THE ROTATING SPIRAL FOR VERTICAL LANDSCAPING
2. PRACTICALITY
2. PRACTICALITY
While there are several spiral tower design concept worldwide, there is none that uses rotating spiral as an approach to achieve vertical landscaping on skyscrapers, despite its potential as an ecological-friendly approach.
In order to understand its practicality, I began by studying the basic load transfer of the whole structural system with the emphasis on the roof garden of each floor, based on the building's structural diagrams available from my research.
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| Sketches of Yeang's structural studies illustrating (left) the initial idea of how the primary structures, cross-bracing and their supporting beams connected to each other to carry the floor plates and (right) the final product of the initial idea. Retrieved from Ivor Richards "T. R. Hamzah & Yeang: Ecology of the Sky" (2001) page 75. |
By understanding the structural configuration of the tower, I was able to indicate the main structures that are used to transfer the load of the vertical landscapes located at different axis of the rotating floor plates. This information is essential for the construction of my conceptual model of the tower structure.
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| Left: Diagrams showing the location of the vertical landscapes of each rotating floor plates. Right: My sketch on how the landscape's load is transferred through the main structure frame from each floor to the ground. (Retrieved from Ivor Richards "T. R. Hamzah & Yeang: Ecology of the Sky" 2001, page 72.) |
Again, you need to express a research question so that we know that your research is focused and your progressive work on target.
ReplyDeleteIs the question about landscaping or structural design? Can we distribute landscaping throughout the building in equally efficient arrangements other than in a spiral fashion? What is the real, measurable, benefit of landscaping at every floor? How much landscaping does each floor need?
Thank you for your comments, Ian. At this point, do I restructure my last posts or do I proceed to week 4 blog post?
ReplyDeleteIt appears to me that the term "rotating spiral" was repeatedly used by articles and his books when describing both the Nara tower and Mesiniaga's floor design, where the building don't physically move, rather they have a rotating sequence from the ground floor all the way to the top.