Wind powered rotating skyscraper May 16, 2007
Posted by Al in : clever,design,interesting , trackbackI like this idea. It’s a sky scraper where each floor is cantilevered off a central core, which allows each floor to be moved (if required) separately to it’s neighbouring floors. It also allows gaps between each floor, where the architect has suggested installing wind turbines, also connected to the central core. It has been estimated that these turbines could provide all the electrical power that the tower (and another 9 towers) could need – which is probably an overestimisation. However, there is always a lot of wind pressing against skyscrapers, and if this could be harnessed so neatly, then there would definitely be some power to be found.
The main worry I have about such a design is evacuating a tower where every floor is accessed through a central core. If we forget about rotating the floors, which would be a design feature, but not necessary to the wind power function, then you would still need to get everyone into the central core and it’s elevators or stairways. These would soon become congested, but that is not as bad as if your floor had rotated to a position where it no longer aligned with access points to the central core – then you’d be stuck. And you wouldn’t be able to install other ways of moving between the floors, such as hatches and ladders to climb down from one floor to the next, as you’d have this turbine, with big spinning blades, waiting to smash you to a pulp.
Still, it’s a novel idea, with promise, and it’s going to be built in Dubai very soon. If it works, then I hope that many more are built. You can read more here, and watch a video. You can also read the comments, but only if you want to be amazed by how many people believe it is necessary for the floors to spin, and how many cannot comprehend how little impact spinning a floor to revolve once an hour would have.
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