Structural Glass Tubes - Tower Place in London

Situated opposite the new London City Hall, the Tower Place development has a floor area of 42,000m2 and accommodates offices, restaurants and shops. It is laid out in two seven-storey triangular tracts linked by a large, glass-covered atrium. The glazed facades terminate one storey above the ground, so that the newly created public plaza in front of the building continues into the atrium. With an overall area of roughly 2,000m2, the two 20-metre-high atrium facades, are suspended from cantilevered roof beams. “Glass needles” – 3.56-metre-long borosilicate tubes – transmit wind loads from the facades to the steel columns supporting the roof structure. The needles consist of a load-bearing inner tube and a protective outer tube, with PVB sheeting between the two andwith steel end components. A tensioned steel cable was inserted in each tube to resist wind suction.