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Revolutionary Tower in Brazil
An anonymous reader writes "Have you ever thought about retiring in Brazil? If you have thought about doing so, this might be just the piece of real estate you were looking for. 'An unusual apartment building was inaugurated in Brazil, each of whose 11 storeys turns independently, giving lucky residents 360-degree views of the eco-friendly city of Curitiba.' Now, if they could only tilt it a little bit to look like Pisa's Tower..."
Seems like on some level, this would be extremely disorienting after a period of time. I'm sure the view is probably spectacular, but you'd probably find just one view you liked best and and be tempted to keep your "floor" stopped in that direction thus defeating the purpose of the rotation.
No man's an island, unless he's had too much to drink and wets the bed.
How do they handle the air, water, and electrical I wonder? That has to be a bit of engineering in itself.
My guess is that they have the electric motors on the outer edge of the place, not on the inside. It could come with two motors per floor at opposing points of the circle. Since the place probably doesn't rotate extremely fast, even at the highest setting, then the motors wouldn't need to drain a ton of power.
This seems more or less to be a gimmick. I bet the people living there will only use their novelty spinning condos for a month or so, and then get sick of it and show it to people when they come to visit and whatnot. If you have an entire floor of a circular building, then you can walk around and get all the views you'd ever like. I think the nicest thing is the fact you can keep it in one spot for a month, and then when you get sick of the view out your bedroom/kitchen/living room window, you can rotate it 90 degrees and get a whole new view for another month.
But is that feature really worth the extra price? And how likely is this thing to break down?
Ohhhh my god. I have news for your buddy. . .
Going south, there are no tacos after Mexico and some countries in central america.
This reminds me of a story about a guy from Paraguay (hint: South America, no tacos). He was about half an hour trying to explain to a texan moman that he was NOT from Mexico, that he ate his first taco here in the US, pais diferente comprende? like the difference between the US and Canada. . .
A couple of minutes later, the conversation switched to something else and she gave the following example: I am proud of being Texan, the same way that you may be proud of being Mexican
Ignore, Retry? . . . map? . . . compass? . . . condom maybe?. . . anyone plese? . . .
(blue screen of death)
Note the picture of the transportation system.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
If you've taken any physics course you should recognize that rotating a floor involves no actual work except the torque needed to start or stop rotation. Once it is rotating at the desired speed you just have to overcome whatever friction that would have been minimized by design.
I think the more puzzling issue is plumbing. If you look closely at the photos of the control touchscreen and the tower viewed from outside you can see there is a significant fraction of each unit that is in a stationary part that might be 20% of the floor space (bottom left on the screen, not the 'spindle'). You could probably do all the plumbing (kitchen and bathroom) in that fraction.
Maybe it's a bit over the top but what a nifty way to be able to handle natural lighting issues at various times of the day. Also it would be step up for Austin Powers from a bed that rotates to an entire flat that rotates. Now for the most important question: do they have inexpensive broadband access in Curitiba?
Well I'm much more interested in the bearings they used.
Smoking is an expensive, slow, and unreliable method of suicide.
No pictures, unfortunately, but a good description of the late American architect Richard Foster's rotating house can be found here: Their life revolved around home It is a stunner to be found in once-rural Connecticut, glass walled on a long-stemmed base. (Foster was a partner of Philip Johnson) For the most part, he relied on off-the-shelf, low-maintenance, industrial solutions for electricity, plumbing, etc. The house, 500,000 pounds, the motor, 1 1/4 horsepower.
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
Actually for that kinda load they tend to use some kind of oil film bearing as they have nearly infinite load capacity. I read about a telesope that used them that weighed many tons you could turn by hand.
Smoking is an expensive, slow, and unreliable method of suicide.