Because of regional considerations including climate, heavy snow and seismic activity, a new type of structure, the ‘sandwich RC shell’, was proposed to create the unique architectural form under tough structural, environmental, and lighting requirements.
The sandwich skin consists of the main reinforced concrete (RC) structure, 100mm thick, sandwiched between a 60mm hard urethane layer for heat insulation and outer 15mm glass fibre reinforced concrete (GRC) to prevent cracking. This skin improves environmental performance and provides structural strength – the lightweight shell is a highly durable structure.
To minimise the complex formwork associated with the shell structure, the solution adopted was a 'truss wall system pre-fabricated formwork' and approximately 200 units of 3D formed rebar truss were transported from the factory to site.
This construction approach enabled tight tolerances to be achieved on site, considerably reduced the construction period and the complexity of the on-site formwork.
The two-storey design achieves 734m² of space within a structure with a maximum height of 7.5m. The shape was developed by applying form-finding analysis.