"Lakhta Center": what lies behind the high-altitude boundaries. Gazprom has begun the countdown to the opening of Lakhta Center Lakhta Center current height

August 24th, 2017

I was able to visit a variety of construction sites, from residential buildings to large-scale thermal and nuclear power plant projects, but I had never been to the construction of skyscrapers. I recently filled this gap in St. Petersburg, visiting the construction of the tallest skyscraper in Russia and Europe. In general, this skyscraper is considered the very best in many respects, but first things first.

Today we will see how the Lakhta Center is being built. Stock up on tea and cookies, because this report will be as long as a skyscraper).

Construction of the tower began in 2013 from scratch. First, construction and installation equipment was produced, then bored piles were installed, a box foundation was erected and work began on creating a pit, the excavation of which was completed in 2014.

The creation of the pit was preceded by the installation of a wall in the ground, 30 meters deep. It was needed to protect the future pit from collapse and groundwater. After this, the piles are driven in, and then the foundation pit is dug. Its depth was 21 meters.

I, like many others, had a question: how could a skyscraper be built in a swamp? In fact, the tower was not built on a swamp. Of course, the soil on the surface is not the hardest, but at a certain depth very dense and hard rocks begin to form.

Moraine deposits removed during drilling.

This laconic retelling of course does not convey the scale of the zero cycle, but the photos speak for themselves.

A total of 264 piles were installed in dense layers of soil, each 82 m deep and 2 m in diameter. A foundation was installed on them. The total load on the piles is 670,000 tons.

A small infographic for greater clarity.

This is how they made the reinforced frame for the piles that are located under the tower

Under the multifunctional building (MFB) and the arch, 848 piles with a diameter of 1.2 m were installed, and 968 piles with a diameter of 60 cm were installed under the stylobate (underground parking).

The box foundation consists of three densely reinforced slabs, the bottom one is 3.6 m thick. The diameter of the reinforcement is 32 mm, the reinforcement pitch is 16.5 cm, and 15 levels of grids are installed in the bottom slab.

Between the three slabs of the box-shaped foundation there will be underground floors of the skyscraper. There are also 10 radial walls running from the core to the outer perimeter. Their thickness is 2.5 m and height is 5.5 m.

The reinforced mesh, which will soon be filled with concrete, goes down 3.6 meters.

By the way, when concreting the lower slab of the tower’s foundation, on March 1, 2015, a record was set, which was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest continuous pour of concrete in the world. In 49 hours without stopping, 19,624 m³ of concrete was poured, which exceeded the previous world record by 3,000 m³.

After the foundation was ready, the zero cycle was completed and the tower began to grow upward.

The construction scheme for our skyscraper is as follows: first, a reinforced concrete core is built, then it is gradually overgrown with walls and ceilings. The core gives stability to the tower structure, and inside it there are communications, 34 elevators, technical rooms and security areas.

By the way, the core of the Lakhta Center has the highest degree of fire protection REI240 - the ability to withstand fire for 4 hours without changing the properties of concrete and steel.

Construction at the site is ongoing 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in three shifts. Each shift employs 4 thousand people.

This is what the first 16 floors of the tower look like, which are assembled from 22,000 elements connected by 200,000 bolts.

A few months later, the core of the tower grew into floors and rose even higher. Nearby you can see the MFZ building that has grown up during this time, which consists of two parts united by a common roof.
May 2016.

Construction stage in February 2017. On the left is a diagram of the tower.

If the core gives the tower vertical rigidity, then the outrigger floors are responsible for the horizontal rigidity, thanks to which the stability of the tower will remain even if 30% of the supporting structures are removed. The skyscraper will have 4 pairs of outrigger floors every 70 m along the entire height of the building.

This is what they look like from the inside. Here you can see that the metal structures are covered with high-strength concrete.

And these are the floor plans, starting from the bottom and ending with the top. The peculiarity of the Lakhta Center tower is that the edges of the pentagonal building twist upward, giving it a characteristic architectural volume.

This is what Lakhta Center looked like in the spring of 2017.

In this collage you can see how the Lakhta Center tower grew from September 2015 to April 2017.

And this is a recent photo from construction, which I took in early August.

I went up to the 76th floor. The cranes are attached to the tower core on several floors. A little later I will show you what it looks like. There are 4 cranes at the very top, and there are 16 of them in total at the construction site.

These are the largest luffing jib cranes produced by Liebherr. The range of their arrows is 45, 50 and 60 meters. The maximum load capacity is 64 tons, the speed of cargo movement is 176 meters per minute.

Well, now let's go to the construction site.

Since Turkish contractors and many foreign workers work here, warning signs are duplicated in Turkish and English.

MFZ building.

Up close, the tower looks very impressive.

The elevators were installed in March 2017. You see the blue doors - they are behind them.

