What is that thing in the middle at the top of the proposed Anara tower in Dubai? In most of the renderings it looks like a wind turbine integrated into the building, but when you look closely (image below) you can see that the hub is inhabited and that it is supported by the three blades. So now architects don't even bother with the real thing, they just borrow the imagery and put fake turbine-like things on the top of their buildings because they look cool. ...

Roof of Rolf Disch's Heliotrop House.

Passive solar through windows or active solar though hot water or photovoltaics work best when perpendicular to the sun. So cue up Paul McCartney's "I'll follow the sun" and see seven houses and towers that are designed to do exactly that. ...

Now under construction, 23 Marina sets a new bar for wretched excess: 57 of its 288 apartments have private swimming pools on the balconies. They are not huge at 5.2 meters (17 feet) by 2 meters (6-1/2 feet) but multiply that by 57 and you have a lot of surface area evaporating fresh water into the dry desert air. One of these puts paid to all the so-called "green" buildings going up in Dubai.

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