Rotating building set to make heads turn in Dubai

Dubai Property Ring plans to build 24 buildings around the world - 24 in each time zone - that will rotate 360 degrees at an imperceptible speed and give everyone in the building the same view, said Tav Singh, the company's director.

The first of its buildings will be located in City of Arabia in Dubai, and the ground breaking is scheduled for next month.

The 55° Time Dubai - so named because Dubai sits on 55 degrees longitude - will be 30 storeys high and sit on a circle of bearings that will actually lift the 80,000 tonne building up and rotate it once an hour by a distance of about 500 millimetres.

It will have a central core that holds the water and plumbing system.

Nicholas Cooper, the engineer who devised the system for the building, said it was important to convey to potential buyers that the building's rotating speed will be slow. 'It's not going to be a Disney ride,' he said.

All of the power needed to rotate the building will be obtained via solar energy, he noted.

The Dhs700m building will have 200 apartments, and prices will start at Dhs7,000 ($1,905) per square foot. Over 100 units have been sold so far, Singh said.

Not surprisingly one of the first cities that has shown interest in the project is Las Vegas. Others include Prague and Doha.

Keep up with all our Cityscape coverage