twirling tower

literally coming mere days after the chicago city council’s final approval of santiago calatrava’s twisting skyscraper is a proposal for a “twirling” tower. not to be outdone by mr. calatrava’s seemingly gracefully moving structure this new design by italian-israeli architect david fisher actually continually rotates 360 degrees. each floor, or block of floors, will literally revolve around a fixed core. the idea is two-fold, first, the ever-changing volumetric arrangement of the building coupled with the dynamic movement encapsulated in the facade will provide an extremely unique and hopefully engaging aesthetic; or, according to the architect, “one building, many shapes.” second, that as a result of the building’s movement every unit will have a view of the lake as well as the loop and every other vantage point of the city for that matter. naturally, as one can imagine in a town like chicago where even the blue-collar work is an experienced architecture-critic, opinions vary widely. personally, i’ve seen other proposals like this one a much smaller scale and usually associated with sustainable design, typically the rotation of the floors cause by the wind turns a turbine that generates energy (i haven’t heard anything along these lines in this case). i love the conceptual idea of the tower but i am concerned with the practical aspects that i fear would unavoidably decimate the projects aesthetics (namely structure, unless, of course, it’s built of unobtanium). additionally, i have my doubts about a project like this at such a large scale. admittedly though it is very hard to pass any judgment without more renderings, drawings, and project information; here’s hoping all of which comes sooner rather than later.