The Issue 2 2014 Arup Journal The Arup Journal About Arup Arup is a global organisation of designers, Arup’s core values drive a strong culture Printed by Pureprint Group using engineers, planners, and business of sharing and collaboration. their ® environmental print consultants, founded in 1946 by Sir Ove technology. The printing inks are made from vegetable based oils and Arup (1895-1988). It has a constantly All this results in: no harmful industrial alcohol is used evolving skills base, and works with local • a dynamic working environment that in the printing process with 98% of and international clients around the world. any dry waste associated with this inspires creativity and innovation production diverted from landfill. Pureprint Group is a CarbonNeutral® • a commitment to the environment and the Arup is owned by Trusts established for the company and is certificated to benefit of its staff and for charitable communities where we work that defines Environmental Management purposes, with no external shareholders. our approach to work, to clients and System ISO 14001 and registered This ownership structure, together with the collaborators, and to our own members to EMAS, the Eco Management and Audit Scheme. core values set down by Sir Ove Arup, • robust professional and personal networks are fundamental to the way the firm is that are reinforced by positive policies on organised and operates. The Arup Journal equality, fairness, staff mobility, and Vol49 No2 (2/2014) knowledge sharing Editor: David J Brown Independence enables Arup to: Designer: Nigel Whale • the ability to grow organically by attracting • shape its own direction and take a long- Editorial: Tel: +1 617 349 9291 and retaining the best and brightest email: [email protected] term view, unhampered by short-term individuals from around the world – and pressures from external shareholders Published by Global Marketing from a broad range of cultures – who share and Communications, • distribute its profits through reinvestment those core values and beliefs in social Arup, 13 Fitzroy Street, in learning, research and development, to usefulness, sustainable development, and London W1T 4BQ, UK. Tel: +44 (0)20 7636 1531 staff through a global profit-sharing excellence in the quality of our work. Fax: +44 (0)20 7580 3924 scheme, and by donation to charitable All articles ©Arup 2014 organisations. With this combination of global reach and a collaborative approach that is values-driven, Arup is uniquely positioned to fulfil its aim Front cover: Marking 30 years of Arup’s presence to shape a better world. in China, Shenzhen’s new Stock Exchange is a distinctive addition to the city’s skyline (photo: Philippe Ruault, courtesy OMA). Issue 2 2014 We shape a better world | www.arup.com 86435_Arup_Cover.indd 1 03/12/2014 18:32 9. Sydney Opera House — “a kind of marvellous Trafalgar Square on water”. 10. Philip Dowson with Ove Arup in the early 1960s. 11. With former Arup Chairman Sir Jack Zunz at the inauguration of the new sculpted head of Ove Arup at Kingsgate Footbridge, Durham, in September 2011. methods that can compete with the pressures of scale and technology, and to revalue them in human terms. We have to try and produce an architecture that is human and not brutalising and, whilst obviously embodying as fully as possible the “technical”, will not continue to do so at such great social expense. We have an obligation, a Hippocratic Oath if you like, to be sensitive in using our 10. resources for human purposes, and not to attack our environment but to conserve it, to be used and to be enjoyed. And to this end, we have to co-ordinate our activities in today’s climate of technical proliferation, if we are to secure the realisation and the survival of humane ideas. People, on the whole, ask us for rather simple things, and they ask for them in simple language. They want their houses to be homely. They ask, with increasing anger now, why architects don’t build “beautiful buildings” — these words we avoid at our peril. They are a cry for very human and ordinary things; for places to live in, or work in, that people can respond to and enjoy, and this means that they must be understandable in ordinary human terms. That is not to patronise, but to respect. I would like to close with a quotation from 11. Walter Gropius, who was one of the real fathers of the Modern Movement, and this was said many, many years ago: Reference “The issues are as fresh as “We must recover a comprehensive vision 1) DOWSON, P. Offices. The Arup Journal, 12(4), pp2–23, December 1977. they were nearly 40 years of the wholeness of the environment in ago... the ideas are strong which we live. In our mechanised society we Acknowledgment should passionately emphasise that we are Grateful thanks to Andrea Beddard in Arup’s London and challenging.” still a world of men, and that man in his Library for background research on the now-defunct Sir Jack Zunz natural environment must be the focus of organisations and groups mentioned. 