Facing the future all around
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Masdar HQ: building clean
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the UAE. The gallery was established by a group of architects, art collectors and entrepreneurs. Baharak Raoufi, one of the founders, says one of its objectives is to show that the UAE can be one large, open ‘studio’ environment in which art can be found almost everywhere. Basement is currently showing the works of Iranian painter Hannibal Alkhas, who was responsible for establishing Iran’s first modern art gallery, Gilgamesh, in the early 1960s. www.basementdubai.com
04 The Chicago based ‘eco-firm’ Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture have won an international competition to design the Masdar headquarters in the emerging eco-city in Abu Dhabi. Masdar is to become the world’s first carbon neutral city, producing more energy than it uses. The HQ includes a variety of systems that will generate a surplus of energy, eliminate carbon emissions and reduce liquid and solid waste. It will also have one of the world’s largest building-integrated solar energy arrays. www.masdaruae.com
Arabeastern up and running 05 Under the initiative of the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Establishment for Young Business Leaders, a news portal providing information about Dubai and the rest of Middle East, called Arabeastern, officially launches in August. Already up and running, the ambitious site covers politics, business,
All it took was for Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to tell Italian architect and inventor David Fisher: ‘Don’t wait for the future, face the future.’ Fisher grabbed the ball and ran, and his dizzying eighty-floor Rotating Tower design will become reality in two years’ time as construction begins this month. Along with a similar building in Moscow, also by Fisher, the Rotating Tower will be the world’s first building to allow each floor to rotate independently using voice recognition technology. The view will change every one to three hours. There will be luxury apartments on the top ten floors, with a further thirty-five floors of apartments below; the lower floors will include a hotel and retail space. The tower will use photovoltaic cells and wind turbine technology to collect enough energy to power itself; it will also be entirely constructed from prefabricated parts assembled in Italy. www.dynamicarchitecture.net
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culture, sports, science, technology and travel, using in-house reporting and newswires. There are no plans yet for a print version. www.arabeastern.com
Think Pink 06 Daniel Camara and Mitra Khoubrou, formerly of XVA Gallery, have set up Pink Tank, a Dubai-based boutique consultancy providing advisory services in research and culture. Camara and Khoubrou combine management experience at the World Economic Forum, Dubai Holding and XVA, and have produced the successful publications Arab Intelligence Report and Al Manakh. Pink Tank will focus on projects intricately linked to the development of the Gulf region as an enlightened cultural hub. www.pinktank.ae Summer 2008 Alef magazine 35