HARRY SEIDLER & ASSOCIATES TOWERS IN THE CITY
EdizioniTecno
TOWERS IN THE CITY
INTRODUCTION In 1973 Peter Blake wrote the introduction to the book Architecture for the New Worldon the work of Harry Seidler which he ended by saying that what really interested him about Seidler was "what is he going to do next?". A decade and a half later it seems to me that what is most interesting about Seidler is that in a world of fast changing architectural fashions it is the utter consistency of his approach and the dose relationship between his earlier and more recent work that sets him apart from many contemporary figures. Seidler has, in the words of Alison Smithson when she addressed the joint RAIA/NZIAconference in 1985, been "holding course". While many of his peers have been swept info the whirlpools of Post Modernism or becalmed in a sea of contextualism, Seidler has remained one of the most vociferous defenders of the ideals of the Modem Movement and of the intellectual heritage of Aldo van Eyck's "great gang". His rational buildings bely the passion with which these views are held; his comment that Michael Graves' additions to the Whitney Museum were a kind of "architectural aids" was as heartfelt as it was insensitive. Seidler's ability to mix the high moral ground of Modernism with the commercial reality of present day development has provided a wide ranging oeuvre of quality buildings. In this publication we look at eight towers, elegant examples of this much criticised genre. Despite its detractors the tali building has an essential role to play in the contemporary city, the means by which it reaches the ground and its relationship with its immediate surrounding is a subject of continuing debate to which these buildings make vital contribution. Looking at the towers it is difficult to date them or to place them in any sort of chronological order. One might have thought that the rectangular City Mutual Building predated, say, the Hong Kong Club with its almost baroque pian, but one would be wrong.
This is at first curious, since Seidler is a believer in the idea that buildings should reflect the spirit of the times, the zeitgeist. But on reflection it becomes clear that while his buildings reflect the changing technology of building and put into concrete form the characteristics of the corporations they house, there is a substantial geist of this particular zeitthat Seidler purposefully ignores and rejects, but with the tide of Post Modernism waning and the growing reassessment of the Modernist view, Seidler will stand out as one who ignored the Sirens of Stylism and, Odysseus-like, held his course. Peter Murray
Early sketch for Riverside Centre, Brisbane, 1983.
A METHODOLOGY
Great conflict has arisen in the development of centrai business districts of cities, especially in the developing countries of the Western world. Disenchantment with the built result of unplanned, vastly increased building bulk has caused a nostalgie cali for a return to old city patterns such as those of centrai Paris or Rome with built areas of three or four times the site area. However, prevalent market pressures for increased floor space of up to 12 times the site area makes this an impossible dream. A mixture of old low and new high can coexist if the necessary compensatory action is taken to reduce the site cover of tower buildings and create new public open space, offering secluded areas of repose for pedestrians, with fountains, trees and outdoor restaurants. Where site constraints do not allow this, such spaces can be internalised with outlook and focus turned inward. The architecture of the city towers illustrateci is based on such restricted site cover (of onequarter to one-third) assuring light, air, logicai building form and unencumbered, free, surrounding ground or internai space. By these means tali buildings become viable. The rejection of overbuilding, however, has produced the present tendency to disown any tower development and cali for a nostalgie return to past images of "Street architecture". Keeping old facades or superficial application of historic fragments onto the new has become the reactionary fashion - but as with ali fashions, they are short lived. To revive revivals is regressive. To disown the achievement of our time in planning, technical or aesthetic directions, is self-arresting. The graduai development of a methodology of approach to building, evolved in this century, is by nature self-renewing. Although given the much maligned and erroneous lable "International Style", there is nofixed dogma or frozen stylistic images at its base. The technical achievements today constitute a common denominator, the vocabulary of architecture which however remains in flux, changing with new discoveries and usage in different socioeconomic and cultural climates. A common visual expression has been the concern with the dissolution of solidity - the creation of space and transparency. This exploitation of space is evident in painting and sculpture as well as architecture and science. It is further echoed in the demands of flexibility placed upon new structures - the response to uncertainty and change in usage.
