Can a Skyscraper Really Change Its Shape?

[lisab]

"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 .

 

[g33kski11z]

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

 

[WarPhalange]

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?

 

[Cyrus]

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.

 

[WarPhalange]

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.

 

[cristo]

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!

 

[Chi Meson]

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.

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

 

[g33kski11z]

..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..??

 

[turbo]

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.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

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.

 

[Kurdt]

David Fisher was described as being Italian by the BBC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7472722.stm

 

[AhmedEzz]

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

 

[edward]

Gees and just think, we helped make them rich.

Hmmm can it dodge airplanes?

 

[turbo]

Hmmm can it dodge airplanes?

Think it can dodge earthquakes and typhoons?

 

[brewnog]

Think it can dodge earthquakes?

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

 

[AhmedEzz]

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.

 

[mgb_phys]

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.

 

[edward]

It appears Dubai is going through a "build it and they will come" stage to try and become a world tourist attraction.

The question is: Will they come? Everything has to be done in a building ,even skiing.

Dubai The World:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eUcRjo9Yv4&feature=related

Other Buildings:

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/03/dubai/index_01.htm

 

[Astronuc]

I wonder if they'll use a Microsoft Windows OS? Vista?

 

[turbo]

I wonder if they'll use a Microsoft Windows OS? Vista?

Maybe they'll fall back on the venerable Allen-Bradley PLCs...

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.

 

[edward]

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

 

[Moonbear]

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).

 

[WarPhalange]

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.

.. 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.

 

[AhmedEzz]

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.

 

[g33kski11z]

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.

...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?}

 

[lisab]

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.

 

[Kurdt]

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.

 

[Chi Meson]

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.

 

[Astronuc]

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.

 

[Moonbear]

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.