15 all planning.” Image credits 1, 4–7, 10 Arup Associates; 2 Google Art Project; The next step is not a new step, perhaps, 3 Richard Walker, Flickr; 8 Jørgen Jespersen, Creative at all, but an old one that we have yet better Commons; 9 Courtesy Sydney Opera House Trust; to understand. 11 Durham University. 15 The Walter Gropius Archive, Routledge, 1990–1991. The Arup Journal 2/2014 86435_Arup_Cover.indd 2 03/12/2014 18:32 Contents 4 The Vegas High Roller Ibrahim Almufti Nicholas Christie Adrian Crowther Mary Ferguson Brandon Kluzniak Jason Krolicki John Lyle Hugo Mulder Rob Smith Brandon Sullivan Michael Willford 30 Enabling renewable energy projects in South Africa Nic Bailey Auret Basson Andrew Bowden Paul Cosgrove Pedro Reis Neto Vivienne Roberts Richard Stanford Thinus Van As Justin Wimbush 36 King Abdulaziz International Airport: the structural design and fire engineering for Package 421 Matt Clark Joseph Collins Patricio Garcia Patrick McCafferty Cliff McMillan David Scott Tabitha Tavolaro Jeff Tubbs Peter Tillson Chelsea Zdawczyk 62 Shenzhen Stock Exchange Johnson Chen Vincent Cheng Kenneth Chong Graham Dodd Dagang Guo Goman Ho Junko Inomoto Florence Lam Andy Lee Patrick Leung Rory McGowan Chas Pope Alba Xu 86 The Reid Building, Glasgow School of Art Greg Hardie Gavin Kerr Lee Kirby Dan Lister Andrew McDowell Derek Roberts Andy Sheppard 104 Tunnelling under an icon: Sydney Opera House Vehicle Access and Pedestrian Safety project Mark Adams Seth Pollak Nik Sokol 116 Our inheritance, the next step? Philip Dowson Left: Caesars Entertainment’s LINQ development at Las Vegas, with the High Roller at the eastern end (photo: Mary Ferguson). The Arup Journal 2/2014 3 86435_Arup_Text.indd 3 03/12/2014 19:38 The Vegas High Roller Location Authors Las Vegas, Nevada, USA Ibrahim Almufti Nicholas Christie Adrian Crowther Mary Ferguson Brandon Kluzniak Jason Krolicki John Lyle Hugo Mulder Rob Smith Brandon Sullivan Michael Willford Setting the scene 1. Sketch plan of the LINQ The High Roller in Las Vegas, Nevada, is development (see previous pages). now the world’s tallest observation wheel. 2. The Hettema Group’s concept for It opened to the public on 31 March 2014, the cabin experience. concluding five years of design and construction in which Arup was involved throughout, from the early concept stage to completion. The project drew upon the expertise of numerous Arup staff from 1. around the world, demonstrating the value of the firm’s global networks, and many of the design challenges also required close collaboration with contractors, fabricators, suppliers and other consultants. Without the willing participation of all these parties, the High Roller would not be the technical success that it is. The High Roller is the anchor attraction of Caesars Entertainment’s new LINQ development at the heart of the Vegas Strip (Las Vegas Boulevard). The LINQ comprises a high quality retail, dining and entertainment area, replacing an under-used alley extending east from the Strip (pp2–3 and Fig 1), previously occupied by an old 2. casino and multistory car park. The LINQ connects directly with several adjacent casinos owned by Caesars. The first stage was to develop alternative hundreds of thousands of passengers, and structural concepts in keeping with the other similar wheels quickly followed, Caesars initially engaged The Hettema desired aesthetic of the wheel (Fig 2) and in London (1895, 94m/308ft), Blackpool Group (THG), an attraction design the significant footprint constraints of the (1896, 61m/200ft), Vienna (1897, consultancy, to develop ideas for an iconic proposed site, but Arup’s role developed 65m/213ft) and Paris (1900, 100m/328ft), feature. Historically, Las Vegas developers progressively as the project proceeded, and all inspired by Ferris’s landmark design. intent on creating landmarks have opted for almost every aspect of the completed wheel These wheels had railcar-like cabins hung replicas of famous structures such as the was designed by, or heavily influenced by from the rim, using gravity to stabilise them. Eiffel Tower, but Caesars and Hettema input from, Arup. They would pause as each cabin passed the decided on a large and distinctive loading area to allow passengers on and off. observation wheel. A brief history of observation wheels Images of small observation wheels can be With the exception of Vienna’s Wiener Arup was engaged in June 2009, on the basis found in documents dating back centuries, Riesenrad, all these giants of the late 19th of its involvement with two previous but it was George Ferris’s wheel, built for century have now perished. During the record-breaking giant wheels, the London the 1893 Chicago World Fair, that really 20th century, smaller Ferris wheels Eye and Singapore Flyer1, to start the brought such rides to a wide public.