Gyratory Tower Modelled in SketchUp

This model is based on Santiago Calatrava's famous 'Turning Torso' building in Malmö, Sweden. It was one of my attempts to see how far I could push SketchUp. SketchUp is often thought of as an 'orthogonal' modeller – I hope that the above model shows otherwise. Basically one floor was modelled, then 'twisted'. After some clean-up, the single storey was turned into a component, then a 3-storey unit was created, complete with structural spars, again as a component. Each 3-storey unit was then duplicated and rotated to create the final effect. The beauty of modelling as a component at each stage was that changes made at any level would 'filter up' to the rest of the model.

Here's an animation of the SketchUp model hosted at YouTube:

This is done using SketchUp's 'X-Ray' mode, so you can see more of the structure.

And here's an animation of a much more-accurate model. This one is a pretty accurate copy of Calatrava's Turning Torso.