Broadgate Phase 11

Daniel Nowell

SOM

Srinivasa Hal Iyengar

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have had a long legacy of structurally significant buildings: The
Sears Tower with its bundled tubes, and The John Hancock Center with its prominent X-bracing.

Introductions

Broadgate Phase 11 - Exchange House falls right in line with this structurally emphasized approach
to architecture. Srinivasa Hal Iyengar worked alongside famous structural engineer Fazlur
Kahn to develop the structural systems for both The Sears Tower and The John Hancock Center,
but when pressed to cite the most innovative building of his career, Hal, a renowned structural
engineer himself, will tell you about Broadgate Phase 11 - Exchange House. The Exchange House
is only one building in a large development named Broadgate in London, England. SOM served as
both the architect and engineer for the Exchange House. The firm regularly takes this dual role, and
it comes across in their designs. 6

Design Concept

The main driving force behind Broadgate Phase 11s design arose from
the buildings site stipulations. Phase 11 is set over top of Liverpool
Street Station, a high traffic railroad station. 1 The client, Rosehaugh
Stanhope Properties, requested an office building on the site, but the
rail station could not be touched. The plaza in front of the building
achieved its form from the a scattered system of column placements
that dodge the tracks as they snake underneath the public space. This
column placement layout determined where load for the plaza could
be concentrated and the design of the space blossomed from these
limitations.

Design Concept

The building itself could not use this same method of random column placement. To regulate office space in the 10 storey building,
a regular structural grid was needed. But how could a regular grid be employed when none of the columns could touch the ground?
The geniuses at SOM conjured up three different systems that could support the building over the 78 meter clear span: An X-braced
truss system, a 10 storey catenary suspension system, and a parabolic arch system.6 Both the X-braced truss system and the catenary
suspension system revealed themselves as inefficient and overly expensive. However, the parabolic arch system could be constructed
conventionally and use less material to get the job done. The plan was to design a bridge that could withstand the constant dead load
of a 10 storey office building on top of it as well as fluctuating live loads due to human traffic within the office building. The decision
was made to expose all of the structure in its purely functional state to respond to the history and nature of the railway that passed
below the building.

Exterior Grid Frame

Parabolic Arch Bridge
Stone Pier Supports
Concrete Deck
Trains

Plans/Elevations

Framing

The floor trusses, represented in red, span across the four arches, represented in blue, tying them together. The arches carry the
load down to 8 masonry piers, represented in green, to contact the earth.

Loads & Stresses

Gravity loads from the top 3 floors, which are supported by each other
in compression, are transferred directly to the parabolic arch through
the regular 6 meter structural grid of the office building. The compression forces are spread across the arch, which crowns at the top of the 7th
storey. Diagonal rods are attached to the underside of the arch. They operate in tension to provide additional support for the bridges horizontal
span. If one could imagine a vertical support in the middle of the arch, it
may be easier to understand the diagonal members role in supporting
the load because one could draw the stress pattern down the vertical
member , up the two diagonals and then down the arch to the supports.
However, there is no need for a vertical member in the center of the arch
because all of the work is distributed amongst the triangulated forms
created by the diagonals. In this way, the simple arch is allowed to act
as a truss. Loads are dispersed down the arch truss and transferred to
the 8 masonry piers, which are the only contact that Broadgate Phase 11
has with the ground. These piers splay out from the connection with the
arch to spread the load as much as possible on contact with the ground.
At the same time the diagonal members are pulling up the base of the
arch truss so that the first 7 floors are completely hung from the arch.

