Horizontal versus vertical. Or for? Why Lakhta Center "lying" dominant
A dent in the facade, with a diameter of 19 m; a mirror ball floating in the air; broadcast of mood through a four-story screen - the multifunctional building of Lakhta Center is fraught with many surprises. And it is precisely it that will give the tower of the Lakhta complex, beautiful but uniform in its office content, the status of the new center of attraction of St. Petersburg.
The invention of skyscrapers in their modern form was, for the most part, forced. If earlier people, raising the arches of bell towers to heaven, tried to get closer to God, then the creators of the first skyscrapers in Chicago and New York simply wanted to plant as many clerks as possible on one square meter of prohibitively expensive land in the centers of megacities. Skyscrapers kept monofunctional for a long time. They were offices, residential buildings, hotels. A wide step towards multifunctionality was made only in the early 1960s. A striking example of this approach was the 59-story 246-meter Pan Am Building in Midtown New York (now the MetLife Building).
Built in 1963 by the design of Emery Roth, Walter Gropius and Pietro Belushi, the skyscraper became the headquarters of Pan Am airline, which occupies 15 floors, but the fact that the building was connected by an escalator to the Grand Central station and was conveniently located as a whole, made it commercial attractive. On floors not occupied by aviators, objects of commerce and hotels were located.
A worthy successor to Pan Am Building was the John Hancock Center (JHC), built in 1969 in Chicago.
Photo by Hedrich Blessing. A source of
457 m on a spire, 100 floors, with strict zoning: several floors of shops, several offices, apartments, as well as a sky lobby, a swimming pool, a television station, a restaurant, an observatory.
Restaurant at the John Hancock Center.Source
To place such a number of diverse objects, a huge area would be required, therefore, in the conditions of highly urbanized development, the formation of compact multifunctional centers with vertical organization allows achieving maximum economic return, which is task No. 1 for the developer.
However, the basis for deciding on the construction of a skyscraper today is not always the lack of space. After all, the supertall is prestige. And so the Petronas Twin Towers appear in Kuala Lumpur.
Photo by Katerina Petrova. A source
In the capital of Malaysia, there would be enough free space for building a lower building. But the oil workers decided to kill two birds with one stone: to connect their name with one of the most original buildings in the world and create a new super-attraction. The problem was solved brilliantly, and many people in Kuala Lumpur today come only to see with their own eyes the most impressive twins in the world. At the same time, take a walk in the beautiful park, which is located at the foot of the towers, visit the theater, art gallery, concert hall, eat in numerous cafes and restaurants, wander around the shopping center. And all this at a time when tens of thousands of people are working in offices located in the towers themselves.
Photo by Jay Zhang. A source
It was this multifunctional model that formed the basis for the design of the Lakhta Center in St. Petersburg. There was no war for square meters - the complex is being built on alluvial territory, where there used to be a sand warehouse. The St. Petersburg skyscraper must also correspond to the status of a world-famous energy company. At the same time, the city receives not only a new center of business activity, but also a modern recreational zone. Her heart is a multifunctional building, which has not yet received a proper name and, in everyday life, is simply called: MFZ.
The architects went through many configuration options for the object that complements the tower - there was even an idea to place a recreation area inside a hill with a green roof, but in the end they settled on antagonism - they balanced the high-rise dominant horizontal. If you look from the Primorsky highway, the MFZ resembles open palms, as if inviting people passing to the Lakhta Center.
It turned out beautifully, conceptually, but purging the layout in the wind tunnel revealed serious problems. Between the MPF and the tower, air currents formed that could easily knock a person down. The problem was solved only with the help of a radical change in the project: the multifunctional building was moved away from the tower and turned 180 degrees. By the way, this also reduced the load on the soil in the zone of overlapping influence of the tower and the MPF.
Despite the fact that the MFZ construction is impressive - the maximum height exceeds 80 m, the length is about 300 m, it does not look massive. It's all in the shape of the roof and the negative angles of the facades, which give the building lightness. However, in many respects due to this, the MPF is structurally even more complex than a tower. Metalwork alone uses more than 24 thousand tons.
