Back in 2006, inhabitat posted about a new development in the land of new developments, Dubai, that will rotate its torso using a renewable energy source; the Sun. A while after that they posted again about a new tower that will show up somewhere in the coming few years and again, its supposedly green.
360º Time released another project in the region, Time 55º Dubai, as part of their signature revolving structures, and their design seems to be the most beautiful yet for a “green building”, to my taste. Now that’s a lot of rotation, for an approach that aims to cut off energy consumption; that is the point.
Bahrain’s project for a sustainable structure designed by Atkins Middle East predicts that the turbines will save 15% of the building’s energy, and the structure is solid static. On the other hand, I haven’t found any figures on those buildings that I mentioned, but it seems that rotating an 80,000 Ton bulk of dead load requires a super-dooper set of solar panels just to generate its motion, let alone the building’s consumption of power.
I will assume the panels generate enough energy to rotate the structure and save 50% of the building’s needs, the other 50% is still going to be consumed from generated energy sources (i.e. electricity). I wouldn’t demean 50% of power saving, but I would question the ‘waste’ of benefit from a renewable energy source, used to create an extravagant environment, rather than move forward to a healthier better established, truly green development.
A few days back, I read them write about the newest, largest green building in the city. I was a bit frustrated by the advent of the buzzword of the 21st century, and how it became an ingredient in any recipe that is supposed to success. However I feel a little better about the proposed project, knowing that it is stripped off any unsolicited features such as rotation, or motion, and concentrating on providing an environment-oriented design that considers the region’s conditions on a deeper scale, although I’m not a fan of the design skin.
Dubai will start applying new regulations for forthcoming projects, based on sustainable standards, come January 2008.
Thank you Inhabitat.
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