Turning Torso

THE TURNING TORSO - SWEDEN Located on the Swedish side of the Öresund strait, HSB Turning Torso is a skyscraper in Malmö, Sweden. It was designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and officially opened on 27 August, 2005. The tower reaches a height of 190 metres with 54 stories. Upon completion, it was the tallest building in Scandinavia, the tallest residential building in the European Union and the second tallest residential building in Europe, after the 264-metre-high Triumph-Palace in Moscow.The 86 metre high Kronprinsen was the tallest building in Malmö before Turning Torso.

The Turning Torso

The design is based on a sculpture by Santiago Calatrava called Twisting Torso. It uses nine segments of five-story pentagons made of white marble that twist as it rises; the topmost segment is twisted ninety degrees clockwise with respect to the ground floor

However, all is not as it seems; each floor consists of a square section around the core and a triangular part supported by an external steel structure. The central core is supported by a foundation slab, while at the corner of each floor is a concrete column supported by a pile foundation. Torso’s central core is 10.6m across its inside, with walls 2.5m thick on the ground floor but only 0.4m at the highest level. The Torso's exoskeleton is effectively a steel truss erected on the outside of the building with the same clockwise rotation as the tower itself. The truss consists of a spine column at the corner of each floor plus horizontal and diagonal elements that reach to each side of the glazed spine. Stabilisers also connect the floor slabs with the framework.

The Turning Torso – under construction (core is visible).

The two bottom segments are intended as office space. Segments three to nine house 149 luxury apartments. Above the office space are 147 rental apartments on floors 14–52 ranging from one-bedroom, 45m² units to 190m² residences. Very few are of equal dimensions because the floor space changes due to the size of the core walls, so the ground floor has 370m² of usable space, while the top floor has 430m². Three high-speed lifts in the core of the building service these apartments. They travel at 5m per second, so it only takes 38 seconds to get from ground level to the 54th floor. In addition, there is a staircase from ground level to the top floor.

Night view of the Turning Torso

The Twisting Torso sculpture is a whilte marble piece based on the form of a twisting human being. Johnny Örbäck, former CEO of the Turning Torso contractor and Board Chairman of the Malmö branch of the co-operative housing association HSB, saw the sculpture in 1999 and contacted Calatrava to ask him to design a building using the same concept. One reason for the building of Turning Torso was to re-establish a recognizable skyline for Malmö since the removal of the Kockums Crane in 2002, which was located less than a kilometre from Turning Torso. The local politicians deemed it important for the inhabitants to have a symbol for Malmö — Kockumskranen, which was a large crane that had been used for shipbuilding .

HSB Turning Torso is not a typical residential apartment building … it is a piece of art that embodies a spirit of living, working and meeting in one remarkable location. It is the first among a class of many more to come. It has redefined the purpose of a skyscraper and given it a whole new dimension.

ByValluri Praneeta 080123