The shape of
things to come
There’s a new dynamic in the world of architecture that will have you in a spin
as designers push the boundaries of construction to new heights and forms.
In future, says Francesca Twinn, architecture will be a moving experience
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O
nce upon a time, as legend has it,
a young man named Silvio fled
the city of Rome and the Catiline
conspiracy to settle on an appealing hill
where he built the Castello della Selva, which
later grew into the town of San Gimignano.
Rising from the beautiful Tuscan hills, this
idyllic fairy-tale kingdom became famous
for its towers, evocative of Rapunzel’s
incarceration and thought of as the essence
of the modern skyscraper. Seventy-two of the
tall landmarks were erected around the 13th
Century as a symbol of the town’s power and
nobility, during a time of flourishing industry,
art and the good life – until the Black Death
when the term ‘skyscraper’ first arrived in the
form of Chicago’s Home Insurance Building
in 1885, San Gimignano’s unfailing beauty
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The
appropriately
named
Dynamic
found it a hub of art and tourism once more,
Tower is the moving creation of Dr David
standing tall and proud (albeit with fourteen
Fisher, of Infinity Design Company, an
towers left) happily ever after.
honours graduate and former professor of
Even before work began on the first
the University of Florence, who has spent
skyscrapers, man sought to outdo his fellow
the past thirty years working to redefine
man by building taller, more spectacular
and revolutionise the construction of cities
buildings. Today the world is full of
around the world.
weird and wonderful edifices, and as the
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Joined by developer Rotating Tower
engineering evolution makes more shapes
Dubai
Development
Limited
of
the
and materials available, what can we expect
Dynamic Group, the Dynamic Tower is
from architects in the coming years?
quite a concept. It will stand 1,380ft high
The structures now appearing on the
and each floor will rotate independently at
global horizon could be regarded as more
a different speed to the others, creating an
fairy-tale fabrication than reality if they
ever-changing shape to the entire building.
weren’t so hard to miss. But we ain’t seen
Watching the animated film of the tower on
nothing yet: in Dubai, where it’s all going
the website (www.dynamicarchitecture.net)
up, an eighty-storey moving skyscraper
is transfixing, reminiscent of the constant
is set to change an already extraordinary
transformations produced by a lava lamp,
modern skyline – constantly. It’s the dawn
then the movement of a fish in water, then a
of a new era and ‘time’ is the key, but who’s
domino effect, morphing, rippling, reptilian,
turning it?
mechanical, with night and day reflected
Photo credit here please
plague, that is. But by the 19th Century,
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in its skin. “From now on, buildings will
have four dimensions: the fourth is ‘time’
to become part of architecture,” says Dr
Fisher. “Buildings in motion will shape the
skyline of our cities.”
Architecture’s fourth dimension
is ‘time’. Buildings in motion will
shape the skyline of our cities
kind related to construction – and ‘speed’
isn’t usually a word that applies.
“It is unbelievable that real estate and
construction, the leading sector of the world
economy, are also the most primitive,” says
The first twenty floors will be dedicated
Dr Fisher. “For example, most workers still
to office suites; floors 21 to 35 will house
time saving, custom-made prefabricated
regularly use trowels, which were first used
a luxury hotel; 36 to 70 will be apartments
parts – known as the Fisher Method – and
by the Egyptians and then by the Romans.
from 1,330sq.ft to villas of 12,900sq.ft
remarkably, each floor can be installed in
Buildings should not be different than any
taking up the top ten floors. It will be the
just one week. But how is this possible?
other product and from now on they will
first building to be made solely of cost and
Most of us have had experiences of some
be manufactured in a production facility.”
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You can’t deny its appeal, but who is the
Dynamic Tower for? Owners will have the
opportunity to custom design their own
spaces, which include luxury penthouses
with swimming pools and voice-activated
features; they can even drive their cars right
into the building and up into their own
garage on their floor. A typical skyscraper
mark of status, maybe, it will certainly be
for the wealthy, but Dr Fisher believes the
use of this technology – and not the trowel
– will continue in factories for all kinds of
buildings all over the world, reducing the
cost of construction by at least 10 per cent.
It will also be environmentally friendly,
and generous too, generating not only
its own electricity, via seventy-nine quiet
and inconspicuous wind turbines placed
between each floor, but power for its
neighbouring buildings as well. Plus, each
cells for solar energy, while natural and
undulating Guangzhou Opera House, on
very exciting. There is a strong reciprocal
recyclable materials, such as marble and
the Pearl River in China, opening this year,
relationship whereby our more avant-garde
wood, will be used for the interiors, as well
which “with its tantalising contours will
designs encourage the development of
as insulated glass, all playing their part in
resonate the high notes of Chinese Opera,
new digital technologies and construction
making this the first building designed to
in harmony with the tenor of its western
techniques, and those new developments in
be self-powered.
brother”. But what drives her forward?
turn inspire us to push the design envelope
ever further.”