Twentieth century man's eyes and senses crave space in a new and changing way as only our advancing technology can muster. Instead of assemblies of connected finite volumes, we seek a sense of the infinite and yet simultaneously intimate, a sense of the beyond. In the same way visual tension rather than the phlegmatic earthbound, arrested images of the past, speaks our language: the channelling of space and surfaces in opposition; curve against counter-curve; sun and shadow; the juxtaposition and sequencing of compressive low to the surprise of high. Even if the expression may be exuberant or flamboyant, economy of visual means will heighten the value of the result. Once a strong form element is evolved, it mustfind its re-use, its echo throughout the work, even if in mutated form (as against the arbitrary assemblage of unrelated geometries). Our horizons in the choice of appropriate form have broadened with time. The initial restrictive puritanical rigidity has been allowed to widen into an embraceable, all-encompassing search which is yielding a wealth of new expression. We have learned not to exclude history. This should not mean the puerile adaptation of decorative paraphernalia, but looking at the essential forces behind the images. The subtly brilliant, geometrie systems that carne into being in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for instance, can have some validity in our approach to development system orientated methods of construction. There is a new freedom of visual discoveries which contributes to the shaping of our elements. Free reign must be given to the expression of the laws of nature - not what is imagined to be so by many structurally naive architects, but the unassailable physical truth of statics. Richness of expression can result from such search, which will have that irreplaceable quality of longevity, of remaining valid, being born of the immutable and irrevocable truth of nature. Harry Seidler
Typical office floor and facade beam.
REFLECTED CEILING
MID SPAN (A) WEST FACADE BEAM
STRUCTURE
QUARTER SPAN (B)
SUPPORT (C)
HONG KONG CLUB AND OFFICE BUILDING
Replacing the historic club building on the site, the expanded new club is housed in the tower's six lower levels with 17 office floors straddling it above. Respecting the formai character of Cenotaph Square in front, the building's main facade is axial and symmetric. To exclude traffic noise, the club floors at the base are largely behind solid walls except for the 4th floor high ceiling glazed garden lounge. The club's facilities, function rooms, restaurants, bars and meeting rooms are grouped arond a vertically open but changing rotunda space into which the various levels merge. This centrai void culminates in the garden lourige from which it receives its daylight. Landscaped gardens and terraces surround its high glass walls. Magnificent views exist here toward Hong Kong's harbour to the North and the island's peak mountain to the South. The office floors span right across the club, bridging the 35 m between large columns (shaped to resist wind loads) with structurally expressive T-beams. Their top flange " bulges" out toward the centre to increase compression resistance. The concept of the office structure straddling the club podium generates the most expressive image of the whole building: the unusually long facade spans, the absence of any interior columns in the offices and consequently the lack of interference with the club's freedom of internai spaces below.
To build what may appear to be unruly free forms, rationally, requires a taming of the flamboyant expression into a suitable system of geometry which in turn allows for reasonable constructional devices and sequences. Although the centrai rotunda and the confining exterior surfaces of the club differ from floor to floor, the column-free structure is rationally based and expressed to the point where it becomes the dominant interior theme - the use of exposed radiating, changing-section T-beams. Not only do these T-beams span very large distances readily (and yet use no more concrete than a 200 mm fiat slab) but they "show" satisfyingly how they do their work: to resist centre-span bending they have a deep Tform but toward the support they change section through a broadening, upward sweeping shape into a fiat support rectangle which best resists shear. The club's interiors employ a distinctive curvilinear geometry. They are sumptuously furnished, culminating in a tapestry by Helen Frankenthaler which dominates the top of the open centrai rotunda. Part of the old club building's stone arch portico was saved and reerected as the focal point of the main hall.
View down into Club entrance. From L to R: 1 stand 2 nd floor plans.
HONG KONG SUITE
LookĂŹng up to garden lounge with top of main stair and bridge. From L to R: 3rd and 4 th floor plans.
Vie w of Hong Kong Harbour from 4th floor garden lounge.
Structure model showing underside of exposed radiating Tbeam floor system within the club.
From L to R: 1st, 2ndand 3rd floors.
Tower entrance and plaza pian.
