Dubai tower twists and turns with solar and wind power

An 80-story build­ing in Dubai will fea­ture floors that spin around the building’s cen­tral axis, using elec­tric motors pow­ered by wind and solar energy.

Occu­pants can con­trol their floor through a voice com­mand sys­tem, although this demon­stra­tion video implies that the rota­tion will be cen­trally controlled. I would have used the Clap­per, myself.

The build­ing looks like it is doing a hula, although in real life, the floors would move very slowly.

I can only won­der what the Out­door Cir­cle might say if a sim­i­lar build­ing were pro­posed on Oahu. Sim­i­lar tow­ers have been pro­posed for Moscow and Man­hat­tan. The Dubai project is sched­uled for com­ple­tion in 2010.

There’s more infor­ma­tion at archi­tect David Fisher’s web site, this CNN arti­cle titled Dubai ‘shape-shifting sky­scraper’ unveiled and in Dynamic Tower Sky­scraper: Every Floor Self-Rotates, Pow­ered by Wind and Sun at Gizmodo.

Tagged as: architecture, building, Dubai, Honolulu, Oahu, safety, solar, voice, wind