It’s a case of life imitating art as Death Stars sprout around the globe and the inevitable struggle between competing Galactic Empires will surely annihilate the planet. Rem Koolhaas strikes first with a new scheme for Dubai. It’s like Manhattan…but way more futuristic and in the desert:

[Image via NYT]

The 44-story sphere is actually a “a self-contained three-dimensional urban neighborhood” containing smaller spheres joined together by a series of tubes. As is their nature, OMA seem to be establishing a new intra-office archetype (quick, call the patent office!), as this scheme is not entirely dissimilar from the one they visited with the RAK Convention and Exhibition Centre…

[Image via OMA]

The RAK is a scheme so original, it’s actually Original – as in primoridal. In the architect’s words:

“the sphere and the bar explicitly abandon claims to formal invention or ‘originality’. (The sphere even existed before man itself…) Yet both geometries still continue to feed the architectural imagination: perfectly autonomous shapes, within their bounds the promise of a perfect world.”

Moving on, it’s time to forget about 5-star hotels, because Heerim Architects have designed what appears to be a Death Star Hotel in Baku, Azerbaijain:
[Image via Inhabitat]

The rendering is a bit misleading though, as this isn’t a sphere at all. It’s more of a disk – a Death Palette if you will. Way less terrifying, and way less likely to engineer a complete takeover of the universe. And just for good measure, let’s include the original piece of interstellar architecture that inspired these bold new designs:

[Image via George Lucas' brain]

Oh, and just so this post isn’t ENTIRELY without academic reference, consider this sentence the obligatory Boullee reference.

· City on the Gulf: Koolhaas Lays Out a Grand Urban Experiment in Dubai [NY Times]
· Death Star Lunar Hotel in Baku, Azerbaijan [Inhabitat]
· Rem Koolhaas, Tunisia, and Sandcrawlers [Life Without Buildings]
· Otto Wagner and the Millenium Falcon [Life Without Buildings]
· OMA will Eat Itself [Life Without Buildings]