Making the impossible possible
The gravity-defying structure of the building has redefined the traditional form of skyscrapers and posed unparallel structural challenges for Arup’s design engineers, especially the linking of the two leaning towers.
With expansion and contraction of the structure caused by Beijing’s extreme hot and cold weather, it was of paramount importance that the new headquarters’ design and engineering should take into consideration the way the building would behave before it was linked together. Arup specified that the joining of both towers had to be done very early in the morning, when both towers would be at a uniform temperature before the sun started to rise and with movements caused by the environment at a minimum.
Prior to the joining of the towers, Arup specified five days of monitoring the global and relative movements so the correct dimensions of the linking elements could be correctly predicted. Final adjustments were made to the length of the linking elements before installation, as it was vital that the towers were fixed together within a few minutes. The final join was done at 8am on a cold winter’s day, when the steel was at its most uniform temperature.