes?
Think it can dodge earthquakes and typhoons?
 
  • #15


turbo-1 said:
Think it can dodge earthquakes?

Not sure there's a great earthquake risk in Dubai...
 
  • #16


why not build houses for the imported workers? why not spend money on science & research? but no they go and spend it on silly things like this.
 
  • #17


AhmedEzz said:
but no they go and spend it on silly things like this.
They aren't spending money - they are making money.
They intend to sell the apartments for $LARGE = significantly more than $COST.
 
  • #19


I wonder if they'll use a Microsoft Windows OS? Vista? :biggrin:
 
  • #20


Astronuc said:
I wonder if they'll use a Microsoft Windows OS? Vista? :biggrin:
Maybe they'll fall back on the venerable Allen-Bradley PLCs... :rolleyes:

We had those on our paper machine, and they were kept in a room called the "white room". Every time an electrician/engineer/logic-programmer got paged to the "white room" a certain song rolled through my head, sometimes staying for the rest of the shift unless I could listen to some other music to reprogram the lizard part of my brain.
 
  • #21


I had heard a bit about how Dubai treats their workers, any other country would probably have sanctions of some kind.

But amid the high living, some foreign diplomats warn there is an often unseen dark side to Dubai. They say the city's economic miracle would not be possible without armies of poorly paid construction workers from the Indian subcontinent, most of whom are forced to give up their passports upon arrival in the U.A.E. Some workers say they haven't been home in years and that their salary has been withheld to pay back loans.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5250718
 
  • #22


Wasn't this in the news a year ago or so? I'll say the same thing now as I did then...I have enough trouble finding my way back from the bathroom to the table in one of those revolving restaurants; I don't think I'd want to attempt finding my way from the elevator to my apartment after a night out drinking in a revolving apartment building...and REALLY don't think I want my apartment revolving that night or the next morning.

Regarding what edward posted, I don't know about the working conditions in Dubai, but since we have faculty traveling to Oman annually to help teach at the med school we've helped them set up over there, I have heard about such things from people returning from there. The Indians do much of the work, and give up their passports to get the jobs, so can't leave. Only native-born Omanis can be landowners, so it really is quite like slavery or indentured servitude. It's amazing such conditions can still exist in today's world. Dubai is very close to the border of Oman, so working conditions may be very similar (otherwise, I can't understand why the Indian workers wouldn't choose the one that doesn't enslave them over the other).
 
  • #23


Chi Meson said:
I guess neither of you noticed that the building was designed by New York Architect David Fisher's company, Dynamic Group.

Right, so if I go to Japan and create a robot, I can claim that the US has robots? Sorry, that's not how it works. We have the smarts, sure, but we don't get to use them.

g33kski11z said:
.. is that manufacturing the technology, or developing it?

*Using* it. The American public doesn't see it until every other country throws it away in favor of something else.
 
  • #24


Moonbear said:
Regarding what edward posted, I don't know about the working conditions in Dubai, but since we have faculty traveling to Oman annually to help teach at the med school we've helped them set up over there, I have heard about such things from people returning from there. The Indians do much of the work, and give up their passports to get the jobs, so can't leave. Only native-born Omanis can be landowners, so it really is quite like slavery or indentured servitude. It's amazing such conditions can still exist in today's world. Dubai is very close to the border of Oman, so working conditions may be very similar (otherwise, I can't understand why the Indian workers wouldn't choose the one that doesn't enslave them over the other).

Yes, this is kinda what's happening there, the low class labor (mostly workers who work on the buildings) have poor working conditions. I did see the UAE government in 2007 saying that they will improve their working conditions. I don't know what has been since then. However, other workers are fine, I have friends working there and they love it.
 
  • #25


edward said:
It appears Dubai is going through a "build it and they will come" stage to try and become a world tourist attraction.
I didn't look at your links but I remember seeing a documentary on the building of Palm Island & the world. They sure can pick an architect.
WarPhalange said:
...The American public doesn't see it until every other country throws it away in favor of something else...
That's an overstatement. Granted, Japan usually got the X-box before we did. {or was that the ps3?}
 
  • #26


g33kski11z said:
I didn't look at your links but I remember seeing a documentary on the building of Palm Island & the world. They sure can pick an architect.

Aren't those islands something else? I guess they have no environmental regulations...want to make an island? No problem - go ahead!

I suppose being "over the top" is a lot easier when cost is no object.
 
  • #27
Moonbear said:
Wasn't this in the news a year ago or so? I'll say the same thing now as I did then...I have enough trouble finding my way back from the bathroom to the table in one of those revolving restaurants; I don't think I'd want to attempt finding my way from the elevator to my apartment after a night out drinking in a revolving apartment building...and REALLY don't think I want my apartment revolving that night or the next morning.