And what are the consoles, the reach of which exceeds 20 m. The stiffness and bearing capacity of this design is provided by steel two-story metal trusses passing through two reinforced concrete cores. Nuclei are the main load-bearing elements that receive both vertical and horizontal loads and transfer it to the foundation.
The front of the consoles will be supported by transparent columns glued from five layers of glass.
Glass pillars-racks, while in protective sheathing
However, designers, talking about the complexity of a multifunctional building, are not talking more about the construct, but about the formation of technological connections that distribute the flows of people between the functional zones of the MPF and, most importantly, separating them from utilities and zones service.
One of the most successful ideas is the use of a logistic passage, which on the -1 floor separates the North and South blocks, providing transport links between all functional areas.
The idea is simple: in the underground part of the MFZ, a transport corridor is organized, wide enough and high enough to allow even full-sized trucks to pass through. After checking, the car drives inside, drives up to its landing stage, unloads or loads without disturbing anyone - there is enough space for another truck to pass through - and drives out from the other side of the building. The movement is strictly one-sided: no turns inside, which means no traffic jams. And everything is hidden from view - visitors to the complex do not see how they bring goods, nor how they take out garbage.
There is a corridor above the logistics passage for laying utilities. Heat mains, water pipes, cables - everything is also hidden from the eyes of visitors.
Atrium is located in the upper part of this peculiar pie - the main pedestrian artery of the MFZ, from which you can get into any functional area. It will be very beautiful here.
In principle, it’s beautiful now.
The roof of the atrium is made of an ETFE membrane film , tens of times lighter than glass, but at the same time transmits more light, thermally insulating, ultra-strong and resistant to moisture penetration. The same is used in the sliding roof of the stadium "St. Petersburg".
Photo - Sergey Dronyaev. Source
From it, gas-filled illuminated bubble pillows of the facade of the Alliance Arena in Munich are made.
Photo source
From the ends, the atrium will be closed by suspended glass facades placed with a counterclone, which are almost invisible due to the lack of a frame.
The end facades will enter the slots of the internal atrium facades, suspended on the supporting arch, and fixed on vertical columns using stainless steel elements - spiders.
For the connection between the blocks, transition bridges are organized.
They will also function as observation platforms and even transport communications. On such a bridge, it is planned to deliver food to the restaurant of the multifunctional transformable hall located opposite.
The hall itself is one of the largest premises of the complex, occupying seven floors at once. Due to the lifting platforms with a length of one spectator row and a width of the entire hall, the space can take on any configuration - from a classic stall to an amphitheater and a completely flat platform, which means it can perform a variety of tasks. Multifunctional room. Infographics. Clickable While the hall looks like this, but now you can see the scale of the object.
In the hall of the transformed hall will be placed one of the main visual chips of the MFZ, and the whole Lakhta Center. On the load-bearing wall facing the Primorsky highway, between two threads of the facade with the help of LED illumination, a semblance of a screen with an area of over 2 thousand square meters and a height of 4 floors will be created. But this is not a giant TV for displaying ads - the images broadcast by the media facade will create a certain mood - depending on the weather, on the time of day, time of year.
The facade of a multifunctional building is not always laid in two strands - only about half of the building.
Hanging the second thread of the facade on the MPF
The second thread is laid where it is necessary to hide what is happening inside the complex. The fact is that restaurants, offices, sports and medical facilities are designed, illuminated, decorated in different ways, and these differences will obviously violate the sculptural form of the MPF. The second thread will preserve it, and in addition, it is due to this constructive - inclined - element that the unique shape of the building is created. The main facade consists of vertical parts.
In general, the total area of the facades of the MFZ exceeds 60 thousand square meters. Atrium walls are also a glass facade. In one place, even with a dent. It is this impression that will be created where the 19-meter sparkling ball of the planetarium will be located.
The planetarium is one of the most interesting objects located in the MFZ. It is assembled from polished triangular stainless steel sheets mounted on a tubular structure and rests on a supporting concrete structure.
