The conference began with the words of the chief architect of the capital, A. Kuzmin, who outlined the main issues of high-rise construction in Moscow - where to build, how and for whom? The questions raised are more than relevant in connection with the ambitious Moscow projects of skyscrapers, as well as the construction of the Federation Tower (Peter Schweger, Sergei Tchoban) and the skyscraper on Mosfilmovskaya (Sergei Skuratov). For the qualitative development of the city upwards, it remains to arm ourselves with international experience, and understand what difficulties we will have to face.
The main issues discussed by the speakers of the conference are the economy and environmental friendliness of buildings, safety, a combination of architectural imagery and engineering design, problems of connection with the historical context and development aspects of construction. The architects touched upon many aspects of high-rise buildings - from the origin of skyscrapers to the problems of their existence and their multiplication in a modern city. “The phenomenon of the emergence of a high-rise building is associated with the development of modern cities - says Lee Polisano (President of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, USA) - which is constantly growing and begins to consume more land than it is allotted to. Therefore, when the area of the city changes, the problem of maintaining the quality of life arises - which can only be solved by high-rise buildings. Polisano demonstrated his recipe for high-rise construction using the example of the City of London business center, the main advantages of which are good traffic capacity and the presence of many public areas passing through the first floors of offices. In addition, the center takes into account the topography of the area - the medieval context in which it is located is reflected in skyscrapers in the form of increased asymmetry and a variety of views.
Chris Wilkinson (Wilkinson Eyre Architects, UK) spoke about what forms a skyscraper can take and why. According to his calculations, the best shape underlying a high-rise building is a triangle with beveled corners along which air flows pass. This form was realized in his twin skyscrapers erected in Shanghai. The structure of the building is a steel mesh - which makes it quite cheap. The shape of the volume itself is made with two curves, tapering towards the bottom and towards the top. The elegant fully glazed twin towers act as gates opening out from the sea. According to Wilkinson, the main features of a quality high-rise building are economy, modern technology and aesthetics.
"Pragmatism is the main meaning of the building," says architect Tony McLaughlin (Buro Happold, UK), but don't forget about the facade, because if the facade is bad and uninteresting, it doesn't matter what is behind it. " The architect highlighted the fundamental principle of building skyscrapers, calling it "X-1" - which means if at least one basic element is lost, the entire building will die. Without exception, all Western architects are concerned with the problem of saving energy, although it has not yet become a reality for the Russian economy - about which they agree that it is easier to reduce energy consumption now than to switch to its substitutes later.
To save energy, Graham Stirk, director of the Richard Rogers Partnership, UK, proposed the creation of double and triple glazed facades and additional photocells that save lighting - they were used in his Lights of Tower, as well as the use of blinds during active sun periods.
Ken Young (Llewelyn Davis Yeang, USA - Malaysia) for the same purpose uses a natural ventilation system embodied in the Singapore National Library, where air, first entering the center, circulates independently throughout the volume. One of the main problems of high-rise construction is the uniformity of forms and problems with the environment. In response, Ken Young proposed a version of the building of the future as a form of a vertical city: “Why are modern buildings boring and monotonous? - because there is no life in them. Take a cityscape and put it vertically! The architect proposes extensive landscaping of the building inside and out - gardens on terraces, on the roof, between rooms, which improves the ecology and connects the building with the environment. If the customer has a question why he is spent on free space, then it can be explained that on the one hand, this is the possibility of increasing the usable area, and on the other, that this is the most inexpensive building decor.
To better integrate the tall building, the context of the historic building Simon Olford (Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, Vice President of RIBA) proposed cutting corners, even those that run at the base and face the street - which frees up movement with minimal loss of building volume. According to him, “a high-rise building does not need to be taken out beyond the historic center - you can always come up with some clever move”.