Here, each elevator has its own elevator operator. After construction is completed, the elevator doors will look familiar, but during construction, everything looks like this. Between the elevators there are transfer nodes from the lower zone to the middle one, and from the middle zone to the upper one. A special elevator will also be installed, which will transport passengers to the observation deck without transfers.

The walls are covered with plywood so as not to accidentally damage them. When you go from the first floor to the upper level, it is almost always a full house. This is a very fast elevator, it took us only 40 seconds to get to the top floor.

A temporary elevator that goes from the middle levels to the upper ones looks simpler. It will be replaced upon completion of construction.

A little interesting information about the Lakhta Center elevators.

And this is a view of St. Petersburg and the surrounding area from the 76th floor. There is no glass here yet.

On this floor, the cranes are attached to the tower's composite reinforced concrete columns, which have steel cores in the shape of a Maltese cross at the base to give them rigidity.

These cores are located at the base of the columns.

The taps are also attached to the core. This way they can withstand the strong gusts of wind that are common at this altitude.

From here you can clearly see the surrounding areas of St. Petersburg.

Yacht Club.

Elite area.

Less elite area.

Thermal power plant.

The construction of the tower will require more than 22,000 tons of metal structures - 189,000 different parts, of which only two are identical. This happened because the tower twists, and each overlap differs from the next by 0.82 degrees. Another 2,000 tons will go towards the spire, which will be 90 meters high. The spire will contain various equipment. Metal structures for the Lakhta Center are manufactured at twelve factories, ten of which are Russian.

By the way, the observation deck will be located higher, on the 86th floor, at an altitude of 360 m and will be the highest in Europe.
View in the other direction.

The building is closer to the skyscraper.

Although I don’t really like heights, and I was a meter away from the place where the glass had not yet been installed, it was not scary at all, rather the opposite. There are more than 300 meters of height here.

But I would not at all want to be in the place of these workers, despite the breathtaking views.

The main thing when working is not to forget about safety precautions.

On Instagram "how it's made" a question was asked about increasing the height of cranes, I answered it above, but I want to add about the work of crane operators. The crane operators travel to the 55th floor on the elevator that you have already seen. From there, they go along the stairs connecting the tower and the crane to the crane mast, then along the stairs inside the crane they get to the cabin.

The crane operator cannot go down one more time. They even have lunch in their cabin, where it is delivered from the ground.

New “Passenger Port of St. Petersburg”, for cruise and ferry ships.

We went down several floors. Here they work on these mini cranes.

And these are fastenings for double-glazed windows. Unlike conventional high-rise buildings, in Lakhta Center the double-glazed windows are hung on these brackets, and are not rigidly attached to the supporting frame of the building. The weight of one double-glazed window is about 740 kg. I will tell you about the features of the glass facade below.

Floors below the 70th floor are glazed.

There is no glass on the left yet, there is already glass on the right.

We went down even lower and found ourselves on the outrigger floor. They, as I wrote above, give horizontal rigidity to the skyscraper.

The walls of these floors are much more massive than those on ordinary floors. Outrigger levels also serve as technical floors.

On some floors there are water bottles and disposable cups.

And now a little about the glass facade of the Lakhta Center. In order to glaze a skyscraper, it was necessary not to use simple flat glass, but curved glass, due to the spiral shape of the building. The German manufacturer that made glass for the tower specifically opened a plant in the Leningrad region in order not to transport from Germany and to facilitate logistics.

The glass was bent in a cold way, which does not impair its characteristics in any way. With this method, the glass was deformed along the plane up to 4 cm at one angle. A laminated package measuring 2.8 m x 4.2 m is placed in an aluminum frame lying in a horizontal position, and under its own weight the glass unit is deformed, bending to the shape of the frame. The weight of the glass unit is about 740 kg.

Most of the double-glazed windows are slightly different from each other, and therefore each double-glazed window has its own place.

The glass was made using a multilayer formula: 8mm glass + 1.5 mm film + 8mm glass + 16mm argon + 8 mm glass, for a total of 4.15 cm in thickness. The inner layer of glass is tempered, which is why the glass does not produce large and sharp fragments in case of damage.

The glazing area of ​​the Lakhta Center tower is 72,500 m². The weight of the glass part of the facade is about 13 thousand tons.

A special feature of the outer layer of glass is its thermoreflective properties. To protect against excess solar radiation, a special coating is applied to the glass, which gives the glass surface of the tower a cool gray-blue tint.

Thanks to the spraying and the fact that the glass on the facades is “coated”, i.e. With the minimum possible content of “yellowing” iron oxide, the tower looks different in different lighting conditions. Shades depend on lighting. During the day, when the sun is bright and the sky is reflected, the glass is blue; in cloudy weather, it is gray and bronze.

