Structural Designer
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (Europe) LLP
Client Name
Manhattan Loft Corporation
Location
London, UK
PRINCIPAL CONTRACTOR Bouygues UK
ARCHITECT Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
KEY CONTRACTORS Studio KO & SOM - Residential interior design Space Copenhagen & SOM - Hotel interior design Paul Nulty Lighting Design - Lighting Martha Schwartz, Inc. - Landscape design Hoare Lea - MEP/fire protection engineering Greengage - Sustainable design
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
A 143m tall, 42-storey residential tower, which includes a five-star hotel and three sky gardens carved dramatically out of the building’s profile. The tower is intended to create a new model for high-rise urban living in London.
Judge's comment: This tower has a striking presence on the skyline of London that caught the imagination of the judges. The structural engineering design demanded that the engineers provide ways for the vertical forces to transfer around the dramatic notches in the facades. They used a hybrid transfer structure, combining steel in the perimeter belt trusses and post-tensioned concrete in the outrigger structure. The cantilevering transfer structures were incorporated into the storeys above the notches. This building successfully achieves an architectural aesthetic that defies gravity. It required structural design intelligence to achieve this efficiently, and to allow it to be constructed within predictable tolerances in spite of the disrupted vertical load paths.
Judge's comment:
This tower has a striking presence on the skyline of London that caught the imagination of the judges.
The structural engineering design demanded that the engineers provide ways for the vertical forces to transfer around the dramatic notches in the facades. They used a hybrid transfer structure, combining steel in the perimeter belt trusses and post-tensioned concrete in the outrigger structure. The cantilevering transfer structures were incorporated into the storeys above the notches.
This building successfully achieves an architectural aesthetic that defies gravity. It required structural design intelligence to achieve this efficiently, and to allow it to be constructed within predictable tolerances in spite of the disrupted vertical load paths.