A jaw-dropping new building will put a whole new spin on architectural engineering.

Italian architect David Fisher has come up with one of the coolest building designs ever: the world’s first skyscraper in motion. And once it’s built, it will also be an iconic testament to the art of civil engineering.

Planned for Dubai, Fisher’s $700 million Dynamic Tower luxury apartment building will consist of 80 floors, each constantly rotating 360 degrees at different speeds, independently of one another. For residents, it’ll mean ever changing views. But it’ll also result in a building whose exterior silhouette will always be shifting, never looking the same way twice.

For civil engineers, figuring out how to piece together a building that’s always on the move is a challenge. The hardest thing for its engineers will be constructing a foundation that can handle constantly shifting loads, says Robert Hodgson, a civil engineering teaching fellow at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom. “They’ll have to design a foundation capable of withstanding all possibilities.” That’s a tall order, he adds,  “but there’s no reason that it can’t be done.”

Fisher stresses that this will be a very green building. But isn’t keeping 80 high-rise floors constantly rotating a waste of energy? Not in this case. All of its electricity will come from 79 wind turbines nestled between the stories. Solar panels on the roof of each floor will generate additional power. And besides, Fisher says, very little energy is actually needed to keep a floor spinning around like a CD — no more than what a washing machine requires.

The skyscraper’s other claim to fame: It will be the world’s first prefabricated high-rise. Each floor will consist of sections — built in a factory in Italy — that are pieced together on-site.  Hodgson says it’s smart engineering to divide each floor into sections, or modules, because it would be impossible to prefabricate and then lift entire floors to such heights. Moreover, the construction method means that each unit can be customized at the factory well in advance. The modules will arrive at the site with all necessary plumbing, electrical wiring, fixtures, and even furniture already in place.

Fisher says it’s such an efficient construction method that an entire floor can be completed in just seven days.  Quick construction not only saves energy, he says, but greatly reduces fumes, waste, noise, and other pollution at the building site.

Fisher’s Dynamic Tower is definitely aimed at the wealthy. Apartment prices will range from $3.7 million to $36 million. But Fisher says civil engineers can adapt his module-based, prefab construction pro-
cess to many other lower-cost projects, too — even if they don’t spin.

Watch a video about the rotating skyscraper here:

Filed under: Architectural, Civil, Environmental

Tags: Architectural, Civil, Green Technology, Technology