Lakhta center what will happen there. How the Lakhta Center is being built in St. Petersburg. - That is, the tower stands on the sand

"Lakhta Center":
what is it worth
for high-rise
frontiers

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Skyscrapers are the vanguard of the construction industry. Super high-rise buildings always require a special approach from their creators. In 2018, the construction of the Lakhta Center will be completed in St. Petersburg, which will become the tallest skyscraper in Europe. What technologies are used to build the St. Petersburg giant?

New Height of Europe

The public and business complex "Lakhta Center" is being built in the Primorsky district of St. Petersburg, on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. The headquarters of the Gazprom Group and Gazprom Neft will become its center, the other part of the area will be occupied by public spaces: a scientific and educational complex for children and youth, a planetarium, exhibition spaces, medical and sports centers, a multifunctional transforming hall and others.

The complex consists of four structures: a multifunctional building with an atrium, a stylobate (there will be parking and auxiliary facilities), the main entrance arch and a skyscraper 462 meters high. It is he who will become the highest not only in Russia, but throughout Europe. The Lakhta Center Supertoll will outgrow the current European record holder, the Federation Tower in Moscow City, by 88 meters, and will be in 11th place in the world high-altitude rating.

Construction site in the swamp

There is an opinion that Petersburg is built on viscous soils, and it is impossible to build skyscrapers here. Experts answer: you can build anywhere, but you need a good calculation. The construction of the St. Petersburg supertoll was preceded by a year and a half of engineering and geological research. The authors of the project studied the geological, geodetic, ecological, historical and cultural features of the site.

It turned out that weak soils make up only the upper layer. Under it lies the Vendian horizon - these are the oldest clays, which are 635-540 million years old. As strong as rock or concrete, these clays provide excellent support for a skyscraper. But getting to them is not easy: on the way, construction equipment has ice age deposits in the form of giant boulders and sandy loam with gravel. A complex of studies, calculations and full-scale tests became the basis for creating the Lakhta Center design.

Device: base

Piles and protective wall

From pressure and water in the upper soil layers, the foundation is protected by a five-sided underground structure along the perimeter of the base of the skyscraper. Its height is 30 meters, the length of the walls is more than 300 meters. Inside the pentagon, 264 piles are installed, going to a depth of up to 82 meters. Their diameter is 2 meters. These are the widest piles in the world. The piles of the foundation of a skyscraper are not hammered, but created right on the spot - in the ground. The shaft is drilled out, then the reinforcement frame is installed and poured with concrete.

Foundation

The foundation of the skyscraper rests on piles. It consists of three slabs separated by ten radial walls that radiate "beams" from the core. The most famous of the plates is the lower one, 3.6 meters thick. It was she who got into the Guinness Book of Records: builders laid 19,624 cubic meters of concrete in the base of the building in 49 hours. Moreover, the uniqueness of the slab is not in the physical size, but in the technique that provides the necessary bearing capacity with the optimal dimensions of the structure.

More about the record at the Lakhta Center site

Each pile under the tower is a separate complex engineering structure as high as a 30-story building. Control over its construction is a whole system, including video monitoring cameras lowered into the shaft and ultrasonic sensors installed in the reinforcement of the pile frame to determine the density and absence of voids.

Pressure test

The weight of the Lakhta Center tower will be 670,000 tons, putting pressure on the ground of a relatively small area. Under pressure, the soil will compact, and the skyscraper will settle - like any other building. The main task is to ensure that this draft passes evenly and the building does not deviate from the vertical. To monitor the behavior of the soil, underground structures and their interaction, a geomonitoring system has been created that combines 4800 sensors.

The sensors are located both in the ground and in all elements of the underground structures of the tower. So, 95 sensors “monitor” vertical displacements, 40 - the pore pressure of the soil, 336 measure the deformations in piles, 10 - the pressure under the base of the foundation, 2136 - the dynamics of forces in the foundation structures. All sensors are integrated into an automatic system. After the construction of every five new floors of the tower, the system issues a full report on what is happening with the soil, piles, and foundation. Such knowledge is useful not only for builders, but also for scientific research.

