THIS SPREAD: The second building accommodates the visitor’ s reception area and the executive functions and is the eccentric one; organic, innovative and generous
Architectural and Engineering Innovation The first building’ s innovation is clearly in its defiance of gravity; all of it, but for the triple volume entrance foyer, hovers above the ground, from which it is scantily propped. The 30m-long office wing is supported by only two large concrete columns, and by steel pins on the blade wall beyond, from which a 6m-long executive office also cantilevers. This feat is made possible by a highly engineered, threedimensional‘ Vierendeel’ truss system that frames the wing on all of its six façades.
The second building is equally innovative in its defiance of gravity, as it hovers over the water of the dam. In order to keep the sub aqua columns as visibly slender as possible, a series of smaller columns that carry the building above with a network of integrated transfer beams, connect underwater to form mass concrete piers.
The‘ skin’ on the second building was an intricate collaboration between the architects and engineers and required a secondary steel sub-structure, that was digitally modelled, and which was used to profile the steel members. This process resulted
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