8- Dubai, David Fisher & the Dynamic architecture

Dr David Fisher - Profile Dr David Fisher, Architect and Town Planner, is an Italian citizen, who has been passionately working on redefining the technical and technological extremes of buildings, especially in urban centres like New York, Moscow, Hong Kong, Paris and Dubai, for over three decades now. Fisher started as an artist in Florence , the home of Italian Renaissance. After graduating with Honors from the University of Florence in 1976, Fisher started teaching Architecture in the same university and at the School of Structural Engineering .

On account of his academic achievements and research activities, Fisher was awarded an Honorees Cause Ph.D by the Prodeo Institute at the Columbia University in New York .
Along with his academic pursuits, Fisher was also involved in the restoration of ancient landmarks and design of public buildings. Through the New York office of his Fiteco Ltd, which he launched in the mid eighties, Fisher started getting associated with the prefabrication and development of construction technologies as well as in the construction and development of hotel projects.
His professional activity was always focused on two things: Designing buildings that can adjust themselves to the needs of its inhabitants, thus being “dynamic”, and the industrial production of construction units.

Some of the technologies he developed include the ‘Smart Bathroom by Leonardo da Vinci' system, a completely pre-assembled bathroom system for luxury hotels and homes. Considered the first “mechanical” approach to civil construction, it is the only existing factory-produced and integrated bathroom system. Fisher's LDV Group incorporated this system into buildings in Italy for the first time, followed by Dubai , London , Moscow , Paris and Hong Kong .
Fifty-eight-year old, Fisher believes that “whatever is correct is nice; whatever is nice is not always correct”. He has also written various articles on his professional activities and on architecture.
According to Fisher, time is the most powerful dimension of life. “Time”, says Fisher “is the dimension of relativity”. His new skyscraper, the tower in motion, is shaped by “life designed by time”.

 

April 18, 2008 Dubai 

Dubai has well earned its reputation for architectural extravagance and excess.

Not a cent has been spared as various developers vie to produce the biggest, the most stunning, the most luxurious projects ever undertaken.

And while this next project is right up there in terms of luxury, exclusivity and head-spinning architectural genius, it adds a fascinating extra dimension - the ability to generate ten times as much power as it will use.

Each floor of Dynamic Architecture's wind-powered rotating skyscraper is a single apartment with the ability to rotate independently, giving residents the ability to choose a new view at the touch of a button - quite a party trick. Wind turbines between each floor will generate a vast surplus of electricity capable of powering the whole surrounding neighborhood.

The method of construction is also fascinating; each floor will be pre-fabricated in segments in a quality-controlled factory before being lifted and secured into place on a concrete spine, bringing costs and construction times down significantly. Construction is set to begin soon in Dubai, with a second tower to follow in Moscow and numerous other sites around the world being considered.

The genius inDr. David Fisher's design of the DYNAMIC ARCHITECTURE wind-powered rotating skyscraper is its powerful and unique appeal to so many stakeholders. With luxury and jaw-dropping architecture becoming so common in Dubai, and so many wealthy and impressionable people wishing for their homes to stand out from the crowd, the tower's unique ability for each floor to rotate independently will surely place it in high demand. It will also be a stunning landmark for the city, catching the sun as it quietly twists like a monolithic Rubik's cube.

The wind turbines between each floor make the tower an environmentally positive construction, generating a large excess of power to put back into the energy grid. Each turbine has the peak ability to produce around 0.2 megawatt hours of electricity. Given Dubai has an average of 4000 hours of wind annually, with an average wind speed of 16 km/h, the turbines are estimated to produce around 1,200,000 kilowatt-hours of energy per year. Four of the 48 turbines in the building will be enough to power the entire tower, leaving the other 44 to provide surplus energy back into Dubai's power grid.

The tower's unique properties allow for an equally innovative construction process. Instead of building the tower from the ground up, floor by floor as most skyscrapers are built, the rotating tower will be built in parallel stages. As a team on site builds the enormous concrete core, or spine of the building, complete with the elevators, a separate team will be working in a dedicated factory, prefabricating each floor in segments. Once the core is complete, the segments will be lifted up the side of the building and each floor will be assembled and attached, from the top floor down, around the central spine.

This method holds a number of advantages over traditional construction schedules. Firstly, since the core and floor segments are being built in parallel, the construction can be much quicker, resulting in a time saving of around 30% for a similarly sized regular tower. Secondly, vastly fewer workers need to be on site at the tower, meaning only around 90 specialist workers will need to work in difficult and dangerous conditions at the tower itself, the remainder being in an optimal, safe and comfortable factory setting.

<PCLASS=AR_BODY_TEXT>Thirdly, each modular apartment can be easily customized to the buyer's desires, and every small component can be finished and quality assessed much more easily than an on-site construction, leading to higher standards of quality control. Architect David Fisher sees the construction method as the equivalent of an industrial revolution in construction, bringing large-scale building practices into line with industrial practices in other areas. The first industrial prefabrication factory will be located in Italy.

The rotating tower is slated to begin construction soon in Dubai according to Dynamic Architecture - and the 420-meter, 80-floor Dubai tower will be followed by a 70-floor, 400-meter tower in Moscow which is currently in advanced design phase. The company is in preliminary talks with the cities of Milan, London, New York, Hamburg and Sao Paolo for further implementations.

All images courtesy of Dr. David Fisher and Dynamic Architecture (all rights reserved).