Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Vegas Happens There?

Remember the Montecito? The fictional Vegas resort of the "Las Vegas" soap? It looked like this...


...and that attracted commentary all over the place about how it is architecturally impossible to have such a waterfall, blah blah blah.

I bring it up only because over in Dubai, they're planning to build something that, if the "Las Vegas" folks had imagined it, would have been similarly mocked. This is the rendering below and what's so special about it is...


...that the building will be in constant motion. That is, the floors will, uh, spin. Read all about it here.

Now, I can't quite see myself getting any rest in a room on the 80th floor of a building that is moving and I can't imagine that they've figured out how to engineer it so that it's not just a constant noisy machine to boot. Also, I'm fascinated that they can build anything that big for $700 million. They must not have unions over there, hmm?

But any which way, there was a time when something this bizarre, this freakish could only be conceived and planned for in Las Vegas. Have Sin City lost its nerve?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

While this is a dramatic conceptual drawing, the idea of 'architecture in motion' is already nearing completion in Macau at the Hard Rock tower in the City of Dreams project. The 'twist': HR is a cylindrical tower with a rotating exterior facade, designed to look like a water spout.

See here:

http://www.macautripping.com/tripping/post.php?p=180

And here for how the architecture of all four of the buildings use the 'water' theme:

http://www.macautripping.com/tripping/post.php?p=215

Anonymous said...

Saw this on BBC last night. The designer has never built a skyscraper before, but was boasting that this kooky idea will make it easier to construct.

I'd pass, since I have no idea how one would aim antennas and other equipment inside such a building.

Troy in Las Vegas said...

I have been inside revolving restaurants such as Top of the World in Las Vegas and remember that attraction at Disneyland called Carosel of Progress and later, America Sings? What would be so different with this except there are many stacked on top of each other. I don't think Steve that the thing will spin at Mach 2. (I have not read the article so I don't know for sure though..)
Still, really? Do we really need that type of building? And $700M? Monte Carlo only cost about $300M so many years ago. Fountainblu Las Vegas is costing $2.9B (The contruction caught on fire today so that price will be going up. Especially since I was forced to breathe the smoke of the burning and undoubtably toxic debris and I feel the Black Lung coming on. They will be hearing from me.)

Anonymous said...

Oh sure, they'll do it for 700M. There are no unions, and the labor force is largely poor Indian and Asians...much like American construction is trying to get away with using illegal Latino labor all the time, except in Dubai, these guys are all on the books, get housed, fed, piss poor safety and have to build at breakneck speeds.

Anonymous said...

I get motion sickness just looking at the rendering ...

As for F'bleau's cost, the Cosmo's is now projected to hit $4.6 billion. I wouldn't want to be the Deutsche Bank exec charged with shopping that place around to prospective buyers.

Anonymous said...

Waterfall from the top of the hotel... Of course it can be done.
Anything is possible.
Period.
:-)