The Middle East is proving an innovation magnet, with designers flocking to the region to get involved in a variety of wellfinanced cultural and property construction projects. Italian architect David Fisher (above) recently unveiled plans for a 420-metre high Dynamic Tower, to be built in Dubai by 2010 at a cost of $700m.
Composed of independently moving floors, owners of the most expensive apartments (ranging from £3.7m to £36m) will be able to move their floors by voice command. The building will be self-powered by its own wind turbines that will also feed surplus energy back into the national grid. A central lift will transport cars right up into individual apartments through a central column.
Fisher, who has never before designed a skyscraper, plans to design similar towers for Moscow and New York. He was inspired by the view of the Manhattan and East rivers from a friend's top-floor New York apartment. "I wanted to make that kind of view accessible to more people," he says.