Planetarium shell sample. Lakhta Center prototype site, 2016. The
facade of the atrium in this place will be made of curved glass, there will remain a gap of 1.5 meters between it and the planetarium ball. This will create the illusion that the three-quarter planetarium is immersed in the facade and soars in the air.
However, a planetarium is not only a beautiful thing. Its filling promises to gather crowds of children, tourists, and, in general, everyone who loves science, and not only astronomy, at the Lakhta Center. Planetarium Lakhta Center. Infographics. Clickable
In the southern part of the atrium, a zone will be created for organizing various exhibitions, and a 12-meter ceiling height will allow very large exhibits to be placed here.
In the MFZ sports complex it will be possible not only to train, but also to enjoy the view of the Gulf of Finland directly from the pool, without leaving the water. The list of functional blocks of the MFZ also includes a medical center, a restaurant area, a small shopping gallery.
In general, the tower is the main visual magnet of the new St. Petersburg from the outside, and the MPF, we hope, will attract its functionality to Lakhta Center.
***
The material used photographs of Vyacheslav Korolev, as well as a photo from the archive of the Lakhta Center
***
On May 31, Habr reached the age of 12, already revered for publication. We wish one of the most beloved portals even more scale and scope for creativity.
Stay with those who set the vector and level.
And conquer all conceived heights.
And of course, to celebrate many more over 12 years each - with a lot of new ones, and certainly - with old readers and authors, collaborators.
And also - it was nice to get a diploma for the best engineering blog. Thanks! We are pleased to be part of a large, interesting, vibrant mosaic - posts, discussions, authors, readers - all that is called Habr.
Lakhta Center spokeswoman Tatyana Yuryeva at the Habr Awards. Moscow, May 31, Loft Wednesday.
And here is the diploma itself)
Mono and a lot: how the functionality of skyscrapers has changed
The invention of skyscrapers in their modern form was, for the most part, forced. If earlier people, raising the arches of bell towers to heaven, tried to get closer to God, then the creators of the first skyscrapers in Chicago and New York simply wanted to plant as many clerks as possible on one square meter of prohibitively expensive land in the centers of megacities. Skyscrapers kept monofunctional for a long time. They were offices, residential buildings, hotels. A wide step towards multifunctionality was made only in the early 1960s. A striking example of this approach was the 59-story 246-meter Pan Am Building in Midtown New York (now the MetLife Building).
Built in 1963 by the design of Emery Roth, Walter Gropius and Pietro Belushi, the skyscraper became the headquarters of Pan Am airline, which occupies 15 floors, but the fact that the building was connected by an escalator to the Grand Central station and was conveniently located as a whole, made it commercial attractive. On floors not occupied by aviators, objects of commerce and hotels were located.
A worthy successor to Pan Am Building was the John Hancock Center (JHC), built in 1969 in Chicago.
Photo by Hedrich Blessing. A source of
457 m on a spire, 100 floors, with strict zoning: several floors of shops, several offices, apartments, as well as a sky lobby, a swimming pool, a television station, a restaurant, an observatory.
Restaurant at the John Hancock Center.Source
To place such a number of diverse objects, a huge area would be required, therefore, in the conditions of highly urbanized development, the formation of compact multifunctional centers with vertical organization allows achieving maximum economic return, which is task No. 1 for the developer.
However, the basis for deciding on the construction of a skyscraper today is not always the lack of space. After all, the supertall is prestige. And so the Petronas Twin Towers appear in Kuala Lumpur.
Photo by Katerina Petrova. A source
In the capital of Malaysia, there would be enough free space for building a lower building. But the oil workers decided to kill two birds with one stone: to connect their name with one of the most original buildings in the world and create a new super-attraction. The problem was solved brilliantly, and many people in Kuala Lumpur today come only to see with their own eyes the most impressive twins in the world. At the same time, take a walk in the beautiful park, which is located at the foot of the towers, visit the theater, art gallery, concert hall, eat in numerous cafes and restaurants, wander around the shopping center. And all this at a time when tens of thousands of people are working in offices located in the towers themselves.
