Marshall Strabala – Shanghai Tower

Career

• 1961 – Born in Seattle, U.S.
• 1988 – Graduated from Harvard University
• 1988 – Joined Skidmore Owings and Merrill (SOM), Chicago
• 1996 – Joined Gensler global architectural firm as Director of  Design

Honors

• Burnham Prize of Chicago Architecture Club
• American Institute of Architect Honor Awards (2004, 2005)
• ASHRAE Excellence in Engineering Awards (1998, 1999)
• USITT Architecture Award (2001).

Philosophy

• A “Performance Designer”
• Rather than clinging to a particular style, Strabala views his designs more in terms of their function.
• “Style is an odd thing, mostly a category of time. I seek a timelessness in all my projects. I want to create a feeling of permanence over a particular style”.
• He looks at every project with fresh eyes and a point of view that will allow constant discovery and continued improvement.
• Every element of the building needs to perform two purposes. It integrates art and science, aesthetics and function, technology and beauty and knowledge and perception.“
• There may be newer and faster computer tools and modeling systems to visualize building designs, but the ultimate tool that will create buildings is the human mind.
• Got inspired by small Japanese and Korean architects, including Tadao Ando of Japan.

Projects

• Shanghai Tower, a 632-meter super-tall office, residential and retail tower in Shanghai, China, scheduled for completion in 2014.
• Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building at 808-meters
• Nanjing Greenland Financial Center, a 420-meter office, hotel retail and apartment complex to be completed in 2009.
• Besides Strabala has designed more than 50 prominent buildings worldwide

Case Study – Shanghai Tower, Shanghai, China, 2008-2014

• Marshall Strabala got this project for his firm GENSLER after a 21-month-long competition ended in
• March 2008, when he beat out Foster + Partners, Kohn Pederson Fox, and even his old firm, SOM.
• 632 metres (2,073 ft), have 128 stories, and contain an area of 380,000 m2.
• It will be the tallest building in China and is slated to be the second tallest in the world.
• Tower features office space, luxury residences, a high-end hotel, retail space, restaurants and a public observatory.
• Tower features a soft triangular shape, the tower rotates as it goes skyward and concludes with an open-top design.
• As the shape rises, a “strike” or open notch curves up and around the building which is an engineering feature to control the wind up and away from the building.
• Uses 32 – 35% less structural materials ( concrete and steel ) than any other conventional buildings. It results in savings of 58million US$

Double skin Building:

With the double skin , the building will function like a thermos bottle.

This allows it to

• harvest and use daylight,
• reduce artificial lighting to a minimum,
• increase the insulation of the building’s interior
• reduce energy consumption and energy costs.“

The development will be separated into eight distinct bioclimatic zones, with each having its own atrium, lush gardens, indoor air controls and panoramic 360° views of city.

The building will be situated within a 10,000 sqm open green space that will become both a public park and the front entry to the tower.

Sustainability:

• Innovative skin technology is one of many sustainable design and renewable energy systems in the tower.
• The spiral shape facilitates vortex shedding and creates an asymmetrical surface to reduce wind loads on the building by 24%. reducing the structural load on the building.
• The building’s spiraling parapet collects rainwater, used for the tower’s HVAC systems.
• Wind turbines located directly beneath the parapet generate on-site power. Thus energy consumption of building is 35-40 % less than any other conventional building.
• 40% less water consumptioni.e. they save 675 million L/ annum =245 Olympic size swimming pools

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