The booming Gulf emirate of Dubai, where a skyscraper billed as the world's tallest is taking shape, will claim another first with the construction of a turning tower, developers said. Time Residences, whose construction will start next June and end in the first quarter of 2009, will be "a building that moves with the power of the sun" to become "the only rotating residential structure on the planet," they said in a statement.
"Solar energy (will be) stored and used to drive the rotation mechanism to provide 360-degree views to every resident," moving 52 degrees in 24 hours, the statement said.
The 80,000-ton, 30-floor structure will be built inside the City of Arabia in Dubailand, which is meant to become Dubai's answer to Disneyland.
Tav Singh, director of Dubai Property Ring, a group of British investors behind the project, said it would cost around 400 million dirhams (109 million dollars).
The project's designers are Britain-based Glenn Howells Architects, a company involved in redesigning the Birmingham Rotunda, and Palmer and Turner, master developers of City of Arabia.
"A distinctive time line runs down the building that meets 12 o'clock markings on the ground and the podium, allowing observers to use the building as a ... time piece," said James Abbott of Palmer and Turner.
Dubai, a member of the seven-strong United Arab Emirates, has turned in a few years into a regional business and tourism hub where dozens of grandiose projects are sprouting.
They include "Burj Dubai," or Dubai Tower, which at more than 700 meters (2,296 feet) is slated to be the world's tallest skyscraper when it is completed at the end of 2008.
