Welcome To SingingPig.co.uk

UAE. David Fisher will forge ahead with plans to build the world’s first rotating tower in Dubai, the renowned architect has confirmed in an interview for Commercial Interior Design.

The as-yet undisclosed site of the project has been decided upon, groundbreaking is imminent and apartments are scheduled to go on sale within a matter of weeks, he explained.

“We have the land, we have a great location and there will be an official announcement and groundbreaking very soon. In a short while, we will start selling. Prices will be announced soon but from what I have read we are looking at a small apartment for US$3 million and a large one for up to US$30 million,” Fisher stated.

While acknowledging that the timing might not be ideal, Fisher remained positive about the prospects for his unique architectural proposition. “The situation in Dubai is more than bad today, but for me it is a challenge within a challenge,” he said. “It sounds crazy to speak of a new building, especially a luxurious new building like this, but we do intend to start very soon.

“Dubai is facing the same situation as many other places, and somewhere like Miami, for example, has been suffering for three years, not three months. There is big interest because the building is unique. So, as a recent Dubai publication said recently, ‘David Fisher might yet have the last laugh’,” he said.

While the 80-storey rotating tower has attracted attention because of its shifting shape, there is more to it than that, Fisher maintained. In Sao Paolo speaking at the 7th International Forum of Architecture and Construction, which ran alongside Revestir, the Brazilian Coverings Exhibition, between 24 and 27 March, Fisher outlined his six commandments of architecture and highlighted how the rotating tower was a logical incarnation of these basic principles.

“Architecture is art and it is sculpture, but it is also something else. It has to make sense, firstly, from an economic point of view. The second thing is functionality; a building is not a shell. The third aspect is engineering and fourthly, a building needs to be green; we all know why. The fifth is maintenance and the last, and least important, commandment of architecture is the shape of a building. Of course, beauty is important but it is still the final commandment. After all, correct is beautiful, but beauty is not always correct.”

As such, Fisher’s rotating towers will also be the first to be prefabricated in a factory and assembled onsite, and will also be entirely self-powered. “As an architect, I am sometimes embarrassed to be part of a sector that is so primitive,” Fisher commented, pointing to a picture of the pyramids of Giza. “Not much has actually changed in the last 4,000 years.

Everything else is created in factories but buildings are still created onsite,” he said.

Floors of the building will be shipped to the site to be mechanically attached to a central core. “There is nothing we do onsite besides mechanical fixing. This means there will be 90 people onsite instead of 2,000. It is a safer, more ecologically friendly site with no more unnecessary waste and dust. They are also completely self-powered as there are wind turbines between every floor. These are the quick, clean, logical buildings of the future.”

Fisher has drawn on technologies used in sources as advanced as the London Eye and the new Boeing 787 for his creation. “There are so many incredible technologies around but almost none of these are used in construction. This building will be much more than just the first to rotate. It will be the first to be self powered, the first to be prefabricated and a symbol that anything is possible in life,” he maintained.

“These are the first building to be built around four dimensions; the fourth dimension is time. Designed by life, shaped by time. To allow everybody to shape buildings and cities is the ultimate expression of freedom,” he elaborated.

And in the next breath: “I like to keep things simple.”