Crazy Dubai

By 2010 Dubai will have its oil reserves tapped out. That’s according to the Economist. And by that time, it will become the center of the world. That’s according to me. 

Let’s begin with the appetizers…

Hydropolis. The world’s first ever underwater resort and hotel.

The World. A resort artificially made to form the islands of the world

Burj Dubai. Will be the world’s tallest building by the time of its completion

Al Burj. Will be taller than Burj Dubai when completed.

The Dancing Towers. They look so.

EP 07 Tower. The towers fluid-like shape is meant to represent Duba’s relationship with the water.

The Dubai Pearl

Abu Dhabi convention center.

And now, to the main course.

The Sama Dubai | Dubai Towers

“The four towers, ranging from 54 to 97 floors, are clustered to form a choreographed sculpture, representing the movement of candlelight”

Finally, the unbelievable – The Rotating Tower. Just believe it.

The Tagum Sports Complex

Besides its controversial city hall opening in 2010, Tagum City will also be putting up an impressive sports complex in the near future. I’d love to say soon, but 10 years isn’t really in the “soon” range.

As you can see in the pictures, the sports complex has a robotic touch to it much like its city hall brother (or sister, if you wish). It must be the same architect, or maybe, Tagum just wants its buildings this way. Some say this complex will to host the SEA Games when completed.

Estimated at P270-million** the sports complex is expected to be completed by 2010***. It will include a 10,000**** capacity grandstand and bleachers, eight-lane rubberized track and field oval, olympic-sized swimming pool, basketball, volleyball and lawn tennis courts plus other support facilities and infrastructures. – RG Alama, PIA Daily News Reader, 2008/04/05

** I personally doubt this budget is enough for a project this big. Some say it must cost around Php 10B, which is actually more believable.I
*** This report is supposedly from the Philippine Information Agency, but the target date is impossible. They must have realized this so they moved it 10 years after. Woah, pretty looong move.
**** Araneta Coliseum is still bigger with 25000 seats

Honestly, it’s quite ambitious for a small and developing city, but I can’t see anything but good coming in for this project.

The City Hall of Tagum

This will be the new city hall in Tagum, expected to open 09.09.09. Poor Davao, the 70-year old city hall looks trash compared to this.

beijing marvels

beijing grabbed the hosting title for 2008’s olympic games, beating the more prominent european cities in the competition. and with the effort china is putting in this big event, its obvious she’s up to impress the world.

the water cube

this one is the national aquatic center which will grace the swimming competitions. its design was patterned after the way bubbles can arrange themselves without trapping any air. because of its highly attractive bluish facade, it is of no surprise that it has been nicknamed as the “water cube”

the bird’s nest

look at this massive steel structure. it’s outer shell is made up of tons and tons of steel bars intertwined in a twig-like manner to form a bowlish roof. because of such a design, no cloumns will be needed, and the structure is to stand on itself.

the bird’s nest, as it is fondly called, is to be olympic’s iconic structure. and because of its revolutionary design, it has been cristicized by conservatives while hailed by many widely open minded engineers.

there are other two important buildings in the beijing olymipics. one the z criss-cross, a two-towered building connected at the top by a horizontal structure, and another one shaped like an egg.

beijing designers are really very creative, huh.

archi fantasies

i felt a sudden surge of thrill and excitement when i saw display boards in array in the finster lobby that day. and i couldn’t help but lose a grasp in the middle of my throat when i realized just what it was.

it was an architecture exhibit. it showcased the best of the archi students’ theses for the year. most of the thesis projects were visions of buildings of modern designs suiting the needs of the local metro. and as a dabawenyo, i marveled at the creative building ideas actually conceptualized to fit the davao map.

for one, there was a model of a theatre, grounded from a futuristic concept, but infused with an ethnic touch. The theatre was called the Teatro Dabawenyo (what a name we could be proud of!). It has a transluscent roof made from patches of overlapping equilaterals of glass of different sizes radiating outward in a doming fashion. A rendering of the design at night shows a magnificent view of the building, where a gleeming light crowns the whole structure. it was a wonder.

Another visionary project that caught my attention was an S-shaped skyscraper which seemed to follow a balancing of forces. half of the building was black, the other was white. on one side is water, on the other side is a garden. It used steel, glass, wood, and concrete, but these were creatively blended to create an anti-stressing picture that many of the buildings lack. it was actually one of the attention grabbers of the exhibit. and it might have been so, because, solely from its elegant facade, one can guess that the building could amount to billions if built.

Other designs in the exhibit include therapy centers, study stations, convention complexes, and entertainment venues. Some are good, the rest are wonderful.