NEWFOUNDLAND, CANARY WHARF
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“Our solution was an external diagrid, a naturally stable structure,” he details,” and which allowed us to transfer the forces away from the tunnels.”
This external diagrid is based on a braced tube structure, where lateral loads are resisted due to the design working as a hollow cantilever perpendicular to the ground. In effect, by using an assembly of columns and beams, a rigid frame is formed that constitutes a “dense and strong” structural wall. It is designed to be sufficiently strong to allow the interior of the building to be simply framed for gravity loads.
Lee tells me that as opposed to using a traditional core-loaded building, the design resulted in the building being “30% taller, 30% lighter, and 10% quicker to build.” He comments: “This is clearly the most important innovation, and allowed us to effectively maximise the height of the building with great potential for the architecture.”
A hybrid
The rest of the above ground structure is a hybrid steel and concrete frame, constructed in eight-storey lifts that required close tolerances. According to the architect, this core was constructed “quite rapidly,”
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with the diagrid structure following close behind, providing structural stability as the tower progressed.
As the team moved up the building, they utilised a number of different types of construction to create the varying floor plates inside this structure – all catering for the differing needs of the building’s functions. On the intermediate floors between the nodes, for example, a post tension concrete solution was utilised, which allowed for thin slabs and a reduction in the amount of reinforcement necessary, and weight. Then, at the node floors, the team used a steel beam solution with precast concrete slab units. This created a deck between the buildings, which performed as a platform from which to create the next four floors of the diagrid, and separated the work above from the construction on the intermediate floors. “Although none of the techniques we have used are unique on their own, bringing them together made for a very innovative solution, resulting in a hybrid building that is very efficient,” says Lee.
A sculpture for the city Just as their work on the structural solutions, HCL carefully curated the
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With only four internal columns, all near the building’s core, the clear- span structure allowed for large open plan layouts
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