PrK |photography
The Gherkin
30 St Mary Axe, the Swiss Re Building referred to as the Gherkin or the Cucumber Building.
With 40 floors, the tower is 591 ft tall. This is Britain's most expensive office space - around GBP 630 million. The building also featured in movies such as Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Basic Instinct 2.
The building is on the former site of the Baltic Exchange building, the headquarters of a global marketplace for ship sales and shipping information.
The below info with Courtesy of skyscrapernews.com
Each floor rotates 5 degrees from the last but the spiralling atriums were not fully realised. They stop every six floors for fire safety reasons.
The only curved piece of glass on the entire building is the very top piece that crowns it.
The advantages of the shape are numerous - at the bottom it tapers in creating more ground space and allowing a new public plaza to build whilst circular towers also create less downdrafts. Tapering at the top into the crown reduces wind resistance further.
The building contains the highest dining space in London at 163 metres. The entire top floors are occupied by the company restaurant for Swiss Re.
The building weighs 70,000 tonnes, contains 333 piles in the foundations, 35 kilometres of structural steel at 11,000 tonnes, and 24,000 square metres of glass cladding.
Almost all of the plant space is located externally on an adjacent six story structure at 20 Bury Street.
The building is the winner of the 2005 RIBA Stirling Prize for Architecture and has become an instant hit with the public appearing prominently in Olympic 2012 promotions.
(ISO 100, f/16, @10mm with Sigma 10-20mm)
The Gherkin
30 St Mary Axe, the Swiss Re Building referred to as the Gherkin or the Cucumber Building.
With 40 floors, the tower is 591 ft tall. This is Britain's most expensive office space - around GBP 630 million. The building also featured in movies such as Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Basic Instinct 2.
The building is on the former site of the Baltic Exchange building, the headquarters of a global marketplace for ship sales and shipping information.
The below info with Courtesy of skyscrapernews.com
Each floor rotates 5 degrees from the last but the spiralling atriums were not fully realised. They stop every six floors for fire safety reasons.
The only curved piece of glass on the entire building is the very top piece that crowns it.
The advantages of the shape are numerous - at the bottom it tapers in creating more ground space and allowing a new public plaza to build whilst circular towers also create less downdrafts. Tapering at the top into the crown reduces wind resistance further.
The building contains the highest dining space in London at 163 metres. The entire top floors are occupied by the company restaurant for Swiss Re.
The building weighs 70,000 tonnes, contains 333 piles in the foundations, 35 kilometres of structural steel at 11,000 tonnes, and 24,000 square metres of glass cladding.
Almost all of the plant space is located externally on an adjacent six story structure at 20 Bury Street.
The building is the winner of the 2005 RIBA Stirling Prize for Architecture and has become an instant hit with the public appearing prominently in Olympic 2012 promotions.
(ISO 100, f/16, @10mm with Sigma 10-20mm)