That's Really Twisted!
That's Really Twisted!
by Jim Kollaer on Thu, 08/25/2016
We are not talking about some weird story or gruesome act, rather the new twist on high-rise buildings around the world.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) recently reported on the top 28 twisted buildings around the world. It is amazing to see how far the structural engineering and the building trades have come over the last decade since “Turning Torso” was completed in Malmo, Sweden in 2005. The building, designed by Santiago Calatrava Architects & Engineers, was the first of the “twisted kind”.
Novel at first, other major twisted high-rise buildings have been built in the intervening years as noted in the article written by David Malone, Associate Editor of Building Design and Construction.
When I was in architecture school long ago and far away, we discussed the possibility of twisting a tower and were dismissed by our professors as “dreamers” and not designing for the real world clients.
The first time that a prospective client asked me to work with his company on a twisted residential tower for Houston, I laughed and told him that structurally it was difficult, if not impossible, and at the very least expensive to build. Read more »
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