Perhaps the apartments would revolve in the opposite way to which your head is spinning, thus canceling the effect.
 
  • #28


WarPhalange said:
Right, so if I go to Japan and create a robot, I can claim that the US has robots? Sorry, that's not how it works. We have the smarts, sure, but we don't get to use them.

If I design a building, and build it in Dubai, then I can say that Americans can design a building. That is how it works. Fisher didn't take his design to Dubai because "Dubai has the technology to build it and America doesn't." Some guy in Dubai has the cash, that's all.

Technology is the "smarts" as well as the machinery. I'm not flag-waving here saying "we're number one" or anything stupid like that. Especially considering that many nationalities are probably represented in the designing phase of every technological advancement. But I think it is incorrect to say that the US is far behind in "technology." That's too broad a statement to be true. Understanding what can be done with current materials and methods is what lead to the breakthrough design of this building. If American technology was so far behind the rest of the world, then this building could not have been designed because the materials could not have been understood.
 
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  • #29


Moonbear said:
Wasn't this in the news a year ago or so? I'll say the same thing now as I did then...I have enough trouble finding my way back from the bathroom to the table in one of those revolving restaurants; I don't think I'd want to attempt finding my way from the elevator to my apartment after a night out drinking in a revolving apartment building...and REALLY don't think I want my apartment revolving that night or the next morning.
The rotation is quite slow, but certainly the orientation from one's front door to the elevator would change.

The Hyatt Regency hotel in Houston had a rotating restaurant and lounge, and it was interesting to sit at the window. I really didn't notice the movement - it was very slow - but over time I'd realize I was looking at a different view.
 
  • #30


Actually, as I think about it more, how exactly would this work for individual apartments? In the revolving restaurants, things that can't be moving all the time, like elevators and bathrooms (fixed plumbing) are all located in the central section that doesn't revolve. If the apartments are moving, how will they do the plumbing in them? Do you not get a kitchen sink or shower or toilets in your own apartment? At the advertised pricetag, I don't think you're going to have the sort of customers who want to use a shared kitchen and bathroom.

This sounds like one of those plans where the architect designs it, and then the engineers and construction workers look at the plans and scratch their heads about what the architect was smoking when designing it and not taking into account how it would actually work.
 
  • #31


Astronuc said:
The rotation is quite slow, but certainly the orientation from one's front door to the elevator would change.

The Hyatt Regency hotel in Houston had a rotating restaurant and lounge, and it was interesting to sit at the window. I really didn't notice the movement - it was very slow - but over time I'd realize I was looking at a different view.


This looks like a really fun idea but yes, a bit like a revolting restaurant!
 
  • #32


lisab said:
Aren't those islands something else? I guess they have no environmental regulations...want to make an island? No problem - go ahead!

I suppose being "over the top" is a lot easier when cost is no object.
Not a lot of environmental regs in a desert.

BTW, there's been a lot of complaints about Palm Island and The World. Turns out, the reality doesn't quite live up to the brochure.
 
  • #33


I'm not certain how I'd feel about not knowing my general orientation in space when I woke in the morning. I wonder how uncomfortable it would be to wake every morning, look out the window and not be sure of what was going to greet you. I suppose, like anything else, you'd get accustomed to it, eventually.

It's interesting architecture. It strikes me almost as a "we're going to do it simply because we can" project and not something that will take off wholesale. Watch me be totally wrong about that, too.
 
  • #34


GeorginaS said:
I'm not certain how I'd feel about not knowing my general orientation in space when I woke in the morning. I wonder how uncomfortable it would be to wake every morning, look out the window and not be sure of what was going to greet you.
I doubt that superstars who buy $40 million summer getaway homes in the Middle East feel the need for a warm & fuzzy static view out their front window. :rolleyes:
 
  • #35


who do you think these "superstars" are? Hollywood superstars?
 
  • #37


I read in the article that the floors will be turned by wind turbines that are between each floor. Wouldn't it be great is such wind turbines were put to useful work instead? Reather than a huge turbine on the roof, dozens of smaller turbines adding to the generation of electricity close to the points of use. That's something worth pursuing.
 
  • #38


Chi Meson said:
I read in the article that the floors will be turned by wind turbines that are between each floor. Wouldn't it be great is such wind turbines were put to useful work instead? Reather than a huge turbine on the roof, dozens of smaller turbines adding to the generation of electricity close to the points of use. That's something worth pursuing.

The early versions I read about said those turbines would also provide power for the residents, not just turning the building. I think that may be the most useful long-term aspect of this project, if it really happens. If people can see first hand that this huge, moving building has its own wind-generated power supply, perhaps incorporating that into future, less "showy" buildings would be an easier sell. This one seems more like the billboard for advertising the "green" technology.
 