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RIVERSIDE CENTRE, BRISBANE
Sited along the river, this commercial development of 50,000 m 2 of offices, a 350 room hotel, restaurants and shops, is being built in two stages. The first, the 38-storey office tower's shape, responds to the requirement to give as many offices as possible a clear outlook over the water. The triangular configuration achievesthisfortwo-thirds of the 1500 m 2 floors, facing full height glass walls, up and down the river. Fixed external aluminium sunshades are fitted at varying angles responding to the orientations. Not only do the sunshades stop direct sunlight from heating the interior through the full height glass walls, but they also prevent skyglare and obviate the need for the usuai venetian blĂŹnds (which would obstructthe view). The exterior of the concrete building is faced with prefabricated window-spandrel units, erected from inside without external scaffolding. Ali solid exterior surfaces are of polished grey Sardinian granite. Planted terraces, recessed in the facades, relieve the monotony of sealed airconditioned office space.
Early sketch of stages 1 and 2.
The repetitive structure uses equal length prestressed concrete beams spanning the 12 m clear space. With the slip-formed concrete core preceding them, office floors were poured at the rate of one every four working days. External columns in front of the 15 m high entrance lobby are gathered in groups of three info a projecting hyperboloid pier. This in turn is braced back againstthe core by isostatically determined radiai ribs, exposed on the lobby ceiling. A sculpture by Norman Carlberg forms a focus. It consists of identical quadrant shaped elements. The high lobby balances the two storey high Stock Exchange planned above it on the water side and creates open mezzanines overlooking the entrance. An extensive open plaza area surrounds the tower. It has shops and restaurants with outdoor eating terraces planned around it. A fountain cascading down to the water's edge and richly landscaped terraces with large transplanted groups of trees make this an inviting recreational space leading to public ferry wharves and a marina. The plaza is built spanning a wide open space below for the construction of a future covered expressway.
Tower and waterfront plaza.
Left: Structure, mechanical and lighting. Right: Typical tower office floor.
Bottom: Section through tower entrance and stock exchange above. The plaza with ramps and steps to the marina bridges future roadway.
Top: West facade. Left: Unprotected glass walls are inappropriate in
Australia 's warm climate and intense sunlight. Toomuch radiant energy enters and the heat must be pumped outby mechanical means.
4 diagrams on right: In this and other towers, external sun-protection awnings are fixed at varying angles responding to the
orientation. Theyallow downward view, avoid skyglare and make venetian blinds unnecessary.
The Street frontage with the glass awning covered tower entrance. Columns are "gathered" to create broad entrance.
Norman Carlberg's sculpture "Winter Wind" and rad iating structural bracing ribs in entrance lobby.
Tower entrance and plaza pian.
GROSVENOR PLACE DEVELOPMENI SYDNEY
Locateci at the Northern end of Sydney's centrai business district, the site enjoys fine panoramic outlooks toward the harbour to the North-East and the open space of Lang Park and Darling Harbour to the South-West. The 46-storey office tower's opposing quadrant shaped floors (each 2000 sq m) maximise these sweeping views. The simple geometry allows the 14.6 metre deep columnfree construction to use identical steel floor beams and identical granite faced facade elements which speed and economise construction. The core is of slip-formed concrete. The use of steel saved construction time and resulted in economies of height. The massproduced floor beams are only 600 mm deep and are perforated for the passage of longitudinal services. Steel decking between the beams acts as permanent formwork for the concrete floors. In response to the rapid rise in energy costs, energy saving technology has been applied to generating power from roof-mounted solar collectors and economie night-time electricity. Off-peak generated energy is stored in a huge ice-bank in the basement for use in daytirme peak demand air-conditioning.
Pian form based on opposing quadrants results in identical structural spans and facade elements.
To sunprotect the curved facades, exterior aluminium awnings shield the floor to ceiling glass walls. They are fixed at varying angles from vertical on the East and West against low sun, to horizontal on the North where the sun is high. Garden terraces recessed into the facade break up the uniformity of the repetitive exterior texture. As with the other large towers, only a limited part of the site is covered with building, leaving much needed public open space for recreation. The tower is surrounded by plazas, both open and glass covered. There are trees, a fountain and facilities for outdoor eating. Some historic buildings on the city edge of the site are restored and given new uses. The monumentali scaled high entrance lobby has large circular caissons supporting groups of tower columns. The walls between the tour elevator banks are adorned with three wallrelief paintings by the New York artist Frank Stella.
