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The project is an office building located in Songshan District, Taipei City, featuring 19 floors above ground and 7 underground levels. It is constructed with a steel superstructure and reinforced concrete for the basement levels. This is a reconstruction project; the original building was a shopping center called "Core Pacific City." Due to the client's business strategy adjustment, the original shopping center was demolished, and four new office towers are being erected.
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Project Details
Location: Taipei, Taiwan Gross Building Area: 254,527 m^2 Scope of Service: Schematic design through construction administration Client: Core Pacific Development Corporation Architect: C.Y.LEE & Partners architects / Planner (Taipei, Taiwan) Structural engineer: King-Le Chang & Associates |
The design concept of this project is to make the most use of the existing building structure when constructing the new building. The old structure consists of reinforced concrete from B4 and below, and steel from B4 and above. The plan is to retain only the reinforced concrete structure while replacing the steel structure, this is because reinforced concrete member is more feasible in retrofitting compared to steel structure. However, since the positions of the new steel columns do not align with the existing concrete columns, a reinforced concrete (RC) transfer slab, with a depth ranging from 1 to 2.5 meters, is used to evenly distribute the load from the steel columns to the nearby concrete columns. Following this, the concrete columns are reinforced or retrofitted as necessary. This approach is feasible because the existing pile foundations are strong enough to support the weight of the new structure.
The new superstructure utilizes a special moment-resisting frame in both the X and Y axes, along with buckling-restrained braces (BRBs) in the X direction. To ensure the public areas remain unobstructed by the BRBs, most of these braces are positioned in the service areas. However, this arrangement introduces eccentric stiffness to the structure, which can lead to torsional behavior. To address this issue, King-Le Chang and Associates propose using a connector system (rain cover, island, and spacecraft) to link the four structures, allowing them to function as a single, unified system rather than acting independently.
