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Dutch architecture firm MVRDV said they proposed its “Cloud” design because it challenged the mundane shape of the typical skyscraper. A pair of luxury residential towers in Seoul would be joined in the middle by a cloud-like shape, billowing out like a tutu around two legs.

(I saw film of the "cloud" part, and it looked really NEAT to me! This is the CNN report I saw on it; I couldn't live in one of those "cloud" apartments, but I think they look really neat and innovative!)

But when a press release went out about the design on Dec. 7, announcing the residences as part of a plan to extend the city’s business district, a playful cumulonimbus is not the image many saw. Instead, some were taken back to 9/11, and the smoke that filled the sky after the planes hit the World Trade Center.

Some media outlets stoked this fire. The Los Angeles Times, for example, leads their story by saying that the proposed high-rises categorically “evoke New York’s World Trade Center towers in mid-explosion in the terrifying moments after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.” But, the Dutch firm said in an apology, that was not the case for everyone.

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“The Cloud was designed based on parameters such as sunlight, outside spaces, living quality for inhabitants and the city,” they wrote. “It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks, nor did we see the resemblance during the design process. We sincerely apologize to anyone whose feelings we have hurt, it was not our intention.”

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It seems reasonable that no firm that wanted to stay in business would champion such a plan if that connection were known. The blowback the firm describes on their Facebook page is another testament to that line of logic. “A real media storm has started,” they wrote, “and we [received] threatening emails and calls of angry people calling us Al Qaeda lovers or worse.”

Recognizing that the design is legitimately upsetting for some, and assuming that the firm truly didn’t see the connection, where does the fault lie? Did the firm fail to be sufficiently thoughtful about what the design might dredge up for some people, particularly Americans? Is there also a mistake being made by concentrating so heavily on that symbolism?

In any case, the developer has said that the design for the high-rises is still up in the air, and after this PR debacle, it seems unlikely that MVRDV will be coming away with the bid. http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/12/12/critics-say-korean-skyscraper-desi
gn-evokes-exploding-twin-towers/

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Upon closer inspection, it's a pretty cool design. with jutting units and trees / gardens on the various roof tops.

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Upon closer inspection, it's a pretty cool design. with jutting units and trees / gardens on the various roof tops.

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But the World, the ambitiously-constructed archipelago of islands shaped like the countries of the globe, is sinking back into the sea, according to evidence cited before a property tribunal.

The islands were intended to be developed with tailor-made hotel complexes and luxury villas, and sold to millionaires. They are off the coast of Dubai and accessible by yacht or motor boat.

Now their sands are eroding and the navigational channels between them are silting up, the British lawyer for a company bringing a case against the state-run developer, Nakheel, has told judges.

"The islands are gradually falling back into the sea," Richard Wilmot-Smith QC, for Penguin Marine, said. The evidence showed "erosion and deterioration of The World islands", he added.

With all but one of the islands still uninhabited – Greenland – and that one a showpiece owned by the ruler of Dubai, most of the development plans have been brought to a crashing halt by the financial crisis.

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In a 2009 article describing the collapsing Dubai economy, The New York Times reported that the Palm was sinking and this has been confirmed now by geological surveys, at the moment it is 5 millimetres (0.20 in) per year but this could increase rapidly. Furthermore there are many reported cases where people had bought houses before they were built and are furious about the space available now and the way they seem to be living on top of each other.

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Dubai has been slapped down. Half of all construction projects are on hold, the stock market value has tumbled 70%, and banks aren't lending. The government is doing everything it can to make the news seem less dire, but word has been flooding out.

Expats are so terrified of being locked up for owing money on their condos that they're fleeing the crippled city in droves, some taping notes of apology to their Beemers in the airport parking lots as they fly for safety. With the country ending 55,000 residency visas in January alone, nearly twice the rate of a year ago, foreigners are given no choice but to run like hell.

Debtor's prisons? What the Dickens?

Mainstream American observers were outraged and called for a boycott of such a draconian government while a major American tour operator, IsramWorld, which run trips to 56 countries pulled the plug on further tours to Dubai. A new mantra rose among tourism leaders: "Bye-bye, Dubai."

Since then, Dubai's tourism reputation has crumbled.
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The famous Queen Elizabeth 2 ocean liner, retired last year by Cunard, was supposed to become a floating luxury hotel, but now it looks like she may end up on the scrap heap instead of with a velvet rope around her. Plans for Dubai versions of four American theme parks, including a Busch Gardens and a SeaWorld to be built on an artificial island shaped like Shamu, are now on ice. The Palm Trump Hotel and Tower is dead, as are plans to construct a building that's one kilometer tall. Dubai already has the world's tallest building, the Burj Dubai, although it's largely empty -- a tombstone to the city's high life.

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