core.form-ula

Early massing studies for a tower of multiple twisting strands. In addition to rotating about the central core, the profile of each strand also varies over the height of the tower to produce a visually striking effect.

When each strand is color coded and the model seen from an aerial top view, the geometries of the twists become more apparent. The leftmost tower has no twist in order to provide a baseline for this study. From left to right the remaining towers have respective twists of 60, 75, and 90 degrees.

The profile of each strand varies from a perfect hexagon at the bottom to an equilateral triangle at the top. The triangle’s corners are cut by oblique transversing edges to “remove” equilateral triangles and create a constructible edge.

When arranged around an equilateral triangle, the strands touch at three corners, defining a continuous profile and creating natural points to exploit in structural strategies. Since previous structural studies were undertaken with systems of spirals in sets of 3, there is quite a bit of useful code we can repurpose.

This perspective wireframe view of a single strand from above shows the subtle geometric transformation at play in the model. Each strand has 6 sections of outer wall at each floor, each section of outer wall is defined by 4 points. In the initial cladding strategy, each section is triangulated to produce 2 developable triangular surfaces. This triangulation becomes more apparent when the number of strand revolutions is increased considerably.

In the above example the strands undergo 3 full revolutions, essentially a 1080 degree twist. The tapering of the profile still follows the same rule as before.

Next steps include:

• Developing a strategy for the massing of the core and to leverage our earlier spiral studies to tie its structure to the facade.
• Designing a more robust cladding system that can vary over the height of the building and utilize geometric tiling patterns in 3-D.
• Running preliminary environmental analysis on our site and the model standing on the site at various orientations to begin understanding how it should sit on the site to maximize visibility and minimize unwanted solar gain.