Dubai will be home to an innovative skyscraper which will keep changing its shape and generate surplus energy from the wind as well as the sun.

The ‘tower in motion’ is a revolutionary project based on “dynamic architecture”, a new concept introduced by Florentine architect David Fisher.
“The project has generated considerable interest all over the world even before its launch, as a trend-setting architecture which takes building construction into the fourth dimension,” Fisher told Gulf Construction.
The concept allows floors to rotate individually around a central core. It involves the construction of a concrete core using slipform technology and lifting the modules in place.
“Each floor of the tower will consist of 12 modules that will arrive at the job site completely finished and with electrical, plumbing as well as air-conditioning systems ready for use. The modules will then be mechanically assembled at the rate of one floor every seven days,” he says.
Fisher continues: “This provides a series of important advantages: first of all, the application of industrial quality control techniques to the finished product, the possibility of customising individual apartments, reduced production times and costs and, last but not least, reducing the risks of accidents and injuries on the job site. In fact, production and installation will require only 90 technicians and workers on the site, as against over 2,000 for a comparable traditional building.”
The new building will be the first skyscraper “produced” in an industrial systems process: in fact, 90 per cent of the building will be constructed as modules in an industrial plant and, then, assembled on the central core, the only part that will be built “on-site”, says a spokesman for the project.
The prefabricated units, manufactured using stainless steel, aluminium or carbonfibre, will be produced in a facility set up in Jebel Ali and will then be shipped to 11 other major cities including Moscow, Milan, New York and Tokyo where similar towers will come up following Dubai.
“Another innovation that distinguishes the versatile tower is its dynamic use of space, which not only adapts to its surroundings but also to the tenants’ needs. Thanks to a mechanism that allows each floor to rotate autonomously by virtue of voice-activated technology, it will be possible to select the view from the window at any moment, deciding how to use the daylight or to let it rotate slowly as viewers enjoy the surroundings. The external shape and profile of the tower can also change constantly,” he adds.
The tower – expected to involve an investment of $350 million – is also a “green” building that generates electricity for itself and five other equivalent buildings. “The secret is 48 wind turbines mounted horizontally between one floor and the next, and the photovoltaic cells located on the roofs of the individual apartments.
When completed, the skyscraper will have 68 floors and will be 313 m high. Built in association with local entrepreneurs, the tower will comprise a six-star hotel, offices and apartments of various sizes besides five villas on the top floor. Each of the villas will have designated parking on the same floor with vehicles brought up and down in special elevators. The roof of the “Penthouse” villa will also have a swimming pool, a garden and an Arabian majlis.
The project’s uniqueness, the extra benefits derived in the long term as well as the level of the technical and technological challenges it offers have attracted premier international consultants and industry leaders like Bosch, Lera, Viega, Kerakoll, Kriston and Bovis Lendlease, Barker Mohandas, IV Industrie, who have joined the ‘Dynamic Architecture Club’ created by Fisher to construct the buildings of the future.