Heated glass is provided for the upper floors of the skyscraper, which will prevent icing.

To clean the façade of the Lakhta Center from dirt or to replace damaged glass, use a special lift. There are grooves in the ribs of the tower between the facade panels, and in the cradle-lift itself there are clamps with rods that are fixed in the grooves of the facade. This fastening system allows you to completely eliminate the rocking of the cradle at height.

And in this place the tower hall will be located.

These are already underground floors, the future parking of a skyscraper.

There are generators in one of the rooms.

Water supply system.

A small infographic on the topic of water supply at Lakhta Center.

The technical floors are almost ready.

Particularly worth mentioning is the BIM - Building Information Modeling program. This is a construction information model of a building, in which the physical and functional characteristics of the building are specified - geometry, spatial relationships, geographical location, properties of materials, etc. BIM works at all stages: from concept creation to construction and operation of the facility.
When you change any one of the parameters during design or construction, BIM automatically changes the remaining parameters and objects associated with the object, up to drawings, visualizations, specifications and schedule.

Thus, the BIM model is a single source of information about the object for all construction participants - customers, designers and contractors. In addition, projects created using BIM guarantee high speed, accuracy and cost-effectiveness of construction. And the cost of constructing a building when using BIM is reduced by 20-30%. In this case, the buildings turn out exactly as they were originally imagined by the architect and the customer.

And this is the Multifunctional Building (MFB), view from the inside. It consists of two blocks. The building is of different heights - the difference is from 22 to 85 meters. The highest point of the southern building is distant from the tower, while that of the northern one is directed towards the tower and the city.

There will be a sports complex, a fitness center, health and relaxation centers, a children's scientific and educational center "World of Science", an exploratorium with interactive exhibits, a transforming hall with a capacity of 500 people and an outdoor amphitheater for viewing water shows with a capacity of up to 2000 people.

A small infographic.

At this place there will be a planetarium in the form of a ball with a diameter of 16 meters.

The MFZ will have a glass roof.

From here you can clearly see the bay.

This is what Lakhta Center will look like at the end of 2018. Construction is scheduled to be completed in the 3rd quarter of 2018.

Thanks to everyone who read to the end!
Thanks to the press service of the Lakhta Center for the invitation and interesting excursion!

If you have a production or service that you want to tell our readers about, write to Aslan ( shauey@yandex.ru) and we will make the best report that will be seen not only by readers of the community, but also of the site

What did you manage to do during this time? Are there any delays behind schedule? What's happening on the construction site now?

Engineering preparation of the construction site is currently underway. Access roads are being created. There are already construction camps, we are installing utility networks for the future complex.

Our first and main object is the tower itself. For its construction, construction and installation work is carried out mainly of two types - the construction of the so-called wall in the ground, that is, the protective fence of the pit for the future foundation of the tower, and the foundation of the foundation itself in the form of a pile field. The foundation will be very powerful, so we use unusual piles. The diameter of each is 2 m, and they sink into the ground at 72-82 m (this is comparable to the height of a 35-story building). There will be a total of 260 bored piles under the base of the tower. Moreover, these piles are not driven in - first, holes are drilled for them, photographs and measurements are taken, and then steel frames are immersed in the holes and filled with concrete. Since the project is being implemented on the coastline, almost in the water, what worries us most is the reliable protection of structures from water penetration. This is quite difficult, but so far there have been no critical situations. There is no significant delay behind schedule, but we would like some work to be completed faster.

The next stage is the installation of a spacer system for the pit, that is, additional transverse fastenings of the walls, so that it becomes possible to begin making the foundation itself. The depth of the pit will be 21 m. We hope that work on it will be completed before October next year.

- How will the entire Lakhta Center complex be built and put into operation? Queues?

No, we will build all the facilities at the same time. Since the construction of the tower itself is a longer process and it is necessary to ensure access for heavy, large equipment, we will begin to build the adjacent buildings a little later. All buildings in the complex will be ready with a gap of about six months, and we will put them all into operation at the same time. We believe that no one will be able to work properly in the offices that will be located in the tower if there is construction going on around it.

How are you planning to solve the problem of providing the complex with engineering infrastructure? And at whose expense will it be built?

All engineering infrastructure is designed and built at our expense. The costs for these facilities will amount to about 1.5 billion rubles. Work is currently underway on the main sewerage collector and the organization of the power supply system.

After completion of construction, we will transfer the entire engineering infrastructure - the collector, the electrical substation - to the balance of the city, and approximately a quarter of the capacity will be used for our needs. The rest is to provide resources to the adjacent territories of the Primorsky region.

- Are there plans to block traffic during the construction of the complex?