Vertical management

The sediment can pass evenly. But after all, the building itself can be built with a slope. This will not be surprising at a height of almost half a kilometer: an uncorrected deviation of 1 mm at the bottom will lead to a deviation of 1 meter at the top. "Lakhta Center" cannot afford a strong deviation: a skyscraper is stable "on a slope" only if it is specially designed this way (for example, Capital Gate is the building with the largest slope in the world: at 160 meters in height - 18 degrees of heel). The maximum deviation of the Lakhta Center core allowed by the project is 6 millimeters for all 462 meters. And the goal is to shift the deviation delta to zero, although in world practice no one has yet managed to reach absolute zero.

How can the St. Petersburg supertoll not turn into the Leaning Tower of Pisa?

There are examples of buildings in the world that successfully exist in a state of deviation from the vertical by meters. For example, the church of 1382 in Bad Frankenhausen: the deviation of the spire from the vertical is 4.45 meters with a “growth” of 25 meters.

Device: design

A skyscraper cannot simply be built "as long as there are enough bricks." There are various systems that ensure the stability of super-tall buildings. At the Lakhta Center tower, it consists of a core, outriggers and load-bearing columns along the perimeter of the building.

It is a "pipe" with a diameter of 24.5 meters with a reinforced concrete wall thickness of 0.8 meters. Responsible for vertical stability.

Outriggers

The outriggers located on the technical floors consist of an annular beam around the core and diagonal metal trusses and columns extending from it. These elements transfer forces from the core to the outer columns and reduce the support moment at the bottom of the building, as well as impart horizontal rigidity - for example, they dampen the swaying of the tower from the wind. There are five outriggers in the Lakhta Center tower, of which four have the form of double floors, and the fifth is atypical, in the form of a powerful reinforced concrete "washer"

Made of composite materials - steel core with reinforced concrete shell. This solution was applied for the first time in civil engineering in Russia. Thanks to him, the cost of columns is significantly reduced, and the construction time

reduced by 40%, other things being equal.

Twisted shape

According to the creators, the Lakhta Center tower was conceived as a modern interpretation of a high-rise dominant that stands out against the background of the traditional horizontal building of St. Petersburg. Its "brothers" - the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral, the Admiralty Needle, the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral - adorn the city center, while the new supertoll will become an organizing element in the rapidly developing Primorsky district. The new skyscraper will play the role of the main focus of the business space that will appear on the line of the city's "marine facade".

“The shape of the building symbolizes the energy of water, the flow of spaces, openness and lightness,” the authors of the project explain. – The effect of weightlessness and maximum fusion of the future complex with the environment will be enhanced by the use of a special type of glass, due to which, depending on the time of day, the high-rise building will change color, which will create the feeling of a “living object”.

Device: facade

The Lakhta Center tower twists 90 degrees around its axis. In the construction of such a building there are certain features. For example, due to expansion, contraction and "torsion", all 189 thousand components of the tower's metal structures differ from each other (strictly speaking, only two are identical). Facade elements also differ in shape and curvature: 16,505 panels cover an area of ​​72,500 square meters, while 71% of the double-glazed windows differ from each other in size and geometry. The size of each double-glazed window is 2.8 by 4.2 meters, weight is 740 kilograms. To service such a whimsical structure, a special facade maintenance system (abbreviated SOF) has been developed. With its help, the facades will be kept clean and, if necessary, repaired.

How to collect 189,000 parts and never make a mistake?

A vision for the future

Conquering heights is always a matter of having the appropriate technology. Elevator, ventilation, electricity - at one time it was skyscrapers that were the first to experience all these "novelties". After a successful start, the production of technologies became massive: they moved from the category of exclusive goods to the category of minimum standards in the construction of typical housing and public buildings.

The construction of skyscrapers is due to the development of modern lifting construction equipment, the invention of building stability structures, the introduction of new fire safety technologies, modern high-strength building materials. High-rise construction is an area where an order for high-tech solutions is formed, which will then move to other areas of our life.

