This 188 meter office tower will be built starting this year in the financial district of central Warsaw, Poland. Those who won the international architectural competition to design this building were Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, a firm that has extensive experience of designing office buildings. They came up with an innovative and high quality solution evident in the urban, architectural and technical concepts. It will be a 60,000 m2 high-rise building displaying an unique elegant shape and appearance which will stand as a new landmark in the Warsaw skyline. With the purpose to offer a spatial coherence between roof and street level, the building will consist of three individually stepped rectangular volumes with increasing heights towards the east.
The façades create a subtle rhythm in the cityscape by slightly shifting inwards and outwards, and the inclined rooflines preserve optimal light conditions for the adjacent buildings. Its open lobby will connect the plaza and the park in front of the building with the courtyards of the historical tenement houses to the south. A very important aspect of the construction is that will have a sustanability approach which will be based on a combination of intelligent building management and minimizing technical installations by using passive elements. Architects’ goal will be the qualifying for the highest levels of sustainability certifications as BREEAM Excellent or LEED Gold status. In order to accomplish that the building will be designed to reduce energy consumption through a modular façade system with floor to ceiling glass elements, which will provide high levels of transparency as well as full integration of sun shading and light reflection shutters. The sloped rooftops will be equipped with photovoltaic cells and elements for harvesting rainwater.
Project details:
Architect: Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects
Client: UBS Real Estate Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbH
Area: 60,000 m2
Competition: 2011, 1st prize in restricted international competition
Status: Construction period 2012-2016
Engineer: ARUP