Our facility is located next to a government highway. It cannot be blocked. So far, the delivery of materials is carried out at night and does not disturb the local population. But by the spring of next year, when we are working on the foundation of the tower, the situation with the volume of delivered goods will change, as we will begin construction of the above-ground part of the tower and a multifunctional building. We will need to bring large and long items. But even in this case there is no reason to worry. Firstly, we rely on the sea delivery route. And secondly, we are now working with the Committee for the Development of Transport Infrastructure on the issue of adding additional U-turns on Primorskoe Highway. And if the city meets us halfway in this regard, they may appear before the end of next year. One turnaround is planned under the viaduct behind the tram ring on Savushkina Street, and the second - between Primorskoe Highway and Primorskaya Street.

- Are there any skyscrapers in Europe that are similar or similar to your project? What is unique about the construction?

- “Lakhta Center” will be the tallest building in Europe, and at this geographical latitude - in the world. In England, for example, skyscrapers with a height of 260-270 m are built, in our country - 465 m.

In our northern climatic conditions, during the construction and operation of high-rise buildings, we are faced with sudden changes in temperature during the day and high humidity. For example, in St. Petersburg there is such an object as a television tower, its height is 326 m. This means that we will also inevitably encounter all the features that currently exist during its operation, and therefore we must “incorporate” their solution into the project itself. So, on cloudy days the TV tower is half covered by clouds. The same thing will happen to us. At the same time, the TV tower has a completely different type of structure. Icing of the top part and spire of our tower, ensuring climatic parameters inside the building with changes in average daily temperatures, cleaning the facades - these are just some of the problems that need to be solved.

- By the way, what will the glazing in the tower be like? Urban defenders have repeatedly accused the project of being visible against the backdrop of historical buildings, especially if the glass is made mirrored.

The external facades of the building will be transparent. And they will not affect the perception of historical perspectives in any way. Moreover, the city has long changed - it no longer corresponds to the views even fifteen years ago.

The internal facades will have a light mirror coating, but they will not “glare”. In addition, the double-glazed windows in the building will be made from so-called curved glass - it will have a curved surface rather than a straight one. The area of ​​each double-glazed window will be 11 square meters. m.

- How do you plan to clean windows at such a height?

We are currently considering several methods. According to the design, the facades have almost no parallel structures. The vertical axes either narrow or expand. One of the options being considered is the use of “cradles” or cabins on rails, on external supporting columns. The cradles will be equipped with a special mechanism below the floor level, which will allow you to change the width of the transport wheels.

- What other modern technologies will be used during construction and further operation?

A special air conditioning system is planned for the tower. Throughout the building, we want to create a uniform, comfortable temperature and humidity, and organize air flow through external structures. Intelligent climate control systems will redistribute excess heat from the sunny side of the building to the shadow side, so that the temperature and air composition are the same in all rooms and absolutely comfortable for the people in them.

- Is it already known how many floors there will be in the Lakhta Center?

Our building will have eighty-six floors and a spire. Its design is currently being developed. In order to have reliable information about external loads, at our request, aerodynamic tests are carried out in laboratories in Canada, that is, at a similar geographical latitude. A scaled-down model of the building was made, simulating the conditions under which the tower itself and its structures will be operated - façade, spire, etc. In addition to condensation, we also remember about wind loads. A larger number of organizations are involved in the experiments, and we have the most serious scientific support for the project.

- What will happen on the last, eighty-sixth floor?

Observation deck and revolving restaurant. We want to install high-speed elevators, with which you can go up or down in no more than a minute. Considering the loads during peak hours, we are considering the possibility of purchasing double-deck elevators.

- What requirements will you have for the general construction contractor whom you must choose by the end of the year?

Yes, we would really like to decide on a general contractor, ideally before December 29th. But we won’t have time to sign the contract before the end of the year. We believe that foreign organizations that have completed at least three large projects with a height of objects above 250 m can most likely handle such work. Therefore, we have a very narrow circle to choose from, and the most important criterion will be experience and knowledge.

- How many workers will there be at the construction site and where do you plan to place them?

We currently employ Russian and Western European qualified personnel. The work we carry out requires special technical knowledge. Moreover, almost all of them are performed on complex high-precision equipment. Today the total number of workers at the site is 250 people. As for the subsequent stages of construction, it will be necessary to attract additional personnel. But we have already decided that the accommodation and transportation of workers will be centralized, that is, no one will allow them to live on the construction site and scatter around the surrounding area.

Text: Svetlana Kovalenko

In mid-October 2018, the Lakhta Center multifunctional complex, the construction of which began back in 2012, received permission to put into operation. The opening of the first phase of the complex, which is dominated by the tallest skyscraper in Europe, is scheduled for the end of next year, and for many more months work will be carried out at the new Gazprom headquarters on interior decoration, equipment and landscaping of the vast area. However, last summer, during the broadcasts of the 2018 World Cup matches, the world was able to see a new vertical dominant forming the panorama of modern St. Petersburg.

