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..."

Comments

Plumbing?

[cryogenix]

How do they handle the air, water, and electrical I wonder? That has to be a bit of engineering in itself.

Re:Think about the electric bill

[PabloJones]

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?

Re:Disorienting?

[MmmDee]

Well, for once I did RTFA, and having lived previously in San Antonio (Texas) as well as Dallas (Texas), I've had many opportunities to dine at a couple of tower-top revolving restaurants (rotation ~1/hr). While not "exactly dizzying", it can be somewhat disconcerting to see the scenery changing minutely but perceptively. When writing the comment, I was thinking more along the terms of subtle changes over months/years of "exposure" as I'm not aware of any prior prolonged human experience like this being studied/reported... I was just curious. If nothing else, I'm sure lying in bed at night, you'd feel the machinery.