"Walking" mechanisms for the construction of a skyscraper

St. Petersburg "Lakhta Center" is actively introducing technologies - something for the first time in the regional and Russian construction market, something - in the world. The significance of this construction project for the construction industry can be assessed later, but it is already clear how the environment is changing: joint production enterprises appear, qualified personnel grow, suppliers use new technical solutions - this is how new heights in quality standards are mastered.

They prepared in advance for pouring the bottom plate, because it is impossible to “remake” the work. The members rehearsed everything they could. For example, 13 concrete supply plants trained in the manufacture of a concrete mix according to a unique recipe until they reached its absolute identity.

The pouring speed was more than 400 cubic meters per hour, and the mixers made more than 2,450 trips. The process was organized in such a way that local residents learned about the event from the media - there was no additional traffic jam on the busy Primorskoye Highway, no noise from the construction site.

The deviation delta is monitored by surveyors. They have seven systems of equipment (optical and laser) in their arsenal, duplication helps to double-check the instrument readings. Three of the seven geodetic systems are presented in Russia for the first time, but have managed to prove themselves well at the world's leading construction sites.

World geodetic premiere - a pulsed high-speed laser scanner with a two-axis compensator. The device is used for the first time in the construction of a skyscraper. With its help, the builders of Lakhta Center check the position of metal structures inside the concrete environment during the manufacture, for example, of composite columns with a steel core inside the concrete structure.

To maintain the core in a strictly vertical course, a "space" technology is also used - the Trimble 4D Control geodetic device. It uses a satellite signal and a system of geosensors installed at the construction site. With the help of GPS and GLONASS readings, the system determines the exact coordinates of the core and the displacement delta, which is constantly corrected based on the received data.

BIM is used for assembly, a relatively new technology for Russia. It is a virtual three-dimensional model of the building that combines all the data of the project documentation. When adding a time dimension, a virtual technology for erecting an object is built: projects for the organization of construction, work performance, supply logistics. In Lakhta Center, one more application was added to the standard use of the model. Due to its complex geometry, the tower is assembled from metal structures, each of which has a single possible mounting location. The correctness of the assembly is controlled, including with the help of BIM. The structures delivered to the site have barcodes associated with the BIM model. The part code clearly indicates its installation location in the overall design.

Builders say about the St. Petersburg Supertoll that it is “handmade”. We are talking about the uniqueness of solutions, and as for labor, they automate everything that is possible. For example, for the construction of the core, a “sliding” (automated) formwork system is used.

Formwork is a form for concreting formed by two rows of panels, the space between which is the future wall of the core. Concrete is poured between the shields and hardens.

Ordinary formwork needs to be loosened, rearranged to a new place and reassembled - a huge waste of time and productivity. And the automatic one, as the concrete is poured, “moves” with the help of hydraulic jacks.

Such self-propelled tools are very popular at the Lakhta construction site. The wind protection on the tower works according to a similar principle - its panels slide after the formwork. The "walking" mechanisms include a crane in the core of the tower - the first of its kind in St. Petersburg.

"Lakhta Center": "As future residents of Lakhta, we are the first to need a comfortable environment"

The Gazprom tower will be completed by the end of the year, while city dwellers are concerned about plans for the development of adjacent territories. Fontanka studied the urban plan, went to the area and received first-hand answers to questions.

The Lakhta Center tower will be completed in a year. When road junctions appear nearby, an amphitheater, an international yacht club and the tennis academy founded by Poltavchenko will open, where the park “disappeared” from the images of the project and why the trees are being cut down,” Alexander Bobkov, executive director of the project, said in an interview with Fontanka.

- When will Lakhta Center be commissioned? Are there any delays?

- How the construction is going on, you can already observe with the naked eye, at this stage there is nothing to hide - no delays, no breaks ahead. We plan to complete the main construction and installation works by the end of 2017, which will form the final architectural image of our complex. From now on, everyone will be able to see it as it was intended. And in 2018, we will finish the interior work and landscaping in order to hand over the complex in the fall of next year.

- Can new US sanctions affect the pace of construction?

- The main foreign equipment that we needed has already been purchased, and we do not fall under the criteria that are described in the sanctions conditions. So emotionally this is all unpleasant, but objectively we have no reason to worry.

