CMA CGM Tower | Zaha Hadid Architects

The tower stands at the centre of the city’s ambitious regeneration project, Euroméditerranée, located 1km north of the historic centre, adjacent to the commercial port. The site lies 100m back from the sea edge where the elevated motorway viaduct separates as it arrives into the north of the city. At ground level the site is dominated by the sweeping concrete viaducts overhead and the rhythmic colonnades of their supporting columns. It’s dense and noisy but a rich physical context. At high level, the context is the spectacular views over the bay of Marseille, the city and the docks. The building is in 2 parts: tower (56,600m2) and annex (36,600m2) and totals 93,200m2. The new building accommodates up to 2,700 employees, 700 cars and 200 motorcycles in a covered car park, an 800 seat company restaurant, Gym, auditorium and all the associated technical equipment areas. The design strategy to deal with an awkward, elongated site was to breakdown the volume of the facade into vertical segments and differentiate them using light and dark glazing. These are then offset to one another with the clear glazing set forward as a separate skin which is articulated architecturally by incorporating the peripheral structural columns. Architecturally, the external skin has a dual purpose. Firstly it is to act as a solar screen enabling the use of light and non refl ective glazing and secondly to free the façade from the constraints of a modular offi ce interior. Movement and fl uidity is introduced into the volumes and façades by generating vectors from the ground surface up which gradually and gently converge towards each other and then bend apart towards the top of the tower. The peripheral structural columns and the nomenclature of the external façade panels follow these vectors to create an elegant and coherent tower. [IT] La struttura - Una torre di 32 piani per 143 metri di altezza - si sviluppa su una struttura metallica ad arco che si allontana pian piano dal suolo accelerando il suo percorso verso lo skyline. I volumi della torre – si legge nella descrizione del progetto - sono definiti da “vettori centripeti” che emergono dal suolo, convergono gradualmente l’uno verso l’altro per poi ripiegarsi intraprendendo percorsi paralleli verso l’alto fino a 100 metri di altezza. L’andamento di tali vettori è segnato da colonne strutturali che definiscono un doppio sistema di facciata, nel quale sono racchiuse. “La torre – spiega l’autrice del progetto – nasce da una interazione tettonica tra un cuore strutturale fisso e l’allineamento perimetrale delle colonne che si risolve in una dinamica simbiosi”. “Le colonne – spiegano dallo studio Zaha Hadid Architects – sono immaginate all’esterno in modo da ridurne il più possibile l’impatto all’interno, mentre i profili ad arco servono insieme al nucleo centrale a conferire una rigida ossatura nonché un senso di movimento e libertà ad una nuova tipologia di torre”.