Establishing a safe design for the tallest building in the City of London’s financial district.
Known simply as TwentyTwo, 22 Bishopsgate stands tall among the other elaborately shaped buildings surrounding it in the City of London’s financial district, many of which were also the subject of RWDI studies. At 278 meters high with 62 floors, this commercial office tower features a unique 23-sided geometry with a glass façade.
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The Challenge
The intricate and elaborate street pattern in London creates some unpredictability as to how wind will behave. Additionally, the unique design of the building and its sheer size creates a lot of downwashing winds. Numerous attractive mitigation measures for the building’s base were necessary, as without them, people’s progress up and down the street could be impeded.
Our Approach
RWDI’s team of experts was engaged to meet the challenges presented by the local wind conditions. As part of this project, we:
- Conducted wind assessments to accommodate technical and safety issues such as pressures on façades and structural loading, as well as analyze pedestrian comfort
- Executed testing using a scale model of the building in both current and future surroundings to ensure accuracy of results and increased effectiveness of mitigation recommendations
- Conducted wind loading studies to accurately determine the wind loads for designing the exterior envelope of the top of the building, repeating the study when the building’s geometry was changed
The Outcome
Our studies, which involved testing close to ten different podium variations and five different tower variations, demonstrated that 22 Bishopsgate would be safe where wind is concerned, and it now stands proudly as one of the tallest towers in the area, second only to The Shard in height.