The silhouette of the 462-meter tower, the compositional center and main accent of the complex, is the embodied energy of flame, the symbol and logo of Gazprom. The five wings of the tower rotate by floor by 0.82 degrees relative to their centers, or about 90 degrees over the entire height. As they ascend, they decrease in size, thereby creating the silhouette of a spire, the proportions and shape of which allow it to be perceived as another city spire, stylistically not competing with the existing dominants of the historical center.

Philip Nikandrov. Photo by the Gorproekt press service

The shape of the tower is based on architectural principles laid down by the builders of ancient pyramids: the entire mass of the building is visually directed upward, concentrating at the apex point. Almost all historical vertical dominants of St. Petersburg - spiers and domes - were built according to this principle. The silhouette of the skyscraper is precisely a transitional form from a dome to a spire, with a gradual increase in the radius of curvature from an arc at the bottom to a straight line at the top. The rich plasticity of the tower facades through the organic composition of volumes gives the object dynamism, symbolizing energy and development.

The architectural and technical solutions of the Lakhta Center, on which the team of architects, designers and engineers of the Gorproekt company (general designer of the complex) have been working since 2011, are innovative in many aspects not only for Russia, but also for the whole world. The project, which does not have a single repeating (standard) floor, is technically considered one of the most complex and unique even in comparison with other mega-skyscrapers on the planet; Leaders of the global construction industry, leading contracting companies and manufacturers from Europe and Asia took part in its implementation. Solving the most complex design problems became possible only through the use of the latest BIM technologies and parametric design.

The facade solutions of the complex are especially unique. Firstly, a record amount of glass was used: the area of ​​glazed shells is about 130 thousand square meters. m, of which 72.5 thousand sq. m on the tower. m (this is 16.5 thousand double-glazed windows). In total, more than half a million square meters of glass were used in production, and glass was used not only as a translucent shell of hanging stained-glass windows, but also as a load-bearing structural material: record-high all-glass mullion stands (more than 17 m without a single seam) provide maximum visual lightness and transparency of planar stained glass windows at the level of public spaces of the atrium.

Secondly, the latest synthetic materials were used for translucent shells, for example, ETFE film, from which the pneumatic elements (“cushions”) of the skylight in the central atrium of the stylobate part of the complex are made. This solution made it possible to significantly reduce the weight of the structure of a huge lantern with a length of more than 250 m, while avoiding the risk of icing in the winter. On the facades of stylobate buildings, energy-saving double-thread glazing is used, which provides ventilation of buffer zones in a passive mode. On the tower itself, an intelligent two-thread facade was implemented, which allows (already in active mode) to automatically ventilate the buffer zones between the two threads of the facade - in the summer it will prevent heating of the premises when the ventilation valves are open, and in winter, on the contrary, it will accumulate solar energy due to the “greenhouse effect”, reducing energy consumption for heating with closed ventilation valves.

Curved in three dimensions, the stained glass window of the outer thread is assembled from huge double-glazed windows with an area of ​​11 square meters. m each. All 15 petal-faces of the facade look like a single shell of glass, curved in a spiral with a 90-degree rotation over the entire height. Each glass unit in plan is bent at an angle of 0.82 degrees when cold (without the use of molds and traditional heating in an oven up to 600 degrees), which allowed saving a huge amount of energy during production. Today, this stained glass window is the largest cold-formed façade in the world by area; it broke the record of our other project - in Moscow City.

The Lakhta Center tower, however, is not only the tallest in Europe, but also the northernmost mega-skyscraper in the world. For several months a year, the 100-meter spire will be hidden in low clouds, that is, in an area of ​​increased risk of condensation on the surfaces of its facades. Anti-icing measures are extremely important here, and the task was complicated by the fact that no one before us had built such tall buildings at such a latitude and in such a humid climate.

In winter, condensation will freeze on the surfaces of the spire in the form of ice, which can threaten the fall of fragments or entire icicles, so we have developed a unique spire anti-icing system, which is designed to combat ice accumulation on large metal surfaces. In the tower spire, the glass has been replaced with stainless steel cladding with a heating system in the cold season, and a steel mesh to control the formation of dangerous ice and icicles on the shell of the upper part of the skyscraper.

A unique façade maintenance system for cleaning and repairing stained glass or replacing double-glazed windows moves along a spiral path along a rail parallel to the façade shell. Active dynamic architectural lighting and anti-icing systems are also integrated into these rails. Special sensors will monitor when it is necessary to turn on local heating in places where ice may appear. The flashing aircraft obstacle lights at the top of the spire operate 24 hours a day and are visible to pilots of aircraft and ships from many tens of kilometers away.

