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Title: Conjoined Tower Structures for Mile-High Tall Buildings Author: Kyoung Sun Moon, Yale University Subject: Architectural/D ctbuh.org/papers Title: Conjoined Tower Structures for Mile-High Tall Buildings Author: Kyoung Sun Moon, Yale University Subject: Architectural/Design Keywords: Skybridges Structure Publication Date: 2019 Original Publication: International Journal of High-Rise Buildings Volume 8 Number 1 Paper Type: 1. Book chapter/Part chapter 2. Journal paper 3. Conference proceeding 4. Unpublished conference paper 5. Magazine article 6. Unpublished © Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat / Kyoung Sun Moon International Journal of High-Rise Buildings International Journal of March 2019, Vol 8, No 1, 29-36 High-Rise Buildings https://doi.org/10.21022/IJHRB.2019.8.1.29 www.ctbuh-korea.org/ijhrb/index.php Conjoined Tower Structures for Mile-High Tall Buildings Kyoung Sun Moon† School of Architecture, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA Abstract Tall buildings are one of the most viable solutions to deal with the global phenomenon of rapid population increase and urbanization. While tall buildings are an essential building type to accommodate ever-growing urban population, as buildings become very tall they also produce many critical design challenges related to social interactions, emergency egress, structural systems, etc. While many different design solutions can be sought to resolve these challenging issues of tall buildings, this paper investigates potential of conjoined towers in producing more livable and sustainable megatall building complexes with an emphasis on their capability in efficiently providing exceedingly tall building structures. Keywords: Tall buildings, Structural systems, Skybridges, Conjoined towers, Supertripodded conjoined towers, Superframed conjoined towers 1. Introduction also becoming taller and taller in order to better redistribute the urban density toward the limitless space in the sky. The world population grows continuously. Today about Producing higher density is one of the most important 55% of the world’s population resides in urban areas and aspects of tall buildings. As buildings become taller and the urban population will be further increased to about consequently occupants are placed farther away from the 70% by 2050 according to the Population Division of the ground where they can circulate freely without any means United Nations Department of Economic and Social of vertical transportation, however, many challenges also Affairs. These percentages are obviously world average arise. As floor plates providing limited areas for each floor values. The urban population of North America, the most are stacked vertically, occupants’ natural horizontal circu- urbanized region in the world, is already over 80%, while lation-based social interactions are also limited in many that of Asia is about 50% at present. However, as the tall buildings. As buildings become ever taller, safe eva- urban population in Asia is much more rapidly growing, cuation to the ground level in emergencies becomes more the gap between the two regions is reducing fast. Tall challenging. Regarding more about the safety as well as buildings are one of the most viable solutions to deal with serviceability, one of the most fundamental design challen- this global phenomenon as evidenced by numerous tall ges for exceedingly tall buildings is also their structural building developments in Asia as well as Middle East systems that make their physical existence possible. While over the last couple of decades. Though not as actively as many different design solutions can be sought to resolve in Asia and Middle East today, tall buildings are still these as well as other challenges of extremely tall build- ceaselessly rising in North America, the birth place of tall ings, this paper investigates potential of conjoined towers buildings, and other regions of the world as well. with an emphasis on their capability in efficiently provid- Developments of tall buildings are certainly not always ing megatall structures, the design of which is generally based on their necessity and/or feasibility. Some tall governed by lateral stiffness. buildings are developed taller than necessary to express The concept of conjoined towers dates back to the the city’s and/or country’s growing economic power. Some King’s Views of New York published by Moses King in other tall buildings are built as corporate or individual the early 20th century. The King’s Dream of New York in aspirations. And there are many other non-feasibility-based this publication shows New York skyscrapers connected cases of tall building developments. Nonetheless, tall by skybridges. Early real world examples of conjoined buildings are still one of the most essential building types towers include the Wrigley Building of 1921 and its north for the rapidly-urbanizing future world with dense cities addition of 1924 in Chicago. Originally the two towers to accommodate ever-growing urban population. They are were connected only at their lower levels, but the towers were also connected by a skybridge at their fourteenth †Corresponding author: Kyoung Sun Moon floor years later. Since then, conjoined towers have been Tel: +1-203-436-8983; Fax: +1-203-432-7175 built sporadically throughout the world mostly with simple E-mail: [email protected] connection skybridges for better circulations between the 30 Kyoung Sun Moon | International Journal of High-Rise Buildings towers. This concept of conjoined towers was culminated by the Petronas Twin Towers of 1998 in Kuala Lumpur, the tallest buildings in the world at the time of their com- pletion. As is the case with the Petronas Towers, skybridges in conjoined towers can also be used effectively as alter- nate routes of evacuation in emergencies. One of the more recently developed design approaches in conjoined towers is that some of the connecting sky- bridge structures are designed to provide substantial prog- ramed spaces in addition to conventional circulations between the towers. In these cases, the skybridge structures can significantly enhance social interactions of the occu- pants by providing well-positioned communal spaces bet- ween the towers as are the cases with the Tencent Sea- front Towers of 2017 in Shenzhen and Golden Eagle Tiandi Towers currently under construction in Nanjing. In terms of structural performance, the connecting sky- bridges in conjoined towers can also be designed to prov- ide greater lateral stiffness for the whole tower complex. As today’s tall buildings become ever taller to accommo- date ever-increasing urban population, developing more efficient structural solutions that can also provide more flexible spatial organization is another very important fun- damental design requirement. The structural potential of conjoined towers depends on multiple factors, such as the number of conjoined towers, their overall arrangement, and where and how to connect them. This paper system- atically investigates these important design issues of con- joined towers in terms of their contribution to structural performance in increasing lateral stiffness, while other design aspects are also considered holistically. 2. Conjoined Towers with Two Buildings When two tall buildings are connected, possibility of Figure 1. Petronas Twin Towers (Photo in Public Domain). meaningfully increasing lateral stiffness of the conjoined towers is largely determined by building forms and con- nections. By rigidly connecting two buildings with one or of each tower and structurally connecting them rigidly, more structural bridges, lateral stiffness of the conjoined lateral stiffness in the originally weaker direction of the towers can be increased in the direction of the connecting individual towers can significantly be increased. bridge structures. However, in the perpendicular direction The 88-story tall Petronas Twin Towers of 1998 in to the connection, the impact of conjoining two towers is Kuala Lumpur are the world’s first conjoined supertall minimal. Therefore, as wind can blow in any direction, buildings. The primary lateral load resisting system of the structural impact of conjoining only two towers is typ- towers is the tube-in-tube system composed of the rein- ically limited. forced concrete core and perimeter farmed tube. The two Nonetheless, depending on the conjoined buildings’ plan towers are connected by the two-story tall skybridge at forms, conjoining two tall buildings can still be used stra- levels 41 and 42 using sleeve-like connections, which allow tegically to maximize its structural potential. As are the the towers to move independently. Therefore, conjoining cases with squarish or circular plan buildings for exam- the two towers does not increase their lateral stiffness. ple, when the moment of inertia of the plan forms of the The plan form of the towers’ main masses is roughly cir- two individual buildings connected are the same or sim- cular. Therefore, if the towers are composed of only main ilar in all directions, structural impact of conjoining the masses, even rigidly connecting the towers will not be towers are limited. However, when plan forms of the two much beneficial structurally. individual buildings are rectangular with significantly dif- However, the towers have smaller bustle masses of ferent moment of inertia about the two primary axes, by circular plan form attached to the main tower masses up placing the two towers side by side to face broader facade to about the height of the connection skybridge. The direc- Conjoined Tower Structures for Mile-High Tall Buildings 31 tion of the skybridge and that of the
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