Skyscraper has rotating floors.

**Lunar4** · February 03, 2008, 10:44 AM

http://www.flixxy.com/dubai-dynamic-architecture.htm

Wow.

**Sidus Preclarum** · February 03, 2008, 10:47 AM

Dubai is like the new Eldorado for both architects and real estate speculators

**~~Ummon~~** · February 03, 2008, 10:50 AM

And plastic furniture for hypermarts...

**LSJ** · February 03, 2008, 11:11 AM

Well, its cool but I don't want one.

**Cataclysm** · February 03, 2008, 11:18 AM

Thats great, how does the plumbing and electrical systems work?

**Mythos** · February 03, 2008, 04:35 PM

Originally Posted by Cataclysm

Thats great, how does the plumbing and electrical systems work?

The building will have 48 0.3MW windturbines, plus a few PV panels on the top. The designer says that the whole building will need only 4 turbines to operate due to the high wind-hours that Dubai gets. I personally think that it will use more than 4, but it has more than enough to cover its needs fully. The surplus production will be fed to the grid. Apparently, it will produce $7mil worth of power annually, which is amazing. It shows that a "green" economy can be both sustainable and still be growing.

**William the Bastard** · February 03, 2008, 05:04 PM

I'll be more interested to see it when it's actually built. Seems rather impressive so far but I am still a bit unsure on what the numbers will turn out to be. First of all is how fast the building will rotate and second of all the energy used in actually rotating it. The math doesn't seem to add up imo.

**Simetrical** · February 03, 2008, 05:13 PM

Rotating something at constant speed only requires energy due to friction. Since you'll make everything as low-friction as possible, probably it won't require as much power as you'd think.

**Da Skinna** · February 03, 2008, 09:44 PM

It's nice to see our achievements as a race being put to some amazing lengths. Dubai is a focal point of humanity's architectural pinnacle. It's a city out of sand, I mean come on.

**Richard** · February 04, 2008, 12:23 AM

WTF does "the dusk of humanity" mean? Don't they mean the DAWN of humanity?

**Juvenal** · February 04, 2008, 07:09 AM

There is nothing new under the sun...

The Post Office Tower in London, built in 1964, has a rotating restaurant (operated by Butlins!!!).

HISTORY OF THE POST OFFICE TOWER
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPO_Tower

The tower was commissioned by the General Post Office (GPO). Its primary purpose was to support the microwave aerials then used to carry telecommunications traffic from London to the rest of the country.
It replaced a much shorter steel lattice tower which had been built on the roof of the neighbouring Museum telephone exchange in the late 1940s to provide a television link between London and Birmingham. The taller structure was required to protect the radio links' "line of sight" against some of the tall buildings in London then in the planning stage. These links were routed via other GPO microwave stations at Harrow Weald, Bagshot, Kelvedon Hatch and Fairseat, and to places like the London Air Traffic Control Centre at West Drayton.
The tower was designed by the architects of the Ministry of Public Building and Works: the chief architects were Eric Bedford and G. R. Yeats. Typical for its time, the building is concrete clad in glass. The narrow cylindrical shape was chosen because of the requirements of the communications aerials: the building will shift no more than 25 cm (10 inches) in wind speeds of up to 150 km/h (95 mph). Initially the first sixteen floors were for technical equipment and power, above that was a 35 metre section for the microwave aerials, and above that were six floors of suites, kitchens, technical equipment and finally a cantilevered steel lattice tower. To prevent heat build-up the glass cladding was of a special tint. The construction cost was £2.5 million.
Construction began in June 1961. The tower was topped out on 15 July 1964 and officially opened by Prime Minister Harold Wilson on 8 October 1965. The building contractors were Peter Lind & Company.
The tower was originally designed to be just 111 metres, and its foundations are sunk down through 53 metres of London clay and are formed of a concrete raft 27 metres square, a metre thick, reinforced with six layers of cables on top of which sits a reinforced concrete pyramid.[1]
The tower was officially opened to the public on 16 May 1966 by Tony Benn and Billy Butlin. As well as the communications equipment and office space there were viewing galleries, a souvenir shop, and a rotating restaurant, the "Top of the Tower", on the 34th floor, operated by Butlins. It made one revolution every 22 minutes. An annual race up the stairs of the tower was established and the first race was won by UCL student Alan Green.
A bomb, responsibility for which was claimed by the Provisional IRA,[2] exploded in the roof of the men's toilets at the Top of the Tower restaurant on 31 October 1971. The restaurant was closed to the public for security reasons in 1980, the year in which the Butlins' lease eventually expired. Public access to the building ceased in 1981.