Spinning Skyscraper in Dubai

[Ky Lane]

What a brilliant set of ideas!

 

http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/0,26058,23919608-5014090,00.html

[BobM]

Very Interesting thanks for the info

[SandmanNinja]

I have a collection of videos from various television networks (Discovery Channel, etc) on Dubai. Stuff like the huge ice skating rink and indoor downhill skiing complex, and the various palm islands and the like.

 

(by the way, I finally went to Dubai via Google Earth - you really can see those islands from space! I'd like to do a time lapse with a book mark and record the progress they make)

 

I just wonder how EcoFriendly all of these constructions are? I mean, I know when they were making the undersea hotel and restuarant and the various sea barrier walls to protect the man-made islands, they had fleets of Environmental Engineers and Scientists checking to make sure the water would refresh itself, the fish would not be negatively affected, coral would grow 10 times faster than Nature can grow it, etc, etc, etc. But the cooling systems for Skiiing complex - that must pump out enormous amounts of heat in order to cool it so that snow would naturally fall inside (with a bit of encouragement of sprinklers). My God - it snows in Dubai!

 

I've never seen anything on t.v. or newspapers about the long-term environmental impact on the PLANET those buildings will have.

 

Anyone aware of anything like that?

 

I'm in no way against what's happening in Dubai. I love Architecture and Engineering, and it's exciting watching what's happening over there.

[SandmanNinja]

addendum:

Thanks for the link, mate.

 

That's what I like about Architectural Evolution - as building materials get stronger & lighter, and computers get more & more powerful, things that were never dreamed of 50 years ago are going up in record time.

 

Fantastic.

 

The modularity of the building (during construction) reminds me of space habitats in near-earth orbit. I wonder if advancement in one area will be used in another area. I like the example of Active Matrix screens for Laptops being used on Desktops. Desktops came before Laptops, laptops were always the slower-yet-more-expensive cousin to the desktop, yet because of their small and power-conservation nature, TFT screens were developed for them. They were so successful that they were ported over to desktops.

 

I wonder if we'll see a Space Elevator going from Dubai International to an orbiting habitat with components fabricated on earth and lifted up via a 160km cable and built in space.

[AJLynn]

Whoa, deja vu. I've seen those animations before, and I think we had a discussion on whether the idea was really cool or an incredibly tacky/gimmicky waste of resources.