The Rotating Apartment Building Where Everyone Lives in the Penthouse
A designer has developed a futuristic concept that solves the issue of housing inequality.
Taiwanese industrial designer Shin Kuo came up with an idea of a spinning apartment building for his thesis project at the San Francisco Academy of Art University, which he titled Turn to the Future.
The result was a building where each unit moves down a roller-coaster style track that wraps about a 27 story frame - offering ever-changing 360 degree views of the city around.
The building moves on a 'pre-determined timeline' and once a unit reaches the bottom floor, it is pulled back to the top again by a crane system.
In order to ensure safety, before each move the doors to the apartments will be locked and gas, electric and water lines detach before automatically reattaching at the next destination port.
Kuo said that he thought up the idea as a solution to the problem of wealthy residents always getting the best view in high-rise buildings.
"According to my research, urbanization has become a big trend in the world. Because of that, buildings will become higher and higher, and more and more people who live in the lower floors of buildings will get their view blocked."
"Based on the results from both the Asian and the American market research, there is a [difference] in sales or rental prices between the lower floor units and higher floor units in the same building. In the future, all the top floors of buildings will be owned by people with very high incomes and the middle to lower income people will only have a limited view from their living spaces," Kuo wrote.
Kuo told the Huffington Post that he's currently looking for an investor to help make a smaller five-story version of his plan, and says that the idea could be used as a hotel or luxury building, in addition to an apartment building.
