THE

SHARD
-LONDON

TOPIC: STRUCTURAL
SYSTEMS OF TALL BUILDINGS
SUBJECT: CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY- V
FACULTY: PROF. S.P.SAPRE
INTRODUCTION
The Shard (also referred to as the Shard of Glass ,
Shard London Bridge or the London Bridge Tower
is a skyscraper in London, England.

Standing 309.6 meters (1,016ft) high, it was

topped out on 30 March 2012 and opened on 5
July 2012.

The Shard is the tallest completed building in

Europe, and is also the second-tallest free-
standing structure in the United Kingdom, after
the 330-metre (1,083ft) concrete tower at the
Emley Moor transmitting station.
The Shard replaced Southwark Towers, a 24-story
office block built on the site in Southwark in 1975.

Renzo Piano, the Shard's architect, worked with the

architectural firm Broadway Malyan during the
planning stage.

The tower has 72 habitable floors, with a viewing

gallery and open-air observation deck the UK's
highest on the 72nd floor, at a height of 245
metres (804ft).

The Shard was designed with an irregular pyramidal

shape from the base to the top, and is clad entirely
in glass.

Its structure was completed in April 2012.

The Southwark
Towers office block,
which was
demolished to
make way for the
Shard
Pianodrew inspiration for the project from ship
masts and church spires.

The elongated, pyramidal form of the building came

to Piano at his first meeting with Sellar and
developed into an eight-sided tower with angled
glass facades that don't quite touch one another.

Usingultra-clear, low-iron glass was critical to the

scheme.

Toooften tall buildings are opaque and mysterious.

Hence Piano wanted this one to be transparent, so
everyone could see all the activity inside. And by
angling the glass, the tower reflects views of the sky.

The building is an expression of the weather in

London, changing all the time
General details :-
Location: 32 London Bridge Street,
Southwark, London, England
Client: Teighmore Ltd
Size: 87 storeys; 93 000 sq m
Construction started: March 2009
Completed: July 2012
Cost ~ 450 million
Height with Antenna spire: 309.6m
(1,016ft)
Roof :304.1m (998ft)
Technical Details:
Floor count :95 (Including plant floors), 72
(habitable)
Floor area :110,000 m2 (1,200,000 sqft)
Elevators: 44 Design
Construction Architect :Renzo Piano
Developer Sellar Property Group
Structural engineer Turner & Townsend (Project
Managers),
Structural Engineers : WSP Cantor Seinuk
Concrete temporary works : Robert Bird Group
Services engineer : Arup
Main contractor : Mace
In terms of its structure, the Shard stacks a series of
different systems on top of each otherstarting with a
concrete foundation, then a steel frame for the office
floors and the public spaces of the hotel, then another
concrete frame for the hotel guest rooms and the
residences, and finally a steel frame for the observation
galleries and the building's unoccupied top. It may seem
odd to put a concrete structure on top of a steel one, but
the arrangement reduces the building's sway, says
William Matthews, the project architect for Renzo Piano
Building Workshop. To speed construction, the contractor
used a top-down process that began with a concrete
platform at ground level, then built up at the same time as
the foundation was being erected below. The process was
more expensive, but it cut six months from the schedule.

Because London provides no real
context or common vocabulary for
skyscrapers, the Shard must work as a
solo performer, graceful enough to hold
public attention over time.

On a typical day in April, it changed

personality along with the mercurial
weather: gray and moody when
surrounded by clouds, dashing and a bit
roguish in sunlight.
Architectural details :
At 1,016 feet and tipped to be the tallest
building in Europe, the Shard will provide
900,000 square feet comprising office
space, hotel, residential apartments,
restaurants and viewing galleries with
unparalleled views of south east England.
Renzo Piano, the project's architect
proposed a sophisticated use of glazing,
with expressive faades of angled glass
panes intended to reflect sunlight and
the sky above, so that the appearance of
the building will change according to the
weather and seasons.
It features 11,000 panes of glass.

The Shards early conceptual

designs were among the first in
the UK to be progressed following
the publication of the US National
Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) report into the
WTC collapse.

The building was designed to

maintain its stability under very
The
Shard contains premium office space, a hotel,
luxury residences, retail space, restaurants, a five-
storey public viewing gallery, and a spa.The public
viewing gallery is located on the 72nd floor, at a
height of 245 metres (804ft)

The
building will complement the irregular nature
of the site.

Each
faade of the building is a flake of glass
tending inward and rising to the top, resembling a
glass pyramid.

The
top corner of the tower is open as the glass
shards or flakes do not touch each other. This is
conceived as the breathing space for the tower.
Geometry :
The shape of the tower is generous at the bottom
ground and n without arrogantly touching the ground
and narrow at the top , disappearing in the air like a
16th century pinnacle or the mast top of the ship.

The tall,slender,multifaceted and tapered geometry

of the building was a great challenge for the
structural designers.

The tapered geometry efficiently accommodates the

various usages along its height such as residential at
the upper portion with smaller floor areas, hotels at
the mid height portion with average floor areas and
commercial at the lower level called backpack, to
further increase the commercial floor areas.
yyy.txt
The challenges were to create a harmonious
structure systems, while addressing the often
conflicting requirements of multiple programs
like selecting the appropriate lateral load and
gravity load bearing structural systems, while
creating an economical and constructible
design.

From the early stages of the design and

conception, the effort had been made to
support the architect's impression of the
building and to use the state-of-the-art
structural engineering and construction
techniques to include every aspect of the
building from foundation to its gravity and
wind/seismic resisting systems.
Key features of the structural system include the
use of top-down basment construction for the
main tower with conventional bottom up
construction under the low rise annex
backpack portion of the building on the east
side.

Thismethodology was adopted to increase the

speed of construction and to minimize the
ground movements around the site.

Top-down construction is an alternate method of

construction where, after installation of the the
load bearing elements such as diaphragm walls
and piles, the basement floors are concreted as
the excavation progresses from grade level down
to lower basement level.
Structural Details :
Due to the sensitivity of the adjacent
infrastructure ,the main focus for the
foundation of this building was to minimize the
ground movememnts during construction,
while working through the existing foundation
of the previous structure and other
obstructions.

A foundation system of a perimeter secant pile

wall comprising of 900 mm diameter piles and
1500 mm diameter bore piles 50 meters deep
using a top-down construction methodology
was done.