Mon 21 May 2007
The Ras al Khaimah Convention and Exhibtion Centre looks a lot like something out of Star Wars. Unlike the traditional high-rise building, the design for the Ras al Khaimah Convention and Exhibition Centre accommodates all primary functions, such as the convention centre, hotel rooms, apartments, offices and retail space in a giant sphere.
Sat 19 May 2007
Don’t like the view? Wait a few minutes and it will change.
In skyscraper-crazy Dubai, tall isn’t enough. In a design to be unveiled today in the oil-rich emirate, David Fisher, an Italian-Israeli architect, has dreamed up a 68-story combination hotel, apartment and office tower where the floors would rotate 360 degrees. Each floor would rotate independently, creating a constantly changing architectural form.
Each story of the tower would be shaped like a doughnut and be attached to a center core housing elevators, emergency stairs and other utilities. Wind turbines placed in gaps between the doughnuts would generate electricity.
The doughnuts won’t rotate fast enough to give guests upset stomachs. A single rotation would take around 90 minutes. “It’s quite slow,” says Mr. Fisher.
