In The News: Italian architect plans the world's 1st 'building in motion' in Dubai

As if the architecture here wasn't already over the top enough, an Italian 'visionary' has announced the launch of the world's first rotating skyscraper. I received this article in my inbox today:

Italian architect plans the world's 1st 'building in motion' in Dubai
By David Caruso
The Associated Press Tue Jun 24, 9:34 PM NEW YORK

K, stop right there. A quick search on Google shows that this is not the first time a 'moving building' has been thought of; there is (apparently) a rotating building under construction in Dubai called Times Residences which is (apparently) scheduled for completion in 2009 as reported in The Gulf News . I have not heard about this until now so it may well have gotten as far as the announcement stage and then quietly ended up on the cutting room floor. An announcement is just that, an announcement and (surprise surprise!) not everything on the internet is true. But continuing on with the article:

Is it real or science fiction? An Italian architect said he is poised to start construction on a new skyscraper in Dubai that will be "the world's first building in motion," an 80-storey tower with revolving floors that give it an ever-shifting shape.

Speaking at a news conference in New York on Tuesday, the building's designer, David Fisher, declared that his tower will revolutionize the way skyscrapers are made - a claim that might strike some as excessively bold.

Fisher declined to say exactly where in Dubai the tower will be built or when site work might begin. He insisted, however, that factory production is set to start within weeks and that the tower, which will contain office space, a luxury hotel and apartments, will be complete by 2010.

If I may interject again ... me thinks that if they actually had a site nailed down, they would be announcing that ... loudly ... that's part of the hype of Real Estate marketing. They don't have a site. Ya kinda need one of those if you're gonna build a building, dude! So if you don't yet have a site and you won't (or can't) announce when construction will begin, might be a bit premature to fire up the production line. And good luck with that 2010 completion date! I've seen the way things work here, won't even have permits by 2010.

And if the building is in Dubai, why is he announcing it in New York?

Fisher acknowledges that he is not well known, has never built a skyscraper before and hasn't practised architecture regularly in decades.

Further down in the article, it says that he graduated from the University of Florence in 1976 so if he hasn't practiced Architecture in "decades" that means, well, pretty much most of his career. His bio on his website says:

INFINITY Design company is Dr. Fisher's architectural office that is located in Florence however Dr. Fisher cannot be considered an architect in the traditional sense of the word.

Translation: he's not really an Architect.
Back to the David Caruso article:

But he insisted his lack of experience wouldn't stop him from completing the project, which has attracted top design talent, including Leslie Robertson, the structural engineer for the World Trade Center and the Shanghai World Financial Centre.

"I did not design skyscrapers, but I feel ready to do so," Fisher said.

Hmmm, he "feels" ready ... anyone getting the warm and fuzzies?

Even the method of construction would be unorthodox. Fisher said each floor will be prefabricated in an Italian factory, then shipped to the site to be attached to the core.

Unorthodox? Not really.

First of all, most building components are already fabricated in a shop somewhere and transported to site, especially in North America where pre-engineered steel and wood construction are common. Granted, this is less the case in the UAE where cast-in-place concrete is more commonly used so perhaps there is some merit to this but its hardly 'revolutionary' thinking.

Secondly, the aforementioned Times Residences which is the same damb concept -- a pre-fab, rotating structure -- was proposing the same damb idea 2 years ago. But for whatever reason, this 'Architect' has dubbed it "the Fisher Method" on his website which strikes me as a wee bit egotistical.

This building is being touted as an enviromental marvel with wind turbines and solar panels and I'm all for sustainable buildings. However, I've read that the effectiveness of what he's proposing is questionable and any carbon foot-print savings of fabricating virtually an entire building in a shop in Italy are negated when that building is subsequently transported around the world to it's final destination. But perhaps someone who is more eco-savvy than I can shed some light on that.

The conclusion of the article and the pièce de résistance:

Skeptics might question Fisher's credentials to pull off the job.

In a biography he had been distributing for months, he said he graduated from the University of Florence in 1976, came to New York in the mid-1980s and later developed hotels and ran a company that specialized in stone and prefabricated construction materials.

The biography also said he received an honorary doctorate from "the Prodeo Institute at Columbia University in New York." No such institution exists, however, and Columbia said it had never awarded Fisher an honorary degree.

Asked to explain the discrepancy, Fisher said, through his New York publicists, that he had been awarded the degree by the Catholic University of Rome during a ceremony in 1994 held at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, which is near Columbia's campus.

Asked again to clarify the name of the school that conferred the degree, Fisher's publicists said in an e-mail that "Dr. Fisher did receive an honorary doctorate in economics from Pre Deo University, but it has been removed from his bio because he wants to be entirely accurate and cannot be with this information."

Huh? An honorary doctorate in Economics?! But on second thought, its starting to make sense ... let's crunch some rough numbers here:

Estimated construction cost: $700,000,000 according to the article (I would assume that's US$). Architects fees on a $700M project at, let's say 4% = $28M ... not too shabby! Not being a "real" Architect in Dubai is not an obstacle (I am an 'Architect' in Dubai but sadly, no 28 mil for me ... guess I shoulda fudged my CV.)

But there's more:

I would suggest that he has a sizable stake in this project. All he has to do now is convince a few other investors that this is a good thing and he's got himself a peach (whether the project flies or not)! After all, it's Dubai and real estate is hot hot hot!

An 80-storey building selling for $3000 per square foot (a pretty penny even in the UAE), the smallest suite being 1,330 sf studios. I did a little guestimating based on the fuzzy floor plan jpeg shown on the Dynamic Architecture website, I am conservatively estimating 12,000 square feet per floor of saleable space.

80 storeys X 12,000 sf per floor X $3000 per sf = $2,880,000,000. Yup, there's 10 digits there! Even when you deduct out the cost of the land (which I speculate does not yet exist) but *suppose* that doubled the up front costs to $1.4B, that is still more than 100% ROI.

Me thinks that this Dr. Fisher dude is a better economist than he is an 'Architect'. It all smells a little fishy but if he succeeds in finding capital and succeeds in getting "the world's first building in motion" actually built ... well, I'll believe it when I see it.

In the meantime, I will be doubling my hard earned dollars (and dirhams) by folding them in half and putting them back in my wallet. I've just invested an afternoon researching this blog post and that's as much of an investment as I am willing to make into this scam ... I mean, scheme.