Total Read Time: 3 Minutes

Background:

Dubai is one of the seven emirates and the most populous city of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). What differentiates Dubai from other middle eastern economies is that its main revenue comes from tourism, real estate and financial services.  Revenue from petroleum and natural gas contribute less than 6% of Dubai’s $37 billion (US currency) economy.  Dubai is also known for Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest man-made structure.  While Dubai has also attracted attention for it’s self-sufficient architectural designs.  Below are just a few projects that I wanted to highlight.

Self-Sufficient Rotating Tower:

The Italian-Israeli architect David Fisher has just unveiled the latest design for his twirling tower, and construction is set to begin soon.

The building has been named Rotating Tower as the floors will be capable of rotating around a central axis. It will be continually in motion, changing shape and giving residents the ability to choose a new view at the touch of a button. The building is actually in constant motion as each floor rotates separately giving a new view of the building as it turns. The building also ensures a very high resistance to earthquakes as each floor rotates independently.  The new tower is also the first building of its size to be produced in a factory. Each floor, complete with plumbing, electric connections, and air conditioning will be fabricated in a factory.

Even better, the 59-floor building will be powered entirely by sun and wind energy. And, the architect claims that the building will generate 10 times more energy than required to power it, thus making it a positive energy building. Solar panels will be fitted on the roof to harness sunlight, and a total of 48 wind turbines will be sandwiched between the rotating floors, placed so that they are practically invisible!

Self-Sufficient Ecotopia:

This past February, the Dubai Chamber of Commerce authorized the development of a “free zone” called Food City. A green landscape architect firm, proposed a plan for the city to turn it into an off-the-grid, self-sufficient metropolis. Ideas for sustainable urban planning include vertically stacked landscape surfaces, artificial roof landscapes, aquatic farms, and thermal conditioning.

Food City has been described as the “the marriage of landscapes and urbanism“. The project integrates a variety of proposals to decrease overall energy use — concentrated solar collectors, towers covered in thin-film photovoltaic cells, and methane harvesting through sewage percolation tanks.  Water conservation measures will also be critical for off-the-grid survival in Dubai, like atmospheric water harvesting, grey water recycling, and application of hydroponic sand to minimize water loss. Essentially, the idea is an combination of nearly every urban sustainability initiative in the past few years. It’s certainly utopian, but it may ultimately prove necessary.

Soaring Seawater Farms:

Considering Dubai is surrounded by seawater and relies on imports for nearly all of its food, there is a strong need for addressing the region’s lack of natural resources.  So designers have conceived of a Seawater Vertical Farm that draws upon local resources to create a sustainable source of food for a cleaner and more self-sufficient city. Envisioned as a spire that branches off into soaring sky-gardens, the design uses seawater to create an ecosystem conducive to growing crops amid the clouds.

Many areas of the earth are subject to water shortages considering agriculture consumes nearly 70% of the world’s fresh water. Saltwater, on the other hand, is available in abundance, which makes sustainable desalination an enticing option for producing water for food production. Dubai’s lack of fertile soil and fresh water make it a perfect candidate for seawater farms, which stand to cut down on the emirate’s regular import of goods while significantly reducing the region’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Essentially the Seawater Vertical Farm will utilize seawater to cool and humidify the air that ventilates multiple greenhouses, while sunlight distills the saltwater into fresh water to provide life for plants. While the Seawater Vertical Farm offers an interesting source of sustainable agriculture, its implementation may be quite a ways off.

-Danielle-

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