Tower model.
Typical tower office floor.
View from North.
"Gathered" tower columns.
PLAN
PLAN
Tower with Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House.
Cross section showing hollow centre of building with landscaped terraces.
CAPITA CENTRE, SYDNEY
As is inevitable in our increasingly crowded cities, with more and more office space provided to satisfy the demand, sites are created or rather "left over" which are far from desirable for development. It is questionable whether the totally landlocked site for this development should have been built on at ali - but the wish of the owner organisation to be located in the very heart of the business centre led to an unusual planning solution. Surrounded on three sides by buildings 20 and 25 floors high, left only the narrow Street facade for windows and outlook. It became necessary to create an internai outlook for the 12 m deep offices by only covering two-thirds of the site with building and leaving the balance as open space. To create something more than a mere light well, the building is hollowed out for its full height by an open atrium. Changing its position from the South side, to the centre, and stepping up to the North, ledges are created and planted with trees and shrubs with Northern sun penetrating down the full height of the building's hollow centre. The ground level is left entirely open, becoming a landscaped pedestrian thoroughfare between streets with high palm trees, a waterwall fountain and glassroofed public galleria space.
Typical high rise office floor
Here people can relax, have coffee sitting at tables, and enjoy an internalised lushly planted oasis in the crowded centre of the city. The stepped hollowing out of the 31 -storey high steel structure created a lack of lateral stiffness, especially across the Street facade. Since no shear resisting walls were possible across the only window front wall, an exposed vertical truss provides the necessary bracing. The diagonal steel members across the full height of the building made it possible to eliminate the centrai column at ground level, creating a desirably wide opening into the planted forecourt. The braces extend above the roof and become a flag pole. Opposite the glass enclosed elevator lobby in the high forecourt is a ceramic murai wall - blue, white and platinum - by Lin Utzon.
Left: Crosssection.
Centre: Perspective view (from Street with braced facade and hollow centre ).
Right from top down: Plans levels 1-8 9-12 13-14 15-18
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Curved tower with stepped top floors and projecting side walls.
SHELL HOUSE, MELBOURNE
The headquarters building stands at the very corner of the city of Melbourne's business district. It overlooks open space and beautiful park land in an are from East to South to West. To maximise this asset a wave-shaped floor pian opens a long facade toward the outlook with the vertical access core on the off-view Northern side. To create visually secluded forecourt approach areas, the end walls of the building are extended to shield the profile of adjacent buildings. The resulting stepped blank walls contain the space and form a neutral and desirable background forthe large "theme" sculpture by Charles Perry adjacent to the main entrance. The focal element in this high space is a stone clad concrete transfer column which gathers three of the building's columns from above into a single support, thereby creating generously proportioned column-free glazed entrances. The company's main computers occupy the windowless floor above the entrance. At the top, the building spirals upward in several steps providing part-floor executive spaces facing the best views with landscaped roof terraces. There are some inset garden terraces in certain lower floors also.
Although curvilinear, the building is composed of straight lines. The prestressed beams ali have the same span; columns and spandrels consist of straight polished reconstructed granite elements, carrying sunblades between them. The core contains two rises of six elevators each. Every floor contains its own air conditioning equipment, with common chillers and cooling towers at the roof.
Office floor showing services, structure and partitions.
Facade detail.
Entrance elevation.
LANDMARK TOWER, BRISBANE
The program for the 50-storey tower, set diagonally on its site, required larger floor areas at the bottom and progressively smaller spaces for prestige accomodation at the top. As each one of the tour elevator banks drops off, a comparable area of exterior floor space is eliminated. This results in the indented stepped silhouette of the tower. The steel floor beams of the building are supported by external frames which impart great lateral stability and allow the structure to proceed upward from several levels at once, resulting in centre columns for each rise being suspended from outer ones. This also frees ground space from an excessive number of columns. The ground level above an underground garage accommodates a bank and food facility in contrasting curvilinear building forms also recalled in the suspended entrance canopy.
Top: Tower floors reduce as elevator banks drop off. Bottom: Structural diagram showing diagonal corner framing.