- When will Gazprom's structures start moving into the complex?

- This is a question more for tenants who independently arrange interior spaces outside the common areas of the center. They are already seriously working on this issue, the design is underway, and I think that during 2019 the main relocation of the Gazprom structures to the complex will be completed.

- Will Alexey Miller, president of Gazprom, also move to the tower?

- The building has a block for the company's management, including a place where the chairman of the board can work.

Smolny promised to build road junctions near the Lakhta Center before its completion in 2018. How do you assess the fulfillment of these obligations?

- As such, the obligations of the city authorities to Gazprom have never been. There was a responsibility to the townspeople, in particular the residents of the Primorsky district. Plans for road infrastructure facilities were announced back in 2009, three years before we appeared on the site. Unfortunately, the speed of their implementation is lower than we would like. We hope that next year work will begin on the construction of a flyover between Primorskoye Highway and the territory of the southern part of the village of Lakhta-Olgino, as well as several auxiliary roads. According to the data that we have, similar facilities are usually built in two years.

- So, the denouement will appear after the opening of the Lakhta Center, and the area will still be stuck in traffic jams?

– We modeled the transport situation in the Lakhta Center area and found out that the project will not damage the current transport infrastructure. The traffic flows that our complex will generate are of a reverse nature. While in the morning residents of residential areas will go to work in the center of St. Petersburg, our workers will go along the almost empty Primorsky highway to work in the direction of Lakhta. And a similar situation will repeat itself in the evening, when our employees will go home to the center at 18-19, and the highway will be in a traffic jam from the city.

Now 11 thousand people work at the facility. All around you can see parked cars, which is not very encouraging. local residents. How do you solve this problem?

- Already at the initial stage of construction, we organized the delivery of workers by buses. This is what is happening now. But at the current stage, the number of highly qualified personnel involved in the installation and commissioning of engineering systems has significantly increased. They do not use centralized transportation and drive their own cars.

Neither we nor the residents like the huge amount of personal vehicles that stand on lawns and along roads. We are trying to resolve this issue in direct communication with the general contractor: we include clauses in the contract that he must ensure order not only on the site, but also around it; we insist that the number of buses be increased, we ourselves work with the police. We are trying to organize construction camps more “vertically” so that there is more space for organized parking of personal vehicles. That is, in every possible way we are trying to bring the situation back to normal.

- And after the commissioning of the center, where will the cars of 10,000 employees and visitors go?

- For the future, we have a spacious underground parking, more than 2,200 cars, under the very tower of the center, and after its opening, the cars of employees and guests will not go beyond the red lines of the facility.

- Places are five times less than workers ...

– It must be understood that a significant part of the complex’s employees are by no means white-collar workers and not “automobile” people. They will travel by public transport.

- What transport?

- A new railway station will be created right in the alignment of Lakhta Russian Railways. It will be possible to sit at the Finland Station and quickly get to the Lakhta Center area. Russian Railways is ready to start work within a year. And in the future, there are plans to restore a double-track branch in this direction, which was on this territory 100 years ago. We hope to see these changes by 2020. In the meantime, there will be no such transport infrastructure, a continuous transportation of people from the Begovaya station by shuttles will be organized.

- And how will tourists get there?

- We expect that tourists will arrive by water - vessels with a large draft of the "Moscow" type will stop at the Hercules port, and smaller water taxis will stop at the pier right next to the tower.

Local residents complain that Gazprom promised to build a park for them. He featured in the first images of the project. Now in its place are new buildings of the complex. How did it happen?

- We are located on the territory of the former industrial zone. Here before us there were sand dunes with dredges and in windy weather storms raged. This is all about the question of "the destroyed park and when we will return it." He never was.

According to the initial project of Lakhta Center, a recreational zone was provided for on a part of our land plot, which is now called the park by the residents, because in the pictures it looked green and well-maintained. But after the decision was made to relocate Gazprom in its entirety, a project of an office complex arose at this place, which will receive an additional amount of staff. This is the story of a lost principality that never existed.

