Dubai, United Arab Emirates, a place that has stunned the world with dozens of world records is coming out with a new, very unique structure called the 0-14 Tower.
Photo originally from Reiser + Umemoto
This building is short (only about 22 stories) compared to Skidmore Owings & Merrill's Burj Khalifa, currently the record breaking and tallest skyscraper in the world at 2,717 feet high. But this building is very unique. It is designed by a group of New York architects Reiser + Umemoto. It's curvy, outer shell marked with tons of holes is what makes this building different from all others. 0-14 is named after it's site number at the Buisness Bay. Also, the 0-14's structure, mostly made out of concrete, has 1,326 holes with five different sizes.
Archrecord.com said, "The ghostly white exoskeleton stands 3 feet away from an inner glass-walled enclosure that follows its swerving contours: The two are linked by structural concrete tongues. With a central stair and elevator core, the interiors are column-free, allowing each floor to provide 6,000 square feet (net) of office space to its tenants."
Earlier in the 0-14's design history, the architects designed the tower to be an amorphous shape with glazed apertures. But there was a major problem. They couldn't place gaskets around the glass and connect the shaft to the concrete floors. This made the architects develop a better double-layer structure.
The exoskeleton of the 0-14 is tough. Its lateral resistance to wind allows elevator core and concrete shell to be lighter than normal. All the holes in the structure had to be layered with a dense amount of re-bar to keep the tower sturdy. By tying the re-bar at intersections with stirrups in the zones of high stress, the team created a grid with 40 percent openness.
Inside the 0-14 Tower, guests are protected in a 400,000 square foot space from the dust storms and sweltering heat, while still being able to get a great look outside. The tower could become a role-model for new desert buildings. It becomes obvious that this was expensive to build, even with the integrated cooling design, which saves on cooling costs. But the tower's up-front investment was higher than the conventional structure. "Like many high-rise buildings erected in far-flung places," Archrecord.com states, "the willingness of clients, particularly before the economic free fall of 2008, has encouraged a liberty to experiment that could provide technical and sustainable lessons for the next building boom. Whenever that comes."
- All Information and Pictures from archrecord.construction.com
