world’s first moving building,

Construction of the world’s first moving building, a 80-storey tower with revolving floors which give it an ever-shifting shape, is due to begin.

The Dynamic Tower, which will be built in Dubai, will feature 80 pre-fabricated apartments, spinning independently of one another.

“It’s the first building that rotates, moves, and changes shape,” said David Fisher, the tower’s architect.

“This building never looks the same, not once in a lifetime,” he added.

The innovative, 420-metre (1,378-foot) building’s apartments would spin a full 360 degrees, at voice command, around a central column by means of 79 giant power-generating wind turbines located between each floor.

The slender would be energy self-sufficient as the turbines would produce enough electricity to power the entire building and even feed extra power back into the grid, said the Italian architect at the unveiling of the project in New York.

The apartments, which will take between one and three hours to make a complete rotation, will cost from $3.7m to $36m.

There are also plans to build a similar, 70-story skyscraper in Moscow.

“I call these buildings designed by time, shaped by life,” said the Florence-based architect. “These buildings will open our vision all around, to a new life.”

The skyscraper will cost an estimated $700m to build and should be up and running in Dubai in 2010.