The radical rotating building in motion
“I’m always curious about the next step,
was selected by Time magazine as one of the
the next big thing, and I think computing
You only have to look at Hadid’s
Best Inventions of the Year 2008, and Dr
that encourages more complex geometry is
masterplans for One North in Singapore
Fisher was nominated as The World Architect
and Kartal Pendik in Istanbul to see that
of the Year by DBA – The Developers
she lives up to her curiosity. Here are
and Builders Alliance. Construction of
plausible infrastructures with free form and
the Dubai tower is scheduled to finish in
a theme described as “unity in difference” –
2010; meanwhile, Moscow too is looking
like that of the shapeshifting towers – that
forward to its own new futuristic seventy-
would once have seemed only a fantasy.
floor Rotating Skyscraper, developed by the
Mirax Group.
Another
architect
because we believe it visually simplifies
making
waves
in futuristic design is Zaha Hadid, as
illustrated in her plans for the sublime,
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“We like to work a lot with fluidity
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roof will be covered with photovoltaic
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everything, and you can then cope with more
complexity without crowding or cluttering
the visual scene. As we’ve learnt to do in
our buildings, where elements of each fit
together to form a fluid continuum, we’ve
applied these principles to whole cities. We
can develop a whole field of buildings, each
one different but logically connected to
the next, creating an organic, continually
changing field of buildings. With these
techniques we can do something radically
different than we saw at the beginning of
the century, when buildings were oriented
in disconnecting chaos.”
Like Dr Fisher, does Hadid see a major
change in construction methodology? “We
like structurally ambitious projects with
longer spans and cantilevers, and I think the
construction industry is very much capable
and geared up to what we are doing. In
We can do something radically different than at the
beginning of the century oriented in disconnecting chaos
Rome we are building the MAXXI: National
Museum of 21st Century Art, which will
open later this year. It is really pushing the
boundaries of concrete technology and this
advancement has allowed us to create the
most beautiful 12m high, 50m long concrete
walls with the highest surface quality.
“The engineers we work with also have
programmes that can now resolve many
issues. Less than ten years ago, when we
were designing the Phaeno Science Centre
in Wolfsburg, Germany, the software to
analyse the structural performance of a
building like that was only just evolving.
The building had to be split into 40,000
understand how each part of its structure
behaves. Before that, to design and
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small pieces on the computer in order to
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construct a building like the Phaeno simply
Award-winning architect Ben van Berkel,
Photo credit here please
wasn’t feasible.”
co-founder UNStudio, the Amsterdam
But it’s not all about being different.
based firm behind such designs as the
“There are some principles which we
Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, is
always adhere to,” adds Hadid. “One of
currently creating a ‘timely’ buzz with
them is attempt to embed a building into
Dubai’s Museum of Middle Eastern Modern
context with a whole series of articulate
Art (MOMEMA). The building will be
relationships – trying to draw out features
shaped along the lines of a dhow, this sea
from the surroundings so that in the end
theme celebrating the importance of Khor
there is a sense of ‘embedded-ness’, and
Dubai (Dubai Creek) as the cultural hub of
‘fit-ness’ into the context. The Guangzhou
the emirate. The development as a whole
Opera House is an excellent example. Its
extends over 20km, from Shindagha at the
design combines formal and geometric
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complexity with structural audacity to
create dynamic and fluid space.”
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space you are in now, part of your ecological
field, still perceptible, still surrounding you;
the art contained in those spaces follows
this principle. Formats, mediums and times
can be effortlessly arranged together and
rearranged. There are never too many
people; this museum thrives on audiences,
vernissages and spectacle. In MOMEMA,
public, event, art and business meet each
other and feed on each other.” The museum
will cover an area of 25,000sq.m and is
expected to be completed in January 2011.
So how can we define what is current and
what is to come in architectural design?
“Contemporary society is not standing
still,” says Zaha Hadid, “and architecture
Design evolves with new patterns of life. In our society is a
new level of social complexity, reflected in its architecture
and design must both evolve with the
new patterns of life. What is new in our
generation is a new level of social complexity,
which is reflected in its architecture. I
mouth of the creek to the new commercial
assured, there will be plenty on the inside
think one of the great challenges of 21st
district Business Bay. It will include an
to hold your attention. “Inside, the design
Century contemporary architecture is the
amphitheatre, exhibition hall, museums and
stimulates contemplation, but by other
fundamental restructuring away from the
a shipyard for traditional dhow builders, as
means than enforcing a restricted optical
concept of repetitive, orthogonal blocks
well as commercial, retail and residential
field,” explains van Berkel. “There are no
of the industrial mass society towards a
zones. MOMEMA will provide a place for
abrupt transitions. The space (the time) you
digital society of flexible specialisation,
international and local artists to exhibit, as
have left behind is undividedly part of the
with much greater degrees of complexity
and dynamism in people’s lives.”
“In MOMEMA Dubai,” says van Berkel,
“Today’s life is dynamic,” says the
“we recognise the opportunity to create
‘Dynamic’ Dr Fisher, “so the spaces we
an entirely new type of museum, which
are living in should be dynamic as well:
consists of a vibrant urban centre, where
adjustable to our needs, which change
professionals, collectors and public meet
continuously, to our concept of design and
each other. In this way, MOMEMA will
to our mood. Buildings will follow the
be a community building institution within
rhythms of nature, they will change direction
the city, and offer to both visitors and
and shape from spring to summer, from
residents a continuously changing palette
sunrise to sunset, and adjust themselves to
of experiences and events.”
the weather. Buildings will be alive.”
From its prominent location and with
its distinctive shape, MOMEMA will offer
spectacular views. Although, you can rest
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well as workshops and festivals.