The building consists of two towers (one is a hotel and the other is for for residential use) and a five storey podium.
The load bearing structures of the building are made of cast-in-situ concrete. The towers are stiffened with core system, without using outrigger walls of truss. Natural frequencies of vibration remain low, and building’s swaying and dynamic extra loads have been assessed with special care in the design stage.
WSP provided wind engineering services including analytical assessments and wind-tunnel testing. Key aspects have been ensuring acceleration comfort of occupants and to obtain design pressure loading of glass cladding. The most challenging aspects of this project have been:
- effects of wake buffeting due to other nearby tall buildings in the vicinity
- irregular shape of the buildings and aerodynamic coupling between the towers
- complex shaped vibration mode shapes of the building.
WSP developed and applied advanced techniques for building an aero-elastic wind tunnel model. Aero-elastic testing is the most demanding and the most accurate method for analysing wind-induced vibration.
Among the many benefits to the client provided by WSP Wind Engineering:
- getting high-rise expertise into the design team
- highlighting inconsistencies of local design standards vs. application to the present type of building
- precise determination of wind-induced accelerations of the building frame and optimization of the stiffening system
- precise determination of wind pressure loads for glass cladding.