A sculpture by Charles Perry stands in the forecourt. Mounted at the top of the building is a large solar energy collecting trame, inclined to the North for maximum efficiency. Batteries of black collectors generate hot water which is converted and stored in an ice-bankfor use in the airconditioning of the building. The spandrel facĂŹng is polĂŹshed granite, with the exposed structural steel trame clad in glass reinforced concrete. The sun shades over ali the full height glass walls on three facades are of fixed inclined aluminium awnings.
Stepped tower with roof mounted solar energy collectors.
Top: Tower structure and services.
Bottom: Single floor tenancy.
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Site Pian
Entrance with suspended canopy and sculpture by Charles Perry.
Viewof tower with tapered external columns.
AUSTRALIA SQUARE, SYDNEY
This project aims to avoid the usuai problem of congestion in our cities where multi-storey buildings cover entire sites formerly occupied by small buildings fronting narrow streets. The result is buildings with blank side walls and only one window facade facing the Street with an oppressive dark canyon-like Street formed between them. This 50 storey tower disposes of the allowable floor space of 12 times the site area, covering only 25 percent of the ground, by building high and creating new public plaza spaces on private land. These spaces have become very popular and at lunchtime are filled with people enjoying the outdoors; there is seating, restaurants, a fountain and trees. The plazas are given a sense of intimacy and enclosure by being raised above the surrounding footpaths and visually shut off from traffic by means of curved screen walls. The circular tower form was developed to avoid the canyon effect resulting from long, straight buildings against adjacent structures. The form is ideal for a tali building in that it effectively resists wind forces and allows speedy construction. Ali beams, slabs and facade elements are identical. Systematised formwork was used for the concrete structure, easily
Tower entrance and plaza pian
assemblee!, dismantled and moved up. The exterior is made of precast white quartz-faced permanentformwork. Pier Luigi Nervi designed the structural concept with tapered, projecting columns and an interlocking, ribbed first floor structure carrying heavy exhibition loads. This is visible in the lobby which is adorned with a tapestry by Le Corbusier. A monumentai 11 m high stabile sculpture by Calder stands in the top plaza.
Tower entrance with Nervi's interlocking curved rib floor structure and Le Corbusier's tapestry "Unesco".
Left: Pian sectlon of external columns showlng the taper from bottom to top as the loads they carry dlminish.
Right: Typical floor pian.
Top view ofplazas with connecting stepped ramps.
MLC CENTRE, SYDNEY
The tower occupies a mere 20 percent of its site, the rest developed as largely open space with some lowfringe structures and a 1,100 seat theatre built against the surrounding streets. The tower stands atthe Southern end, leaving the open public plaza space at the Northern part which connects with a wide pedestrian concourse. Two levels of shops connect with and open from the plaza which has wide centrai stepped ramps leading to the high office entrance lobby.
formed by precast, permanent concrete facing elements (made with white quartz) into which in-sĂŹtu concrete is poured. Where the connection between columns and core is weakened in the high entrance, expressively curved ribs follow an isostatic pattern which is exposed on the lobby ceiling. Nervi's contribution is also evident in the ribbed design of the circular theatre entrance, the restaurant roof and the mushroom-like projecting structures above the plaza.
The square tower with blunted corners is placed diagonally to avoid railway tunnels which traverse the site. Pier Luigi Nervi's structural idea for the tali concrete structure was for only eight massive external columns to be planned. These are heavily loaded and by their changing shape, impart great stability against lateral wind loads. The columns turn outward at the base, increasing the moment of inedia, and change in section to become flush with the building at the top, as the loads diminish. They support long-span facade beams shaped into a logicai " I " cross section with solid ends. Both columns and beams are
Upper Plaza and tower lobby pian.
Top: Upper Plaza with Charles Perry sculpture "S" adjacent to the tower lobby. Josef Al bers' structural
constellation "Wrestling"in background.
the
Bottom: Reflected ceiling pian of entrance level structures.
The tower with its long facade beams and tapered external columns.
