Dynamic Tower Skyscraper: Every Floor Self-Rotates

[VLSmooth]

Gizmodo: Dynamic Tower Skyscraper: Every Floor Self-Rotates, Powered by Wind and Sun
http://gizmodo.com/5019323/dynamic-towe ... nd-and-sun

Italian architect David Fisher is building his first skyscraper, the Dynamic Tower, and it happens to be one of the most ambitious construction plans since the Pyramid of Khufu. Every floor of the 80-story self-powered building rotates according to voice command, and nearly the entire construction of the $700 million structure is pre-made. I caught up with the architect in New York, and he blew my mind again and again.

Fisher was inspired to design the Dynamic Tower during a visit to a friend's top-floor Midtown Manhattan apartment. "I had a view of the Hudson River and East River at the same time, it was beautiful and I wanted to make that feeling accessible to more people." He loves the idea of seeing the sun rise and set in the same room, and considers the building to be four-dimensional. "Time is always changing the shape of the building," he told me.

The rotation takes up to 3 hours (so you're not always spilling your coffee), and gets power from photovoltaic solar cells and 79 wind turbines, one located between each floor. The system is meant to create enough energy to power to the entire tower and still have juice to spare for some surrounding buildings. According to Fisher, two of these $700 million futuristic scrapers are planned so far, one each in Dubai and Moscow. They will be built using a truly radical technique.

Construction on the Dynamic Tower will be unlike anything that preceded it. The only part of the tower built on site will be the skinny center core. It is strong enough to hold the floors in place, and will contain the building's elevators, which transport people and cars right to their door. Each floor will be made piece by piece in a factory in Italy—a throwback to Fisher's previous life in prefabricated bathroom design—and placed onto the core using a lift system. With this method, each story is completed in about six days. By comparison, traditional ground-up methods can take six weeks per floor.

Groundbreaking for Dynamic Towers in Dubai and Moscow is expected to happen in the fall, with construction reaching completion by the end of 2010. If you're game—and very, very loaded—you can sign up now for a villa or office space. The going rate is $3000/sq foot.

Anyone reminded of Jenga (wiki)?

[George]

Doesn't that mean you have to own the entire floor? Or do you vote with your neighbors which way to point?

[quantus]

Maybe it's by lottery where everyone except the winner splits the winning bid as compensation for the inconvenience. Most people would only bid when they have a party or some special occasion and this could be compensation for the noise generated from the party as well. Of course, if it's free, you could always ask for a rotation time that doesn't divide into 24 evenly like 2.5 or 3.5 hours so eventually everyone will be able to enjoy the view. Some rotation times work better than others though since 3.5 hours has reaches an analogous position after 7 days and 2.5 hours hits an analogous pattern after 5 days. Actually, 3.5 hours seems least equitable, but may actually allow for location/view pricing benefits still since a certain room will have the best view at certain set times every week.

I wonder if constantly rotating 2 degrees a minute might give some people a weird sense of vertigo especially at higher floors where the building will sway some as well.

Would certain configurations of the building will make it more or less stable in a storm. I guess aligning all the floors so that a corner is directly at the wind would minimize the impact of wind which other buildings couldn't do.

I wonder if this type of building would be safer in a disaster setting since you could essentially turn it into a spiral staircase for people to go down rather than be totally dependent on the core hub as the only means of moving from floor to floor.

[quantus]

heh...

The most difficult part of construction is that the entire tower must be first assembled in Italy to make sure it is stable before starting to move it to floor by floor to Dubai. Only one floor may be in transit at a time and when not in transit can a floor can only be stored on the original tower, on the tower in Dubai, or on a third temporary tower. The trick is that you may never store a larger floor on top of a smaller floor. You can move floors back and forth between the three towers as often as you require.

Tower of Hanoi anyone? Obviously not serious since it'd take 2^80 - 1 moves to assemble the tower...

put a daruma statue on top. daruma 80! unbeatable banzuke rules!!!!

excellent idea

[Jonathan]

I wonder if constantly rotating 2 degrees a minute might give some people a weird sense of vertigo especially at higher floors where the building will sway some as well.

Clearly you've never been to a rotating restaurant. They move visibly, but there's less sense of motion when you're walking around than a boat. Even a really big boat.

[quantus]

I didn't say that I'd get vertigo. I've been to a rotating restaurant near Niagra Falls and was perfectly fine. Some people don't like those places though.