- That is, there will be no compensation to residents instead of a mythical park?

- We are not building a residential complex, and the policy of “even a flood after us” is not applicable here. We are going to live here. Accordingly, we are the most interested people to make it comfortable here: for us, for our closest neighbors, and for the many guests of the complex.

What we can definitely talk about now is the Eastern and Southern embankments near the Lakhta Center, which in terms of area, landscaping and comfort level will be comparable to the park. Next to us, it is planned to completely reconstruct and create an international sailing center based on the yacht club "Hercules", with all the infrastructure - a hotel and a tower for watching regattas. Also, to the west of our site, it is planned to build a tennis academy, to the east - to place an eco-gallery and the museum-ship "Poltava". A large amphitheater is currently being built near the Lakhta Center, which will be able to accommodate several thousand people.

In fact, the industrial area will turn into an open area, comfortable environment. The project will be absolutely open, and everyone will have access to it.

- Fontanka wrote about the start of the construction of the yacht club and tennis academy back in 2013. Why didn't they start?

– As far as I know (these projects are not being implemented by our structure), the delays are partly due to changes in land use legislation, partly due to a two-year delay in the adoption of the city's master plan. The overall budgetary situation did not contribute to the rapid construction either. But no one canceled the projects, and they will be implemented.

As far as it can be seen on the urban plan, is it in these areas that the cutting of overgrowth is now taking place, which worries the local residents so much?

Yes, but we are actually doing the work. We are currently leasing a part of the territory that is intended for the construction of a transport interchange and sports and leisure infrastructure from the city and will temporarily use it to organize the construction process. And then we will put it in order and hand it back to the city already prepared. So, hopefully, it will be possible to save some time.

- Do you manage to build a dialogue with the opponents of Lakhta Center?

- In most cases, yes. Moreover, receiving feedback, we see a clear acceptance of our project by the majority of citizens. But it happens that a constructive dialogue does not add up, because some people have their own sense of inner dreams.

- Do you mean an alternative project of one of the local activists?

- Exactly. He proposes at the current stage to create, for example, a beach named after Alexander Blok instead of the embankment. Or make a ready-made amphitheater a little differently and in another place.

- Is it possible to compare the defenders of Okhta with the activists of Lakhta?

– No, it was completely different. Okhta was a real city referendum. It really was a struggle of opinions. Compared to her today's conversations are like a Nanai boys' battle and a professional boxing match.

By the way, in April it was also said that Gazprom was negotiating with Smolny on the exchange of a site in Okhta for another. How did it end?

- Now we are not in the stage of negotiations on the exchange of sites with the city. We are looking for a project that would definitely decorate this place and would not like it to be given away for a typical residential development. For ourselves, we see a public and business center there, perhaps with a residential component. This place deserves a landmark project.

Considering that Gazprom is now engaged in a dialogue with any kind of Lakhta Center activists, does this mean that the company has learned from Okhta?

– Of course, from the point of view of shaping public opinion, St. Petersburg is a special city. There are truly authoritative, recognized opinion leaders here, and any major development projects need a comprehensive assessment. When building the Lakhta Center, we strive to approach our plans as carefully as possible, taking into account the needs of the townspeople and even looking into the future to a certain extent. But these 4 years of construction, I think, we were as open as possible, and everyone who wanted to participate was able to do it.

But it still failed to reconcile all Petersburgers with the new dominant, which is visible even from the Peter and Paul Fortress...

– The urban environment of St. Petersburg is rather conservative. In this sense, it is a matter of introducing something new, futuristic, into the habitat that is familiar to the inhabitants of St. Petersburg. It is a really difficult task to create a new architecture in the city of classics with one project.

But we hope that Lakhta Center will become a new landmark, a new height for St. Petersburg in the 21st century. That city landmark, which was the Peter and Paul Fortress in the 18th century or Isaac in the 19th century.

Interviewed by Ilya Kazakov,

"Fontanka.ru"

Lakhta Center is a modern socio-economic business complex located on the shores of the Gulf of Finland in St. Petersburg. The construction is financed by Gazprom, and its central office will also be located here.

