After an international design competition, WilkinsonEyre was chosen to design this 440-meter tower in Guangzhou, China, which is one of the country's tallest buildings. With 103 stories, the tower is a mixed-use development that includes office space, a luxury Four Seasons hotel with a top-floor restaurant and bar, and a substantial podium complex at ground level that features a luxury brand retail mall, conference center, and high-quality serviced apartments.
The tower and podium are connected below ground to additional retail spaces and a transport hub, with a retail loop that encourages underground connections to a central axis with landscaped gardens. The tower's slender, crystalline form serves as a landmark on Guangzhou Zhujiang New Town's main axis, linking the commercial district in the north with the Pearl River to the south.
The Guangzhou International Finance Center features the world's tallest constructed diagrid structure, which is prominently displayed on the building's façade and gives it a distinct character.
The diagrid members are made of concrete-filled steel tubes that provide both stiffness and fire protection for the structure. The tubular diagrid structure forms giant steel diamonds every 12 stories, each 54 meters high. At the base of the tower, the structural members are 1,800 millimeters in diameter and decrease in size as they go up the building, reaching 900 millimeters at the top.
The Guangzhou International Finance Center utilizes the world's tallest constructed diagrid structure, which is prominently displayed on the building's façade and gives it a distinct character. The diagrid members are made of concrete-filled steel tubes that provide both stiffness and fire protection for the structure. The tubular diagrid structure forms giant steel diamonds every 12 stories, each 54 meters high. At the base of the tower, the structural members are 1,800 millimeters in diameter and decrease in size as they go up the building, reaching 900 millimeters at the top.
The structural core bears much of the gravity load of the building's floors and is connected to the diagrid perimeter structure through floor beams to create a stiff "tube-within-tube" structural system. This design minimizes the amount of steel needed while providing resistance to acceleration and sway, ensuring high comfort levels for the building's occupants.
The inherent stiffness of the structure means that no damping is required, and the shape of the building has been optimized to reduce the effects of wind, further reducing the size and weight of the structure.
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