Based on the totality of innovative energy-efficient solutions used in the project, the facility claims a LEED gold certificate, which makes it a national leader in terms of energy saving and respect for the environment - after all, we are talking about the headquarters of the largest energy company.

Of course, Lakhta Center is not only a tower, it is a huge complex with an area of ​​400 thousand square meters. m, of which the tower occupies only a third. The area of ​​the first phase is 8 hectares, and large landscaped spaces will appear on them: three public squares, an open amphitheater with a stage against the backdrop of the bay, an entertaining science museum with a planetarium, and a multifunctional concert hall. The tower is completed by a publicly accessible observation deck in the lower space of the spire, an absolute center of attraction for tourists.

“Lakhta Center” is the urban flagship of the agglomeration practically in the center of the lagoon ring of the Gulf of Finland, surrounded by the ring highway (Ring Road) - it is in its orbit that “Greater St. Petersburg” will develop in the 21st century. And the tower on the shore of the bay, in the geometric center of this orbit, like a grandiose lighthouse, forms the sea facade of the metropolis directly opposite the passenger port, which simultaneously receives 5-7 cruise ships during the summer tourist season. And they are all met and escorted by the Lakhta Center, the symbol of modern St. Petersburg.

"Lakhta Center". Photo by the Gorproekt press service

January 17th, 2016

Only recently we looked, and now let's see how they build GAZPROM IGLOO

The whole story began with the project of the Okhta Center, or Gazprom City complex. The complex with a 396-meter skyscraper was planned to be tied to the Neva again - it was supposed to rise on the cape formed by the Neva and the Okhta River flowing into it. On the opposite side of the Neva is the famous Smolny Institute, which was once the headquarters of the Bolsheviks, and now serves as the residence of the governor of St. Petersburg. The project then caused a lot of noise, mostly unenthusiastic. The glass needle of the skyscraper was radically disharmonious with the architectural style of the St. Petersburg center, while creating a new high-rise dominant, competing with the spiers of the Admiralty and the Peter and Paul Cathedral. Such interference in the historical low-rise urban landscape seemed blasphemous to many.

In the end, the Okhta Center became the Lakhta Center: the construction of the Gazprom skyscraper, now 462 m high, was moved to the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland. There are no urban developments nearby, and the historical center is a full 9 km away, so the “needle” will no longer invade the recognizable outlines of old St. Petersburg. The complex of a high-rise building, an auxiliary building and a vast recreational area is scheduled for completion in 2018, and then...

Is there any practical sense in constructing such tall buildings where there seems to be no shortage of land? Of course, Lakhta does not have the cramped conditions of American downtowns, but architecture is not always intended to perform a utilitarian function. Sometimes her task is to create symbols, objects of attraction. Historically, temples that were supposed to rise above the surrounding buildings became such centers of attraction. There was no other meaning in this except symbolic. When elevators appeared and cities began to grow rapidly, high-rise buildings became the leaders and dominants. “Lakhta Center” will greet cruise ships and ferries heading to St. Petersburg like the Statue of Liberty in New York Bay; it will become a new symbol of the city, and this is precisely its main aesthetic task. This is what the authors of the project think.

Even those who are not good at geography probably remember: a city built in the delta rests on loose, water-soaked soil. Everyone remembers a branch of the St. Petersburg metro that was torn apart by quicksand for almost a decade. Unlike the textbook Manhattan, which is essentially bare rock, in the St. Petersburg area the granite shield lies below 200 m, and it is unrealistic to rest a building on it. How to build a skyscraper here? It turns out that from the point of view of geotechnics - the science of soils - no monstrous difficulties arise in this case. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where two twin super-skyscrapers were being built, the situation was even worse: the buildings stand on 120-meter stilts. Of course, it is too difficult to rest on the rocky ground in Lakhta - this would require piles of an unprecedented length in world practice, so we have to use ones that support the building due to friction. The upper layers of the soil are very loose, but already below 30 m the Vendian clays begin to be quite hard, and the piles are held securely in them.

The traditional construction of a skyscraper foundation is an array of piles on which a powerful slab rests. In principle, something similar has been done in Lakhta, but the foundation of the St. Petersburg skyscraper will have its own characteristics. It is a box-shaped structure buried in the ground to a depth of 17 m. Thus, the building will appear to be “sunk” in the ground, which will serve to more evenly distribute the weight of the structure and help avoid severe settlement of the skyscraper in the future.

