By CRYSTAL GOH
Capital Gate may just be able to dethrone the Leaning Tower of Pisa as the most inclined tower in the world, pending the approval of an application submitted by the developers at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company and UK-based architects RMJM to the Guinness Book of Records.
This 35-storey tower will be part of a development around the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center, which will include 23 other residential, commercial and mixed-used buildings.
Capital Gate itself will house premium office space and the five-star “Hyatt at Capital Center” hotel, and will lean westward at a gravity-defying 18 degrees – more than four times as far as the famed Leaning Tower’s 3.97-degree tilt.
To accommodate the gravitational, wind and seismic pressures stemming from the tower’s extreme angle, this architectural feat has been achieved by constructing the building on a dense mesh of reinforced steel, above a network of 490 piles driven some 30 meters underground to ensure the curved tower’s structural integrity.
www.rmjm.com
via World Architecture News