Dubai 'shape-shifting skyscraper' unveiled

Check out this article posted on CNN.com today about a new skyscraper design which will allow each floor to rotate individually.

(CNN) -- Ambitious plans to build a revolutionary 420-meter shape-shifting skyscraper in Dubai have been unveiled by architects.

The 80-story Dynamic Tower, described as the "world's first building in motion," will also be the first skyscraper constructed from prefabricated units, according to a press statement released by New York-based architect David Fisher's Dynamic Group.

Each floor would be capable of rotating independently, powered by wind turbines fitted between each floor.

"You can adjust the shape the way you like every given moment," Fisher said. "It's not a piece of architecture somebody designed today and that's it. It remains forever. It's designed by life, shaped by time."

Apartments will sell for around $3,000 per square foot, making each unit range in price from about $4 million to $40 million. Work on the tower is due to be completed by 2010, according to Dynamic's Web site.

Fisher said plans to build a second rotating skyscraper in Moscow were at an advanced stage and that the group intended to build a third tower in New York. He said developers and public officials in Canada, Europe and South Korea had also expressed interest in the project.

But some have expressed skepticism. Fisher has never built a skyscraper before. He says he has teamed up with reputed architects and engineers in the United Kingdom and India. Although he has received a development license for construction in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, he has not disclosed the site of the building. The Moscow mayor's office said it was looking into the project and a decision had not been made.

Fisher has called prefabricated construction techniques the "future of architecture" and says they will radically transform 4,000-year-old "brick-on-brick" building methods. By using preconstructed parts, Fisher said each story could be built in just seven days, resulting in environmentally cleaner building methods. He said just 600 people on an assembly site and 80 technicians on the construction site would be needed to build the tower -- compared with around 2,000 workers for a traditional project of a comparable scale.

"It is unbelievable that real estate and construction which is the leading sector of the world economy, is also the most primitive, Fisher is quoted as saying on Dynamic's Web site.
"Most workers throughout the world still regularly use trowels that was first used by the Egyptians and then by the Romans. Buildings should not be different than any other product, and from now on they will be manufactured in a production facility."

Dubai is currently experiencing a construction boom with the Burj tower set to claim the title of the world's tallest building when it is completed in 2009. It is already home to the world's largest mall and -- despite being in the Middle East -- it boasts the largest indoor snow park in the world.