Photo by Jay Zhang. A source
It was this multifunctional model that formed the basis for the design of the Lakhta Center in St. Petersburg. There was no war for square meters - the complex is being built on alluvial territory, where there used to be a sand warehouse. The St. Petersburg skyscraper must also correspond to the status of a world-famous energy company. At the same time, the city receives not only a new center of business activity, but also a modern recreational zone. Her heart is a multifunctional building, which has not yet received a proper name and, in everyday life, is simply called: MFZ.
Horizontal skyscraper in Lakhta
The architects went through many configuration options for the object that complements the tower - there was even an idea to place a recreation area inside a hill with a green roof, but in the end they settled on antagonism - they balanced the high-rise dominant horizontal. If you look from the Primorsky highway, the MFZ resembles open palms, as if inviting people passing to the Lakhta Center.
It turned out beautifully, conceptually, but purging the layout in the wind tunnel revealed serious problems. Between the MPF and the tower, air currents formed that could easily knock a person down. The problem was solved only with the help of a radical change in the project: the multifunctional building was moved away from the tower and turned 180 degrees. By the way, this also reduced the load on the soil in the zone of overlapping influence of the tower and the MPF.
Julia Gulyak, Head of the Lakhta Center Design Department,
“It was a very high risk — changing the project in such a way when the project documentation is ready — you can seriously disrupt the construction time.” But we managed, and the new layout at least did not worsen the appearance of the complex, and in my opinion, it became even better due to the fact that the two volumes were torn off from each other. "
Despite the fact that the MFZ construction is impressive - the maximum height exceeds 80 m, the length is about 300 m, it does not look massive. It's all in the shape of the roof and the negative angles of the facades, which give the building lightness. However, in many respects due to this, the MPF is structurally even more complex than a tower. Metalwork alone uses more than 24 thousand tons.
And what are the consoles, the reach of which exceeds 20 m. The stiffness and bearing capacity of this design is provided by steel two-story metal trusses passing through two reinforced concrete cores. Nuclei are the main load-bearing elements that receive both vertical and horizontal loads and transfer it to the foundation.
The front of the consoles will be supported by transparent columns glued from five layers of glass.
Glass pillars-racks, while in protective sheathing
However, designers, talking about the complexity of a multifunctional building, are not talking more about the construct, but about the formation of technological connections that distribute the flows of people between the functional zones of the MPF and, most importantly, separating them from utilities and zones service.
About the functionality of the MFZ. Where did all the trucks go?
One of the most successful ideas is the use of a logistic passage, which on the -1 floor separates the North and South blocks, providing transport links between all functional areas.
The idea is simple: in the underground part of the MFZ, a transport corridor is organized, wide enough and high enough to allow even full-sized trucks to pass through. After checking, the car drives inside, drives up to its landing stage, unloads or loads without disturbing anyone - there is enough space for another truck to pass through - and drives out from the other side of the building. The movement is strictly one-sided: no turns inside, which means no traffic jams. And everything is hidden from view - visitors to the complex do not see how they bring goods, nor how they take out garbage.
There is a corridor above the logistics passage for laying utilities. Heat mains, water pipes, cables - everything is also hidden from the eyes of visitors.
Atrium: largest, pedestrian, not glass
Atrium is located in the upper part of this peculiar pie - the main pedestrian artery of the MFZ, from which you can get into any functional area. It will be very beautiful here.
In principle, it’s beautiful now.
The roof of the atrium is made of an ETFE membrane film , tens of times lighter than glass, but at the same time transmits more light, thermally insulating, ultra-strong and resistant to moisture penetration. The same is used in the sliding roof of the stadium "St. Petersburg".
Photo - Sergey Dronyaev. Source
From it, gas-filled illuminated bubble pillows of the facade of the Alliance Arena in Munich are made.
Photo source
From the ends, the atrium will be closed by suspended glass facades placed with a counterclone, which are almost invisible due to the lack of a frame.
The end facades will enter the slots of the internal atrium facades, suspended on the supporting arch, and fixed on vertical columns using stainless steel elements - spiders.
