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architecture May 16, 2013

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awesome architecture: Capital Gate Abudabi

Abudabi June 27, 2011

Great cities need great buildings. Over time, these iconic buildings become visual statements of the era and the place they represent.

-From Capital Gate website

photocredits here.

I was excited to catch Megastructures on Nat Geo tonight when I came home. I have always been fascinated with great buildings, I cannot imagine how these architects come up with this awesome stuff! It is true that great cities need great buildings - these become anchors, and icons, visual statements that represent the city and its culture and inhabitants.

The slanted tower will consist of a large internal
atrium including a tea lounge and swimming pool suspended 263 feet above the ground. due
to its posture, the 35-story capital gate is being constructed on top of a 7-foot-deep concrete
base with a dense mesh of reinforced steel. the steel exoskeleton known as the diagrid sits
above an extensive distribution of 490 piles that have been drilled 100 feet underground to
accommodate the gravitational, wind and seismic pressures caused by the lean of the building. (design boom.com)

What's amazing about these great structures is that it looks awesome on the exterior, and its even more breathtaking to see how the engineers and architects (the engineers make the designs of the architects work. hehe) actually worked together to create something that is magnificent and perfectly engineered at the same time. This is true with the Capital Gate. The diamond frames were engineered to carry the weight of the leaning tower. The structure was designed by New York firm RMJM Architects.

The Capital Gate during construction.

In architecture school, I opted to design rectangular buildings most of the time (because of the limited timeframe. haha), it is easier to prepare the architectural drawings, since the regular shape means that it has typical floor plans. You could just imagine what the set of drawings would have looked like for the Capital Gate- must have been one super thick compilation of sheets of details and plans! Every room is different because of the shape of the building.

base of the building.

Amazing huh? It's a stylish, functional icon and engineering marvel rolled into one! More about the design features and sustainability of the Capital Gate here.

Someday I shall go on an architectural tour of the world's famous buildings. hehe.

♥

Rache

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