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Harry Seidler was born in Vienna, 1923. After studies in England he attended the University of Manitoba, Canada and later studied at Harvard University under Walter Gropius. For two years he worked with Marcel Breuer, New York and after a period with Oscar Niemeyer in Rio de Janeiro, he settled in Sydney in 1948. In 40 years of architectural practice he has designed almost every kind of building; in the early years a great many private houses, then apartment buildings and in recent years large commercial structures such as those in this book. He has designed buildings in various parts of the world: apartments in Mexico, the Australian Embassy in Paris and the Hong Kong Club, etc. His workfrequently appears in international publications and books. He has taught and lectured at universities in the U.S.A., Europe and Australia.
His many years of collaboration with Pier Luigi Nervi on high rise structures have yielded some unique structural forms and systems of construction, some of which are illustrateci in this book. Since Nervi's death in 1978, he continues to work with Nervi's long time associate, Mario Desideri.
HONG KONG CLUB AND OFFICE BUILDING, 1980-84 Jackson Road, Hong Kong Central Associates: Peter Torresan, Tony Camilleri Structural Engineers: Miller Milston & Ferrisand P + T Architects and Engineers (Hong Kong) Mechanical Engineers: Lands (M + E) Consultancy (Hong Kong) Lighting Consultant: Claude R. Engle (Washington) Construction: Paul Y Group of Companies (Hong Kong) RIVERSIDE CENTRE, 1983-86 Eagle Street, Brisbane, Queensland Associates: Henry Feiner, Greg Holman, Garth Armstrong, Tony Camilleri Structural Engineers: Rankine & Hill and Cullen Grummet & Roe Structural Consultant: Mario Desideri (Rome) Mechanical Engineers: Environ Mechanical Services Lighting Consultant: Claude R. Engle (Washington) Construction: Civil & Civic GROSVENOR PLACE DEVELOPMENT, 1982-87 Grosvenor and George Streets, Sydney, N.S.W. Associates: George Henderson, Henry Feiner, Tony Caro Structural Engineers: Ove Arup Mechanical Engineers: D. S. Thomas Weatherall Electrical Engineers: Barry Webb Construction: Concrete Construction CAPITA CENTRE, 1985-88 Castlereagh Street, Sydney, N.S.W. Associates: Peter Hirst, Graham McDonald, Garth Armstrong Structural Engineers: Miller Milston & Ferris Mechanical & Electrical Engineers: Addicoat Hogarth & Wilson Lighting Consultant: Claude R. Engle (Washington) Construction: Civil & Civic
SHELL HOUSE, 1985-88 Flinders & Spring Streets, Melbourne, Victoria Associates: Daniel Brown, Tony Caro, Tony Camilleri, Peter Hirst Structural Engineers: Bonacci Winward Structural Consultant: Mario Desideri (Rome) Mechanical Engineers: Lincolne Scott Lighting Consultant: Claude R. Engle (Washington) Construction: Grollo Group LANDMARK TOWER, 1985Mary Street, Brisbane, Queensland Associates: Anthony Caro, George Henderson Structural Engineers: Ove Arup Mechanical Engineers: D.S. Thomas Weatherall Electrical Engineers: Barry Webb Contruction: Kern Corporation AUSTRALIA SQUARE, 1961-67 George, Bond and Pitt Streets, Sydney, N.S.W. Associate: Colin Griffiths Structural Consultant: Pier Luigi Nervi (Rome) Structural and Mechanical Engineers: Civil & Civic Mechanical Consultant: Consentini (New York) Lighting Consultant: Edison Price (New York) Construction: Civil & Civic MLC CENTRE, 1972-78 Martin Place and Castlereagh Street, Sydney Associates: Colin Griffiths, George Henderson Structural Consultant: Pier Luigi and Antonio Nervi (Rome) Structural Engineers: Civil & Civic Lehmann & Talty D.T. Broughton Mechanical Engineers: Environ Mechanical Services Theatre Consultant: Tom Brown Lighting Consultant: Edison Price (New York) Construction: Civil & Civic
TOWERS IN THE CITY is one of a series of books published by Edizioni Tecno with the aim of promoting excellence in architecture and design. Photography: ali photographs by Max Dupain (Sydney) except Hong Kong Club and Offices and Riverside Centre by John Gollings (Melbourne) Graphics: Centro Progetti Tecno Printing: Grafiche Mariano Š Copyright Edizioni Tecno 1988
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