The outer boundary of the foundation is a wall in the ground (in plan it is a regular pentagon, or pentagon). It is not a supporting element, but it protects the strength part of the foundation from soil pressure, and most importantly, from the seepage of groundwater. A pit is dug in the ground inside the wall, and to prevent the wall from collapsing, it is gradually strengthened with four reinforced concrete structures located on top of each other - the so-called spacer disks. When the pit is ready, the heads of the pre-installed piles are exposed. There are 264 piles, and the length of the most powerful of them is 82 m. At the bottom of the pit, a concrete slab resting on the heads is poured, and reinforcement for the main load-bearing structure - the lower foundation slab - is mounted on it. The designers did not have a shortage of space, and therefore they were able to support the building on a large foundation to ensure maximum stability.

Photo 2.

Photo 3.

The tragedy of the World Trade Center towers in New York, and especially the terrible picture of their collapse, is so clearly etched in the memory of each of us that the question “what will happen if???” arises quite naturally, as soon as we are talking about a new high-rise building. Here it should be remembered that the main customer of the complex is Gazprom, and we can say that this building is of strategic importance for our economy.

That is why the task was set to ensure the highest safety standards. In principle, the skyscraper will be built according to a well-known scheme: a cylindrical reinforced concrete core, floors, columns along the outer contour. The World Trade Center towers had approximately the same design. These were strong buildings, designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 747, but the destruction of some power structures of the external circuit led to the progressive destruction of others, a domino effect was created, and as a result the skyscrapers collapsed. The high-rise building of Lakhta Center is designed in such a way that it can be supported by one core. You can blow up all ten columns along the outer contour, but even then the skyscraper will stand. This is a real fortress, which, according to the architects, should survive many decades.

The stability of the structure is ensured by a special scheme for redistributing the load of the external contour of the building to the core. Every 16 floors, ten powerful consoles extend from the reinforced concrete core - a kind of hanging foundations on which a section of the building will additionally rest. There are four such outrigger levels in the skyscraper.

As a result, Lakhta Center will have a safety margin unique among buildings of this kind, significantly exceeding established international standards.

The reluctance to save on safety does not mean that the idea of ​​increasing the efficiency of a structure and reducing operating costs is completely alien to the authors of the project. On the contrary, it is very important for Gazprom, given that it is building a building “for itself,” to remain committed to modern energy saving technologies, especially in the harsh climate of St. Petersburg. For example, the building will receive a double façade, that is, there will be an insulating layer of air between two strands of glazing. The heating system will use such highly economical devices as infrared emitters. In addition, the heat accumulated in the building from operating computers and other office equipment will be removed and then used in the heating system. The air conditioning system has its own peculiarities - it is based not on the usual scheme for removing heat from the room to the outside, but on cold accumulators placed underground, which can produce up to 1000 tons of ice per night, and then release its cold to the rooms during the day. Occupancy sensors will also become widespread, which will turn off lighting fixtures when there is no one in the room.

But will the building be habitable from the bottom floors to the very top? High-rise buildings erected for purely commercial purposes are often inhabited from top to bottom, and there are no “excesses” there. However, if we are talking about a symbol, be it the Moscow State University building on Sparrow Hills in Moscow or the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, a significant part of their height is an uninhabited spire, designed to give the structure aesthetic completeness. Despite the fact that the height of the Lakhta Center skyscraper will be 462 m, all inhabited floors will be below the 400 m mark. Anything higher is an architectural element that will help the building serve as a city landmark and decoration of the sea gates of St. Petersburg.

The skyscraper in Lakhta will have a helical shape, that is, its facades will have a rather complex and asymmetrical surface. Particularly interesting is the use of cold-formed glass, which makes the glazing absolutely smooth. Together with the double facade, this will give unusual optical effects - for example, the reflection of clouds, as if rising diagonally along the wall of the building.

Photo 4.

The construction of a business and public center in Lakhta is not only an attempt to turn St. Petersburg to the sea with a “human face,” but also a desire to follow the centrifugal trend in modern urban planning. New business parks are being created away from dense urban areas; there are large areas and there are no problems with parking. The flow of cars to the Lakhta Center will always be in antiphase with the flow that moves to the city center in the morning and rushes to the outskirts and suburbs in the evening. This way, the historical center of St. Petersburg will be partially relieved, and business activity in the Lakhta Center, on the contrary, will intensify. Of course, the accessibility of Lakhta Center will be ensured not only for motorists, but also for those who use public transport: the complex will be connected to the city center by a metro line.

However, the purpose of Lakhta Center goes far beyond the task of providing the city with additional office space. In the skyscraper and in the auxiliary building, the project provides not only business premises, but a large entertaining science center for children, conference rooms, exhibition spaces, sports and medical complexes, cafes, restaurants, shops and even an ultra-modern planetarium. The vast surrounding area will include public gardens, parks, walking paths and an amphitheater overlooking the Gulf of Finland.

We can say that the history of Lakhta Center is connected not only with urban planning and architecture. After all, it so happened that the clash of interests of a large national corporation and the aspirations of the civil society of the Northern capital regarding the Okhta Center led not to the triumph of one side to the detriment of the other, but to a new quality and to a new stage in the development of St. Petersburg.

