Interesting, Out of This World Building of the Week.

On Shin Chan Comel blog I found this crazy building: the Bahrain World Trade Center.

It is fascinating and audacious. Maybe even a bit suicidal. I'm no engineer but those fans do look dangerous.

Supposedly, this building will be able to create its own energy through those three eoliennes that you can see attached on its bridges.

Here's what korel (?) has to say about it:

"Have you ever heard about a building which has its own wind turbine and the turbine itself generates some of the power needed by the building so as to reduce the cost of electricity? Well, for me this is the first time i ever heard about this concept.

The idea of this wind turbine really made me curious and as a result, i spent one hour just watching this documentary..MegaStructures on National Geographic Channel..hehe.

The building im referring to is Bahrain World Trade Center.

It is a 240 m (787 ft) high twin tower complex, located in Manama, the capital of Bahrain.

Bahrain world trade center is the first and the only one building in this world installed with wind turbines where the wind turbines are considered as one of the building itself.

This building is same as Malaysia's Petronas Twin Towers where each tower is connected to the others by bridge, but for this building it has 3 bridges.

The bridge span is 30 meter while the diameter of each of the wind turbine is 29 m.

So, there is only 1 meter gap left...from the tip of the blade to the nearest window..huhuhuhu very dangerous.

A lot of difficulties faced by the project team in ensuring that this wind turbine idea can be accomplished. Just watching the part of the process of installing the wind turbine in this documentary really amazed me.

As you can see above, just imagine that the engineer responsible in designing the wind turbine had to stand on bridge while the installation is in progress (from lifting to installing)..not just sitting and designing in the office..they themselves had to go to the project site and take part in the installation process...hahaha!

The process of lifting each of the wind turbine was difficult because the wind factor of the area must be considered. A speed of 21km/hour is the maximum speed allowable for the process of lifting. The schedule given for this whole installation are 7 days..but the lifting process had to be postponed several times due to the inconsistency of the wind speed during that time period. But they managed to finish it within the schedule."

Bahrain is, of course, an insanely rich little island in the Middle East, in the Gulf region. Dubai and Kowait seemed to feel the effect of the financial crisis. Bahrain, not quite yet.