Construction Underway on Sydney’s Tallest Tower
Posted on April 7, 2020
Construction is now underway for the soon to be tallest office tower in Sydney.Designed by Foster + Partners, the 263m tall tower has been named ‘Salesforce Tower, Sydney’, with the US software giant Salesforce as the anchor tenant. The building has obtained Sydney’s first Platinum pre-certification for ‘WELL core and shell’ and aims to achieve a 6 Star ‘Green Star Design and As-Built’ rating when the construction completes in mid-2022. The 53-storey tower is being developed by Lendlease, in partnership with China’s Ping An Real Estate and Japan’s Mitsubishi Estate Asia.
Windtech worked closely with Lendlease as the wind engineering consultant for this ground-breaking project from concept design through to the detailed design development phases.
Windtech undertook a comprehensive pedestrian wind comfort study using a scaled wind tunnel model consisting of the subject tower and the neighbouring buildings. Accurate local wind speed measurements were made in Windtech’s state-of-the-art boundary layer wind tunnel using hot-wire anemometry and effective mitigation strategies were formulated within tight design constraints imposed by the local planning authority, the architect and the client. Windtech’s scope included the testing of the wind mitigation measures to ensure that the critical outdoor pedestrian areas at ground level and the various elevated terraces with the subject tower development meet the relevant wind comfort and safety criteria when built. Windtech also assessed the solar glare impact of the façade materials pertaining to the overall development on driver visibility via a detailed solar light reflectivity study.
Windtech also undertook a wind tunnel study of the design wind loads on the façade cladding and façade fins,as well as the ultimate design loads on the tower structure. Wind tunnel measurements required for these studies were obtained using more than 500 individual pressure sensors instrumented on the scaled study model of the development. The simultaneously acquired measurements were analysed using Windtech’s advanced multi-sector analysis technique, which provides an order of magnitude improvement in the accuracy of the load predictions compared to wind tunnel analysis techniques used by the majority of other wind engineering consultants. This assisted structural engineers Robert Bird Group in their quest to provide a robust and yet efficient design of the tower structure. Prior to the commencement of construction, a detailed wind tunnel investigation was also carried out to quantify the effect of wind-driven rain onto the various entrances to the building.
As construction works progressed into this year, Windtech also undertook a wind noise and vibration assessment on the exterior skin of the development.This study provided preventative measures to mitigate the potential for the generation of wind-induced noise and vibration from the various architectural features proposed for the façade of the development.
