Marshall Strabala is the man behind three of the world’s tallest structures — the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE, and the Zifeng and Shanghai Towers in China. The latter will be China’s tallest building when it is completed in early 2015. Strabala, who was in Chennai recently, heads 2DEFINE Architecture, a global architectural company with offices in Shanghai, Seoul and Chicago. Excerpts from an interview:
What are the unique features of your design?
We create projects based on climate, sustainability, function, and aesthetics. I don’t have a signature design. I design from inside out. Each building is unique, designed on its use and site. I think of myself as a ‘performance designer’, and I believe it will be the function of the building that will always decide its look. I have been working on the Shanghai Tower for eight-and-a-half years and it’s been designed based on the lessons learned from the Burj Khalifa. Style is an odd thing, mostly defined by time. I seek timelessness in my projects; I want to create a feeling of permanence. I am old enough to understand how things are done, yet young enough to say, ‘Why not try it this way?’
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Super-tall buildings (1,500 ft.) are very different from those at 500 ft. and below. Every major building system changes and the construction challenges are magnified. The 4.5m thick foundation matt for the Shanghai Tower was a continuous concrete pour that lasted over 55 hours. This means a continuous stream of concrete trucks down the city roads. A 20-storey building would only need one-tenth the time. The force imposed by wind on a super-tall building is the largest controlling force. In Shanghai, the peak wind load is 118 mph, and the tower is designed to withstand this force. We used a simple CAD program and Excel to shape the building’s outer skin in a twist of about 137 degrees, bottom to top. This shape is designed to create what engineers call ‘Disorganised Vortex Shedding’.
If we took an A380 airplane and twisted both the wings, the plane could never fly. The twist in the Shanghai Tower is designed to reduce structural loads, and we proved this in a wind tunnel. The reduction in loads due to the shape of the tower reduces structural cost by an estimated $50-60 million.
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What ‘green’ features do your projects have?
Every project is different. The first level is based on passive systems that reduce energy and water consumption such as high insulation, geothermal coupling, rain water collection and storage and native landscaping. The next level is high performance MEP systems that are designed for local climates. Correct orientation and material selection is important. The highest level on-site energy generation using photovoltaics, wind turbines, cogeneration systems and ice storage is used to reduce the peak loads. Tall buildings allow us to recover energy from lift machines. We use this technology in the Shanghai Tower.
Are high-rises the answer to developing countries’ housing issue?
As land cost goes up, it leads to vertical development to meet the demand for housing. I have been designing high-rise projects for almost 30 years and they can be both tall and green.
How do you think we can design our cities better?
I wish I had the answer, because every city on the planet is experiencing the same problem. Traffic is the root cause of most of it. Our cities are overrun by cars; they are no longer pedestrian-friendly. To create better cities we need to limit cars and develop effective public transportation. I see Chennai is building a metro line and that’s the first step. Cities like Shanghai and London are constantly adding to public transportation but cities like New York are barely maintaining the old system. Pedestrian cities are cleaner and easier to live in.