Dubai 'shape-shifting skyscraper' unveiled
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I posted something about this a couple of days ago in the Whad'Ya Know...?? thread... 
Csaba - in the thread I posted, I linked to the site, where you can see videos and more...
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Thanks, downloading the video (it didn't start streaming for me)
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I had coffee yesterday with one of the project engineers. Fascinating technologies involved from many countries.
Some interesting tidbits, the floors can rotate independantly either clockwise or counterclockwise from the floor above and below. The building is self-sustaining, making its own energy by tapping into the energy created by the rotation. They are ready to build the first one but it will be in Moscow, not Dubai. There's also one planned for New York.
As fascinating as it will be from inside, imagine what it would do to the skyline?
Amazing stuff,
Allen
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@allen weitzman said:
The building is self-sustaining, making its own energy by tapping into the energy created by the rotation.
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@johnsenior1973 said:
@allen weitzman said:
The building is self-sustaining, making its own energy by tapping into the energy created by the rotation.
I strongly suspect that is an example of "green-wash."
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Lewis, even so the ideas there, and im sure it'll be far more efficient than current buildings.
On a lighter note, they must have some pretty funky elevators in there.
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@remus said:
Lewis, even so the ideas there, and im sure it'll be far more efficient than current buildings..
It ismy profession, remus. I do have a certain sense for these things by this point.
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Do you not think it will be any more efficient than current buildings then?
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Good points lewis, and i now think you are right. Although i still admire the fact that they are trying to improve on what is currently available.
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My "professional" opinion? I think that given the additional complexity of constructing a multi-story highrise with many rotating parts--along with the additional resources involved in manufacturing, assembling, and maintaining the structure (think about it:giant, rotating, precision-machined metal elements...at the edge of a desert full of abrasive dust and in a corrosive environment, otherwise know as a coastal region)--that this building will consume so much additional energy and raw material that it will never in its usable lifespan "break even" or even come close in a "green sense." (We're making a common, if commonly unconscious, assumption here that "being green" is a zero-sum game played with resources and their consumption.)
Not that it won't be cool to look at, of course. I'm all for cool and visionary, I just think one shouldn't pretend that this sort of gratuitous engineering and construction elaboration will have anything more than an aesthetic value. There's some good reason to believe that no high-rise construction can be "green" in the sense that it is not exorbitantly (and perhaps, immorally--given the resource-deprived nature of three-quarters of the population of the planet) resource- and energy-consumptive.
But if we just drop the "green" business and truthfully declare that this is a giant wind-powered kinetic sculpture that people (if very, very wealthy ones) can live in...well, that's great. It might be more than great. It will be a wonder of art(which seemingly cannot be quantified in the zero-sum green game), and I'm just bitterly jealous that I'll never get to design or work on anything that interesting in my likely professional life.
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