Tall Building: Dynamic Tower in Dubai

First, let's talk about how they are going to build this bad boy.  This is a building you've never seen before, and it's going to be made in a way you've never seen before.  The only part of the tower that will be manufactured on site is the massive core that will keep the whole thing standing.  In this core, you'll have your plumbing, electricity and elevator banks. 
Though each of the 80 stories will have a different floor-plan, above is the standard layout with rooms coming off a circular corridor.  (It reminds me of Calatrava's Chicago Spire.)  If the core is the only part of the building made on-site, where is the rest of this coming from?  A factory.  Literally.  This is a pre-fabricated building.  Each one of those chunks you see above that's affixed to the main column will come out of an Italian factory, be put on a truck and delivered to the site where it will be hooked onto the column.  The pieces will be affixed together to complete the story.  Oh, that's another crazy thing about this building, it will be built from the top floor down.  So, the penthouse will be assembled, then it will be hoisted up the core and set in place.  Then the apartment beneath will be built and hoisted.  My lordie.  The construction of this bad boy makes me dizzy.  Radical.  Sassy.  Pre-fab.  I loves it.

Fisher wasn't stopping there.  No, sir/madame.  In an attempt to make this building totally unique(r), the dynamic tower will be powered by renewable energy: solar and wind.  Not only will be it be energy independent, Fisher claims it will produce ten times more energy than it uses.  That kind of seems impossible since each of those floors will be rotating and what not, in addition to the actual energy they'll be using in those apartments... but what do I know?  Well, I know how this energy is going to be made.  The building will have solar panels along it to make the juice, but, more importantly, there will be a wind generator snuggled between each floor.  That's right... 79 wind turbines in this bad boy, each constantly spinning and making juice.  That is total HAWT action [hot ak-shuhn]..   Because of this radical building technique, it takes merely 6 days to complete a floor.  (Traditional buildings can take up to 6 weeks per floor!)

Another advantage to this construction technique is that it requires far fewer workers.  Fisher's anticipating 600 factory employees making the sections and 80 technicians on the construction site putting the puzzle together.  Other projects this size tend to have around 2,000 workers on site. 

Let's not forget the overall mind scramble, here, either: the rotation of each floor independently.  The building will constantly be changing shape.  A full rotation will take about 3 hours, which is actually faster than I expected.  The architect, Fisher, was glowing about this aspect of the building (as he should, because it's quite insane) saying that he was hoping to be in a room to watch both a sunset and a sunrise.  Me, too, please.  The lower floors will rotate automatically, and the top floors will rotate manually, at the tenants discretion.  It will respond to voice commands.  Yes.... voice commands.  I can't wait to see a coupe arguing about how, exactly, their apartment should rotate, screaming out commands.  The building will just break dance trying to keep up with their conflicting orders.  Do I see a sitcom?  Anyone?

Another crazy thing Fisher has planned for this building is that the elevators will not only take up people, groceries and bags of money, but it will also take up cars.  Yes, in a desert city that seems to have unlimited space to build towers or park cars, you actually take your vehicles with you in this one.  They will be parked right in the apartment with you.  (You can see a couple of cars on the floor plan above.)  Honestly?  I think every child should be able to learn to drive in a rotating 79th floor of a Dubai building.  No child left behind.

How about the basic stats on the Dynamic Tower?  Well, construction is expected to start at the end of this year, and it's expected to be up and running by 2010 after a measly $700 million.  (Seriously, that's not a lot at all.)  The bottom 20 floors will be office space, floors 21-35 will be a luxury hotel, 36-70 will be residential apartments and the top ten will be luxury villas (can I have one, please?).  The 80 floors will rise up 1,380 feet (420 meters) and the square footage of the nits will range from 1,330 square feet (124 square meters) to the villas that will sit at 12,900 square feet (1,200 square meters).

Real estate is being sold right now, so get in line, eh?  Be ready to fork over about $3,000 per square foot.  Want more info?  Here's a little video about the building:


Oh, and one more thing.  I've been talking about Dubai, but one of these bad boys is also going up in Moscow.  The designer anticipates Dynamic Towers will be shooting up all over the place, to be honest.  Next stop he dreams of?  NYC.  BRING IT ON, BABY.

This building is total HAWT action [hot ak-shuhn].