CTBUH international student design competition 2012 | carmine lamberti

The starting idea in the design process for a tall building in Naples (Southern Italy) was twofold: • First: LANDMARK – a tall building which could act as the landmark for the urban regeneration plan of East Naples area a huge ex-industrial zone close to the city business center designed in the 80’s by Kenzo Tange. • Second: PUBLIC OBSERVATORY AND PARK – a tall building characterized by a new role completely different from the few ones that already exist in the city: not only office and job activities but also recreational areas and public parks distributed along the elevation from which enjoying new landscapes completely afresh. Therefore a tall building where a public function merges and interacts with the private commercial and residential occupancy. The definition of the building form both in plan and elevation has been strongly affected by consideration of wind actions. • For the plan shape round corners have been adopted instead of right angles in order to make the tower aerodynamically slippery. • Concerning the elevation shape two setbacks have been introduced for decreasing the frontal area towards the top in the prevailing wind direction as well as for reducing excitation due to vortex shedding; these setbacks also create some terrace spaces that accommodate the public parks. • Finally a twist of 90° from bottom to top has been applied to the building which results in spiraling and slicing the building volume obtaining three detached portions where natural air and light can pass through. This twisted form suggests the idea of green promenades wrapping around the building core along elevation. A diagrid steel structure has been chosen for the building as the best one in adapting to complex and irregular shapes; it has been designed in the form of three curved diagrid panels evoking three sails each enveloping one of the three building sliced volumes. This kind of impressive-looking structure also echoes the ex-industrial designation of the area. More precisely the structure should be appointed as a "diagrid in diagrid". In fact it is composed of an external diagrid (the sails) and an internal diagrid (the circular core) connected by the floor structure. Special attention has been devoted to the structural design of the external diagrid where main diagonal members (which follow the same slope of the spiral shaft) and secondary diagonal members have been distinguished according to their structural role under both gravity and wind loads. INFO Height to the top: 132 m Core: 18600 m3 Offices: 23450 m3 Hotel : 21400m3 Residences: 7040 m3 Park: 1950 m2 Gruppo di lavoro: Allievi = Franzese Gianluca Carmine Lamberti Salvatore De Gregorio. Docenti di riferimento = Prof. Ing. E.Mele Prof. Arch.F.Viola Tutor = Ing.M.Toreno Ing. G.Montuori