Photo 5.

Construction of a high-rise building in the area of ​​a deep river delta is a difficult task, but not impossible. The upper layers of the soil have quicksand properties, but at a depth of 30 m there are so-called Vendian clays, which are comparable in hardness to natural stone. In this regard, it became possible to replace the slotted foundations with bored piles, which will support the building not due to support on the rock, but due to the force of friction. The piles, the most powerful of which reach a length of 82 m, are not driven, but installed. Such piles are called bored piles: first a well is drilled, then a casing pipe is lowered into it (so that the walls of the well do not crumble), reinforcement is installed inside the pipe, and then concrete is poured.

Photo 6.

Photo 7.

Photo 8.

Photo 9.

Photo 10.

Photo 11.

Photo 12.

Photo 13.

Photo 14.

Photo 15.

Photo 16.

Photo 17.

Photo 18.

Photo 19.

Photo 20.

Photo 21.

Photo 22.

Photo 23.

Photo 24.

Photo 25.

Photo 26.

Photo 27.

Photo 28.

Photo 29.

SAINT PETERSBURG, January 5. /TASS/. The St. Petersburg tower of the public and business Lakhta Center, whose investor is Gazprom, plans to become the tallest building in Europe in 2017, the center’s press service told TASS. At the same time, the final height that the tower will reach next year, 2018, will exceed 462 meters.

Now the tallest building is considered to be the Vostok Tower on the Federation skyscraper in the Moscow City business center in the Russian capital. Its height is almost 374 meters.

“In 2017, Lakhta Center plans to become the tallest building in St. Petersburg, the tallest building in Russia and Europe,” the press service said.

Gazprom Business Center

For many years, the Russian transnational corporation Gazprom has been discussing a project to build a multifunctional public and business center in St. Petersburg. Initially, the company intended to build a center in the Krasnogvardeisky district on the banks of the Okhta River, away from the historical center of the city. The height of the spire on the building, according to the design of British architects RMJM, was supposed to be 396 meters. St. Petersburg residents reacted ambiguously to the location of the tower, they were especially embarrassed by the height of the building, and the city authorities met the city defenders halfway and moved the location of the complex.

Based on the existing Okhta Center project, the investor developed a Lakhta Center project with a tower, the height of which ranged from 300 to 500 meters. For this purpose, the authorities of St. Petersburg increased the maximum possible height of buildings under construction in the Primorsky district, where the skyscraper was to be located. The area of ​​the territory for the complex, purchased from the LSR group, amounted to 14 hectares. It is located on the shores of the Gulf of Finland. It was also assumed that public spaces would appear in the center: a technology museum, a yacht club and a number of others.

In October 2012, work began on the zero cycle of the high-rise building. In October 2013, permission was received for the construction of the entire complex, including a multifunctional building. In the spring of 2015, construction of the complex continued at a rate of one floor per week. This summer, the Lakhta Center tower broke the record for the height of buildings and reached 147 meters.

Significance for the city

Despite the mixed reaction of the city public, the construction of the Lakhta Center has brought positive changes to the city's transport infrastructure. As reported in October 2015, PJSC Gazprom promised to invest 21 billion rubles in the development of the territory near the Lakhta Center.

The office of the vice-governor of the city, Igor Albin, noted that to ensure transport accessibility of the Primorsky district, it is planned to build a railway stop, a metro station, equip bus stops, an intercept parking lot, and an off-street pedestrian crossing, in particular, to the business center. Such measures are necessary, since according to the plan, about 5 thousand employees will work in the complex. For construction and installation work, at the end of 2016, funding was provided in the amount of 1.069 billion rubles out of the required 7.152 billion rubles, the press service recalled.

As Vladislav Fadeev, head of the research department of the consulting company JLL in St. Petersburg, told TASS, based on the status of the owner and user (Gazprom structures will move into the tower), this project is very important for the city.

“We are already witnessing the movement of various of its contractors following Gazprom, and the presence of headquarters in St. Petersburg will support this process in the future. It is also planned to further develop the territory around the Lakhta Center, mainly for the needs of Gazprom and its subsidiaries structures. As a result, a new business center of the city will be formed, which, along with the established business zone in Pulkovo, contributes to the decentralization of the city," he said.

“From an architectural point of view, the most important thing is that in the current location all the architectural advantages of the project do not conflict with the key panoramas of St. Petersburg,” says a representative of the consulting company JLL. However, not everyone shares this opinion. Thus, the general director of the Hermitage, speaking about the architecture of the city, noted that “there are fresh things” that indicate negative phenomena in the architecture of the city, and expressed dissatisfaction that from the windows of his office it became visible “how this terrible tower is growing.”