Burj Al-Taqa: Zero-Emissions Tower in the Middle East
More and more extravagant and innovative buildings and towers are sprouting in the Middle Eastern skyline, especially in places like the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The latest proposed tower project is the state-of-the-art Burj Al-Taqa ("Energy Tower").
Designed by German architect Eckhard Gerber and cutting a 322 meter high silhouette, this commercial high rise envisioned for builds in Riyadh, Dubai and Bahrain, will produce zero emissions and use sun, wind and water to create all of its own energy.
The 68-story structure will use natural air conditioning based on ancient Persian architectural feature consisting of wind towers that draw wind in and down to be pre-cooled with sea-water and run through the building for ventilation and air-conditioning purposes.
The tower's façade will be built from a new generation of vacuum glazing which is meant to largely shield the interior of the tower from the outside desert heat.
A wind turbine on top of the building, together with two more roof-mounted photo voltaic arrays will produce sufficient electricity to meet the building's needs. Additional energy needs will be supplied by a floating island of solar panels.
Any excess electricity will applied to generating more energy – extracting hydrogen from seawater for fuel cells.
[Source: Spiegel Online]
[Via: Inhabitat]
Burj Dubai World's Tallest Building Greater Middle East Democracy in the Middle East First Middle East Sex Survey Results Djerba on CNN's Inside The Middle EastThere is also a nice similar project in Dubai where the different towers in building will actually rotate in order to generate energy!!
Here is the link for that: http://www.dynamicarchitecture.net/
It is nice to see environmental conscienceless increasing here in the Middle East.
Posted by: za3tar at October 23, 2007 08:43 AM