Dubai’s Twirling Tower

While the archi­tec­tural play­ground that is Dubai isn’t run­ning low on inno­v­a­tive build­ings, David Fisher is hop­ing to add yet another sky­scraper to the mix with his self-sufficient and energy gen­er­at­ing Twirling Tower. The 68-story “com­bi­na­tion hotel, apart­ment, and office” would sport floors that each rotate 360-degrees in the span of about 90 min­utes, cre­at­ing a “con­stantly chang­ing archi­tec­tural form.” His claims begin to elicit sus­pi­cion, how­ever, when a pro­mo­tional video for the build­ing claims that it can snag enough wind to not only power the build­ing itself, but to ener­gize ten other sim­i­lar build­ings just like it. Of course, we aren’t tak­ing that too seri­ously con­sid­er­ing that he actu­ally men­tions that sup­ply­ing elec­tric­ity to the floors would be “sim­i­lar to how a mov­ing train cap­tures power by stay­ing in con­stant con­tact with a power source, like an over­heard wire or third rail.” Nev­er­the­less, Mr. Fisher sure seems deter­mined to get this thing up in the sky, but as with most big dreams in Dubai, mov­ing beyond the draw­ing board is where things get tough.

Here are some other Dubai projects that I’ve mentioned.

Inhab­i­tat via Engad­get