Turning Torso

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Turning Torso is a neo-futurist skyscraper in Malmo, Sweden. Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and completed in 2005, it was based on his own white marble sculpture of a twisting human being. It was the world’s first ‘twisting’ tower and at 190 m (623 ft), it is the tallest building in Scandinavia.

The tower formed by nine irregular pentagonal segments of five storeys. These units twist around the vertical core as the building rises. The top segment is twisted 90-degrees clockwise relative to the ground floor. Following the twist of the building, the façade consists of curved aluminium panels and windows that lean either inwards or outwards.

The building’s exoskeleton is formed by tapered white steel tubes. Horizontal and inclined tubes between each segmented module fix the exoskeleton to steel anchors embedded in shear walls at the rear corners of the building. In this way, the exoskeleton provides wind resistance and dampens vibrations, while the spinal core takes vertical loads.

The bottom two segments provide commercial office space, while the rest of the building is residential, with apartments which have unique layouts depending on their position in the building.

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