Build It and They Will Come

Fact or science fiction? Can it be both?

Well, an Italian architect said he wants to find out. And, we shouldn’t have long to wait to see whether it will happen or not. The architect is ready (or so he says) to start construction on a new skyscraper in Dubai that will be “the world’s first building in motion,” an 80-story tower with revolving floors that give it an ever-shifting shape.

The spinning floors, hung like rings around an immobile cement core, would offer residents a constantly changing view of the Persian Gulf and the city’s futuristic skyline. A few penthouse villas would spin on command using a voice-activated computer. The motion of the rest of the building would be choreographed in patterns that could be altered over time.

Speaking recently at a news conference in New York City, the building’s designer, David Fisher, said that his tower will revolutionize the way skyscrapers are made.

Fisher acknowledged that he is not well known, has never built a skyscraper before and hasn’t practiced architecture regularly in decades. But he insisted his lack of experience wouldn’t stop him from completing the project, which has attracted top design talent, including Leslie E. Robertson, the structural engineer for the World Trade Center and the Shanghai World Financial Center.

Twisting floors are just one of several futuristic features in the building, the first of several Fisher hopes to build with a similar design. Giant wind turbines installed between every floor, he said, will generate enough electricity to power the entire building, and lifts will allow penthouse residents to park their cars in their apartments.

Fisher said each floor will be prefabricated in an Italian factory, then shipped to the site to be attached to the core. Assembling a building in this fashion, he said, will require only 80 technicians and take only 20 months, saving tens of millions of dollars, for a total cost of $700 million to build.

On its face, the project seems to pose a number of complicated engineering puzzles.
How would the plumbing hookups work in an apartment that is constantly moving? Fisher said the pipes will connect to the core via attachments similar to the ones used by military aircraft for in-flight refueling.

Wouldn’t people get dizzy? No, says Fisher. The rotations will be slow enough that no one will notice.

With so many moving parts, wouldn’t the building be a maintenance nightmare? Fisher said the building’s modular construction will allow easy access to parts that need to be replaced.

Fisher declined to say exactly where in Dubai the tower will be built or when site work might begin. He insisted, however, that factory production is set to start within weeks and that the tower, which will contain office space, a luxury hotel and apartments, will be complete by 2010. Sales of individual apartments will begin in September, with asking prices of around $3,000 per square foot. The smallest, at 1,330 square feet, would cost about $4 million and the largest, a 12,900-square-foot villa, $38.7 million.

Skeptics question Fisher’s credentials to pull off the job. In a biography he had been distributing for months, he said he graduated from the University of Florence in 1976, came to New York in the mid-1980s and later developed hotels and ran a company that specialized in stone and prefabricated construction materials. The biography also said he received an honorary doctorate from “The Prodeo Institute at Columbia University in New York.” No such institution exists, however, and Columbia said it had never awarded Fisher an honorary degree. Asked to explain the discrepancy, Fisher said, through his New York publicists, that he had been awarded the degree by the Catholic University of Rome during a ceremony in 1994 held at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, which is near Columbia’s campus.

Here are some general observations:

1) This man has never built skyscrapers but is planning a $700 million dollar, 80-story project? Wouldn’t you think it would be wise to start with a 5-story building, or maybe a 10-story building to make sure it would work?
2) Have the people of Dubai lost their mind? Or are their skulls simply filled with so much oil money that they can’t see straight?
3) How long will it be before Michael Jackson buys one of the suites?
4) If you could park your car in your apartment, would you do it?
5) I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my house going in circles! If I wanted my house to move, I’d move to California’s earthquake zone or closer to the Mississippi River!
6) If you can sucker enough people, I mean build enough support, you can build just about anything you want to build!
7) I will not be one of the original investors or purchase one of the apartments later. On my salary, I can’t even afford to travel to Dubai.

So, if money were no object, would you buy into this project? What interests you about it? Or what turns you off about it? Share your thoughts today.