A RECENT TREND IN TALL BUILDING DESIGN: TWISTED FORMS

Abstract

The symbolic value of a tall building is very powerful in an urban landscape, and its design is influenced by the opportunity to create a unique iconic architecture for the city. For architects and the public, the form of a tall building is the primary concern, and the attitude is critical toward the outcome of the design. The approach to designing evolutionary tall buildings is an open subject of professional debate, and the role of the architect is very important, from the point of view of form generation. Today, an interesting approach in contemporary tall building design is the twisting forms and facades, which are employed as a reaction to the boxed forms of the recent and the past. A very popular example of this form is the Turning Torso in Sweden, designed by Santiago Calatrava. Many other tall buildings with twisting forms are designed and constructed worldwide, to achieve iconic structures for the cities. Twisting facades of a tall building perform various surface effects reflecting, refracting and distorting views of the city. However architecturally, structurally and aesthetically, it is a complicated task to develop a twisting form for tall buildings due to the interrelationship of a huge number of building components. The objective of this paper is to explain the morphological scheme and geometrical properties of twisting forms in a systematical approach, and to discuss the difficulties of designation and construction, such as selecting the supporting structure and detailing the facade system. A number of case studies are also presented in the paper. The intention of the paper is to inspire continued interest in new concepts of tall building forms and to investigate the design process for architects.