It has been going on for 6 years now. And the construction completion date was set for the third quarter of 2018.

Lakhta center when opening: grandiose construction of a public and business center

The center will include a huge number of facilities: a large medical center, a sports complex, a children's science and entertainment complex, an embankment, concert and conference halls, restaurants, offices of large companies, and much more.

The key figure of the complex is a skyscraper with a height of 462 meters or 87 floors, which has become the northernmost skyscraper and the tallest building in Europe. The top will become a beacon for passing ships, searchlights are built into its hexagonal top.

Lakhta center when opening: the latest information on work in progress

According to the latest information from the construction press center, the last tower crane has been dismantled in the complex. All construction work is currently ahead of schedule. The dismantling was supposed to be completed by the semi-final match of the 2018 World Cup.

The construction management expressed the hope that the appearance of the object will cause positive emotions among residents and guests of the "northern capital".

In June 2018, work is also planned inside the building, installation of the facades of the building and the MFZ, work with the facades of the entrance arch.

Lakhta center when opening: commissioning of the observation deck

From the executive director of the project Alexander Bobkov, information was also received that the observation deck, located at a height of 360 meters, which corresponds to the 83-87th floor of the skyscraper, will become available to visitors only by the end of 2019. This is due to the deadlines that will be set for the entry into the complex of the main tenants of the premises.

A fee will be charged for entering the site and at the same time about 50 people will be able to visit it, and it will start functioning stably in 2019-2020.

Since the bird's-eye view of St. Petersburg is amazing, an influx of visitors is expected: Petersburgers and tourists visiting the city. On the observation deck special telescopes equipped with interactive maps will be installed, which will allow you to get acquainted with the sights of the city. According to preliminary data, 300-350 thousand people will be able to visit it during the year.

In mid-October 2018, the Lakhta Center multifunctional complex, the construction of which began in 2012, received a commissioning permit. The opening of the first phase of the complex, which is dominated by the tallest skyscraper in Europe, is scheduled for the end of next year, and for many more months, work will be carried out at the new headquarters of Gazprom on interior decoration, equipment and landscaping of a huge territory. However, already last summer, during the broadcasts of the 2018 World Cup matches, the world was able to see a new vertical dominant that forms the panorama of modern St. Petersburg.

The silhouette of the 462-meter tower, the compositional center and the main accent of the complex, is the embodiment of the energy of the flame, the symbol and logo of Gazprom. The five wings of the tower rotate floor by floor by 0.82 degrees relative to their centers, or about 90 degrees along the entire height. As they ascend, they decrease in size, thereby creating a silhouette of the spire, the proportions and shape of which allow us to perceive it as another urban spire, stylistically not competing with the existing dominants of the historical center.

Philip Nikandrov. Photo by the Gorproekt press service

The shaping of the tower is built on the architectural principles laid down by the builders of the ancient pyramids: the entire mass of the building is visually directed upwards, concentrating at the top point. Almost all historical vertical dominants of St. Petersburg - spiers and domes - are built according to this principle. The silhouette solution of the skyscraper is just a transitional form from the dome to the spire, with a gradual increase in the radius of curvature from the arc at the bottom to the straight line at the top. The rich plasticity of the facades of the tower through the organic composition of volumes gives the object dynamism, symbolizing energy and development.

The architectural and technical solutions of Lakhta Center, on which the team of architects, designers and engineers of the Gorproekt company (general designer of the complex) has been working since 2011, are innovative in many aspects not only for Russia, but for the whole world. The project, in which there is not a single repeating (typical) floor, is technically considered one of the most complex and unique even in comparison with other mega-skyscrapers on the planet; leaders of the global construction industry, leading contracting companies and manufacturers from Europe and Asia took part in its implementation. The solution of the most complex design problems became possible only through the use of the latest BIM technologies and parametric design.

Facade solutions of the complex are especially unique. Firstly, a record amount of glass was involved in it: the area of ​​​​glazed shells is about 130 thousand square meters. m, of which the tower - 72.5 thousand square meters. m (this is 16.5 thousand double-glazed windows). In total, more than half a million square meters of glass were used in production, and glass was used not only as a translucent shell of hinged stained-glass windows, but also as a structural material: all-glass mullions of record height (more than 17 m without a single seam) provide maximum visual lightness and transparency of planar stained-glass windows at the level of public spaces of the atrium.

