Thesis title:
A multifunctional Tower for Royal Seaport of Stockholm
Date of discussion:
December 2023
Students:
Alale Sarabani, Pegah Shekofte Roudsari
Professors of the Studio:
Maria Grazia Folli (Architectural Design)
Corrado Pecora (Structural and Seismic Design)
Marco Imperadori (Sustainable Technology)
Giovanni Dotelli (Sustainable Materials for Architecture)
Lorenzo Pagliano (Services Design for Sustainable Buildings)
Abstract:
Royal Skyline is a multifunctional tower project in Stockholm, a city in which recent plans and future urban regeneration and redevelopment programs have assumed and are using building verticality as a widespread and intensive device. It is aimed at solving urban densification problems, using iconic shapes and sustainable construction technologies. Transforming former industrial areas into new urban districts requires both vision and sensitivity. The former gasworks area of the strategic Royal Seaport had continuous expansion from the early 1890s until its decommissioning in the early 2000s. The ongoing projects envisage the transformation of this now abandoned area into a green and attractive hub for both residents and businesses, in which tall buildings can play an important role in redefining functions, density, as well as the urban skyline between the city and the port area and channel. The new tower rises above a podium which is an open courtyard that defines new margins towards the infrastructure, redesigning the public space with mineral surfaces, greenery and water. The height, orientation and rhomboid shape of the tower were defined in relation to logics attentive to the role of the tall building as an orientation device on the territorial scale, as an element structuring the urban morphology capable of communicating with the physical and cultural context, natural and anthropic. The compositional, structural and constructive synthesis was found in coherence with the cultural references of the Nordic architecture of modernism as well as seeking high standards of environmental sustainability. A fundamental role is played by the parametric design of the facades which defines the compositional patterns and their variations in relation to different visual perceptions of the tower and, at the same time, controlling light and radiation which enhance the quality of the internal space.