Igor Romanenko, engineer at the Lakhta Center construction control:
“Please note that the crane is reflected sequentially in two facades at once without distortion, which indicates the high quality of the glass itself and the assembly of facade elements.”
For the connection between the blocks, transition bridges are organized.
They will also function as observation platforms and even transport communications. On such a bridge, it is planned to deliver food to the restaurant of the multifunctional transformable hall located opposite.
Seven-story transformer hall
The hall itself is one of the largest premises of the complex, occupying seven floors at once. Due to the lifting platforms with a length of one spectator row and a width of the entire hall, the space can take on any configuration - from a classic stall to an amphitheater and a completely flat platform, which means it can perform a variety of tasks. Multifunctional room. Infographics. Clickable While the hall looks like this, but now you can see the scale of the object.
In the hall of the transformed hall will be placed one of the main visual chips of the MFZ, and the whole Lakhta Center. On the load-bearing wall facing the Primorsky highway, between two threads of the facade with the help of LED illumination, a semblance of a screen with an area of over 2 thousand square meters and a height of 4 floors will be created. But this is not a giant TV for displaying ads - the images broadcast by the media facade will create a certain mood - depending on the weather, on the time of day, time of year.
And other facade tricks
The facade of a multifunctional building is not always laid in two strands - only about half of the building.
Hanging the second thread of the facade on the MPF
The second thread is laid where it is necessary to hide what is happening inside the complex. The fact is that restaurants, offices, sports and medical facilities are designed, illuminated, decorated in different ways, and these differences will obviously violate the sculptural form of the MPF. The second thread will preserve it, and in addition, it is due to this constructive - inclined - element that the unique shape of the building is created. The main facade consists of vertical parts.
In general, the total area of the facades of the MFZ exceeds 60 thousand square meters. Atrium walls are also a glass facade. In one place, even with a dent. It is this impression that will be created where the 19-meter sparkling ball of the planetarium will be located.
UFO?
The planetarium is one of the most interesting objects located in the MFZ. It is assembled from polished triangular stainless steel sheets mounted on a tubular structure and rests on a supporting concrete structure.
Planetarium shell sample. Lakhta Center prototype site, 2016. The
facade of the atrium in this place will be made of curved glass, there will remain a gap of 1.5 meters between it and the planetarium ball. This will create the illusion that the three-quarter planetarium is immersed in the facade and soars in the air.
Julia Gulyak: “We wanted to create a place where people would take pictures and it immediately became clear from the photographs where the person is. The atrium at the planetarium will be just such a place. ”
However, a planetarium is not only a beautiful thing. Its filling promises to gather crowds of children, tourists, and, in general, everyone who loves science, and not only astronomy, at the Lakhta Center. Planetarium Lakhta Center. Infographics. Clickable
What else will be in the IFZ
In the southern part of the atrium, a zone will be created for organizing various exhibitions, and a 12-meter ceiling height will allow very large exhibits to be placed here.
In the MFZ sports complex it will be possible not only to train, but also to enjoy the view of the Gulf of Finland directly from the pool, without leaving the water. The list of functional blocks of the MFZ also includes a medical center, a restaurant area, a small shopping gallery.
In general, the tower is the main visual magnet of the new St. Petersburg from the outside, and the MPF, we hope, will attract its functionality to Lakhta Center.
***
The material used photographs of Vyacheslav Korolev, as well as a photo from the archive of the Lakhta Center
***
Habru, seizing the opportunity
On May 31, Habr reached the age of 12, already revered for publication. We wish one of the most beloved portals even more scale and scope for creativity.
Stay with those who set the vector and level.
And conquer all conceived heights.
And of course, to celebrate many more over 12 years each - with a lot of new ones, and certainly - with old readers and authors, collaborators.
And also - it was nice to get a diploma for the best engineering blog. Thanks! We are pleased to be part of a large, interesting, vibrant mosaic - posts, discussions, authors, readers - all that is called Habr.
Lakhta Center spokeswoman Tatyana Yuryeva at the Habr Awards. Moscow, May 31, Loft Wednesday.
And here is the diploma itself)