Secondly, the latest synthetic materials were used for translucent shells, for example, ETFE film, from which the pneumatic elements (“pillows”) of the light lantern of the central atrium of the stylobate part of the complex are made. This decision made it possible to significantly reduce the weight of the construction of a huge lantern more than 250 m long, while avoiding the risk of its icing in winter. On the facades of the stylobate buildings, energy-saving double-strand glazing was used, which passively ventilates the buffer zones. An intelligent two-strand facade was implemented on the tower itself, which allows (already in active mode) to automatically ventilate the buffer zones between the two facade strings - in summer it will prevent heating of the premises with open ventilation valves, and in winter, on the contrary, it will accumulate solar energy due to the "greenhouse effect", reducing energy consumption for heating with closed ventilation valves.

Curved in three dimensions, the stained-glass window of the outer thread is assembled from huge double-glazed windows with an area of ​​11 square meters. m each. All 15 facets-petals of the facade look like a single shell of glass, curved in a spiral with a turn of 90 degrees to its full height. Each double-glazed window is bent at an angle of 0.82 degrees in the cold form (without the use of molds and traditional heating in an oven up to 600 degrees), which made it possible to save a huge amount of energy during production. To date, this stained-glass window is the largest cold-formed facade in the world in terms of area; it has broken the record of our other project - in Moscow City.

The Lakhta Center Tower, however, is not only the tallest in Europe, but also the northernmost mega skyscraper in the world. For several months of the year, the 100-meter spire will hide in low clouds, that is, in a zone of increased risk of condensation on the surfaces of its facades. Measures to combat icing are extremely important here, and the task was complicated by the fact that no one before us had built such tall buildings at such a latitude and in such a humid climate.

"Lakhta Center". Photo by the Gorproekt press service

In winter, condensate will freeze on the surfaces of the spire in the form of ice, which can threaten the fall of fragments or whole icicles, so we have developed a unique spire anti-icing system, which is designed to deal with ice accumulations on large metal surfaces. In the tower's spire, the glass has been replaced with a stainless steel cladding with a heating system during the cold season, and a steel mesh to control the formation of dangerous ice and icicles on the shell of the upper part of the skyscraper.

A unique facade maintenance system for washing and repairing a stained-glass window or replacing double-glazed windows moving along a spiral trajectory of a rail parallel to the facade shell. There, in these rails, both active dynamic architectural lighting and anti-icing systems are integrated. Special sensors will monitor when it will be necessary to turn on local heating in places where ice is likely to appear. Flashing aviation obstruction lights at the top of the spire operate 24 hours a day and are visible to pilots of aircraft and ships for many tens of kilometers.

Based on the combination of innovative energy-efficient solutions applied in the project, the facility claims to be a LEED gold certificate, which makes it a national leader in terms of energy saving and respect for the environment - after all, we are talking about the headquarters of the largest energy company.

Of course, Lakhta Center is not only a tower, it is a huge complex with an area of ​​400 thousand square meters. m, of which the tower occupies only a third. The area of ​​the site of the first phase is 8 hectares, large landscaped spaces will appear on them: three public squares, an open amphitheater with a stage against the background of the bay, an entertaining science museum with a planetarium, and a multifunctional concert hall. The tower is completed by a public observation platform in the lower space of the spire, an absolute center of attraction for tourists.

Lakhta Center is the city-planning flagship of the agglomeration practically in the center of the lagoon ring of the Gulf of Finland, surrounded by the ring highway (KAD) - it is in its orbit that Greater St. Petersburg will develop in the 21st century. And the tower on the shore of the bay, in the geometric center of this orbit, like a grandiose beacon, forms the sea facade of the metropolis directly opposite the passenger port, which simultaneously receives 5-7 cruise liners. And they are met and escorted by Lakhta Center, the symbol of modern St. Petersburg.