Oh, for God's sake.
What I want to know is whether this lunatic told the gentlepersons of the
press that the building would have a "cement core" or whether the GOTP took it
upon themselves to describe to core as "cement."
BTW, there was a hotel built in the mid 70's in downtown Phoenix that had
(and may still have) a slowly-rotating restaurant on top of a highrise
building, but I would imagine the plumbing and other services were all located in the
core, which was no doubt either steel or concrete--but certainly not cement.
Ralph
In a message dated 6/25/2008 2:51:40 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Skyscraper With Spinning Floors Planned
By DAVID B. CARUSO,AP
Posted: 2008-06-25 10:11:04
Filed Under: World News
NEW YORK (June 25) - An Italian architect said he is poised 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 Building in Constant MotionDynamic Architecture, APAn artist's rendering
shows the rotating skyscraper that architect David Fisher plans to build in
Dubai. The $700 million building is to consist of 80 floors that will rotate
slowly around a cement core independently of one another, which will give the
structure an ever-changing shape. 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 at a news conference in New York on Tuesday, the building's
designer, David Fisher, declared that his tower will revolutionize the way
skyscrapers are made - a claim that might strike some as excessively bold.
Fisher acknowledges 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. "I did not design skyscrapers, but I feel ready to do so," Fisher said.
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 right at their apartments. A second version of the
tower, to be built in Moscow, would have a retractable helicopter pad. Both
structures, at over 1,300 feet, would be taller than the Empire State Building.
Even the method of construction would be unorthodox. 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. Robertson, who
attended Tuesday's news conference, said that the skyscraper might be unusual, but
is "absolutely" buildable.
"You can build anything," he said, smiling. 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 might 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. Asked again to clarify the name of the
school that conferred the degree, Fisher's publicists said in an e-mail that the
information has been removed from his bio "because he wants to be entirely
accurate and cannot be with this information."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
-- To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html
**************Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for
fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007)
--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>