  • #39


With all the spinning turbines and rotating floors, I wonder if there will be issues with noise and/or vibration.

I've been in a rotating restaurant that had a somewhat disconcerting bounce-vibration in the floor. When I'm 20 stories off the ground, I like having the feel of terra firma under my feet!
 
  • #40


lisab said:
When I'm 20 stories off the ground, I like having the feel of terra firma under my feet!
In these buildings the floor is usually cantilevered off the central core anyway so no real difference. Assuming there is an elevator shaft the central core is not going to be rotating
The fun bit is going to be hooking up services, especially water and sewage, if the floor doesn't rotate at the centre.
 
  • #41


I would imagine the buyers of apartments that face Mecca at call to prayer 6 times per day will have to pay a big premium.:devil:
 
  • #42


Chi Meson said:
If I design a building, and build it in Dubai, then I can say that Americans can design a building. That is how it works. Fisher didn't take his design to Dubai because "Dubai has the technology to build it and America doesn't." Some guy in Dubai has the cash, that's all.

Technology is the "smarts" as well as the machinery. I'm not flag-waving here saying "we're number one" or anything stupid like that. Especially considering that many nationalities are probably represented in the designing phase of every technological advancement. But I think it is incorrect to say that the US is far behind in "technology." That's too broad a statement to be true. Understanding what can be done with current materials and methods is what lead to the breakthrough design of this building. If American technology was so far behind the rest of the world, then this building could not have been designed because the materials could not have been understood.

This really isn't too hard. Japan has electronics that we don't = we are behind Japan. I don't care if the Military has them or that we can build them. That doesn't matter in the slightest. The public doesn't see it therefore we don't have it.

Just like if I were to give you some food, but instead put it in the fridge and lock it shut. Do you have the food? No, because you can't eat it. It's just there and that's pointless.


"We could but we just don't want to." isn't an excuse.
 
  • #43


mgb_phys said:
The fun bit is going to be hooking up services, especially water and sewage, if the floor doesn't rotate at the centre.

I was just thinking about how they do that. Electrical connections would be "simple" but what about those fluid and "effluent" pipes? One thought is that each floor has its own clean water cistern and waste/grey water holder. At one point on the circular route there might be valves that refill or release the specific fluids.

Interesting problem.
 
  • #44


WarPhalange said:
Japan has electronics that we don't = we are behind Japan.

That statement I can agree with. Your original statement, I still do not.
 
  • #45


That is my original statement.
 
  • #46


Chi Meson said:
I read in the article that the floors will be turned by wind turbines that are between each floor. Wouldn't it be great is such wind turbines were put to useful work instead? Reather than a huge turbine on the roof, dozens of smaller turbines adding to the generation of electricity close to the points of use. That's something worth pursuing.

Wouldn't the sound of these wind turbines be deafening?

And what about the sound of the motors etc which rotate the parts of the building?
 
  • #47


DaveC426913 said:
I doubt that superstars who buy $40 million summer getaway homes in the Middle East feel the need for a warm & fuzzy static view out their front window. :rolleyes:

Well, I suppose I'm not a "superstar" because I enjoy feeling properly oriented. It's got nothing to do with warmth and/or fuzziness, either. It's got to do with having traveled constantly for a decade of my life and it taking me a very long time of sleeping in different hotel rooms to adjust to the concept of not knowing where I am. I swore they should make hotel rooms standardised so I'd always know which direction the bathroom was when I woke at 3:00 a.m.

I don't enjoy feeling disoriented. Maybe if I were a "superstar" I wouldn't have that issue.:wink:
 
  • #48


WarPhalange said:
That is my original statement.

Japan has an advanced infrastructure and market for electronic gadgets. But electronics and Japan have nothing to do with this building that is planned to be built in Dubai, nor why it is not first being built in the US. I also don't agree that the statement "Japan has better cell phones and better cars" (although quite true) equates with "US is pretty far behind" [everyone else?] in technology. I have a broader interpretation of that word than you.

So I think we can see each other's point of view; let's get out of the way of the OP.
 
  • #49


Why is everyone so bothered that its not being built in the US first?
 
  • #50


Kurdt said:
Why is everyone so bothered that its not being built in the US first?

Personally, I'm not. This design is currently planned to be built second in Moscow, then third in the US. By that time they'll have worked out the bugs, and the costs will be less. We'll also know if the damn thing doesn't work by then. This building is radically new in design and building methods. Who wants to keep the first one of anything like that?

US architecture and structural engineering is responsible for many of the signature buildings around the world. This is a much better way for the world to see us.
 

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