Reactions
Loads

Fire Engineering

Fire and life safety is normally a portion of the design process

that gets neglected and ultimately thrown in to meet codes
at the last minute. However, it is fire and life safety that are
prominently displayed on Broadgate Phase 11. The structure
of this building is purely steel. Overall 7000 tons of steel is incorporated into the structure of Broadgate Phase 11 - Exchange
House. With all of that steel, a mess of fire proof coating is
required. Conventional means are used on the hidden interior
structure, but any piece of exposed steel is covered with a
deceiving paint job. New at the time of Broadgates construction, intumescent paint is employed to show off the structure
while keeping it safe. Its deceiving because until the paint
comes in contact with extremely high temperatures, it looks
just like regular paint. Once the heat rises though, the intumescent paint puffs up to create a thick layer of dense insulation
around the structural member.
Since all of the structure was moved to the exterior of the
building, it only made sense to hang the stairs off of the exterior structure too. Where as most exterior fire stair applications
point toward a deficiency in a buildings design, Broadgate
Phase 11 incorporates its fire stairs into the appeal of the
exposed structure. They extend from the buildings body with
graceful majesty, tied back to the frame by a series of tension
rods. All of the weight developed by the stairs is transferred
back into the frame where it can be dealt with safely.

Connections

The arches are segmental compositions of straight wide flange beams with a
fixed connection between segments every 6 meters. Vertical hanger column
elements attach to the arch at each of these connections or nodes. Though the
arches are designed to withstand copious dead loads without problem, fluctuating live loads give them trouble. To aid the arches, diagonal tube ties are attached at each node as well as every other location in which structural members in different planes come together. The diagonal tube ties herein create a
lateral truss on the exterior of the building. These ties use pin connections so
as not to create too rigid a frame that cant expand and contract. Even though
they are made to have movable joints, the ties also significantly improve the
buckling strength of the entire system. Since the diagonal tube ties are acting
in tension, they can be less massive than the castellated beams that protrude
from the curtain wall perpendicularly. The castellated beams act as compression struts in the lateral truss that is created, which explains why they have
fixed connections while the diagonal tube ties have pin connections.

Connections

The ties brace the arches horizontal thrust so that only vertical reactions
are to be dealt with at the bearing points. The arch shares a semi-fixed
connection with the masonry pier through a bearing pad. However, a pin
connection is used with the base horizontal beam at that same location to
provide rotational relief. This connection allows for less lateral strain and
provides a comfortable range of motion for changing gravity loads as
well as temperature fluctuations.

Construction

Four arches, two concealed on the interior, and two promptly displayed on the exterior, make up the support system for the entire
building. The three bays created by the arches are spanned by composite floor trusses, which provide lateral bracing. Along both
ends of the building perpendicular to the arches, an exposed vertical truss in the middle bay connects with the floor diaphragm to
resist wind loads on the broad building. It also provides out of plane stability to the arches. All of the exterior exposed structure
is offset from the 78 meter by 52 meter rectangular plan of the building by 2 meters. Due to the use of such strict modularity, all of
these structural units came to the site pre-fabricated. This allowed for savings in material costs and labor, not to mention time. An
all glass and steel curtain-wall is hung from the exposed frame to keep a constant backdrop for the exposed structure.

Curtain Wall

6
6

1. Bridge Form. Corus in Construction. 29 July 2008

<http://www.corusconstruction.com/en/reference/teaching_resources/architectural_studio_reference/design/bridges/bridge_form/>.
2. Broadgate - Exchange House. SOM.com. 28 July 2008 <http://www.som.com/content.cfm/broadgate_exchange_house>.
3. Broadgate [Image of Broadgate Exchange House with scaffolding up the front of it.]. Digital image. Victor Buyck Steel Construction. 30 July 2008

<http://www.buyck.be/broadgate.htm>.
4. Bussel, Abby. SOM Evolutions: Recent Work of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Basel: Birkhauser, 2000.
5. Dobney, Stephen, ed. The Master Arcchitect Series Skidmore, Owings & Merrill: Selected and Current Works. Mulgrave: The Images Group Pty

Ltd, 1995.
6. Sarrach, Richard. 22 June 2008. SOM-BroadGate-Exchange House, Pratt Architectural Design Studios, NYC. Flickr. 24 June 2008. 26 Aug. 2008

<http://flickr.com/photos/8507144@n08/2609098558/>.

Footnotes

7. Weger, Tonya. Hal Iyengars three decades at SOM: From Chicagos Sears Tower to Spains Guggenheim Museum. Modern Steel Con

struction May 2000.

Bridge Form. Corus in Construction. 29 July 2008

<http://www.corusconstruction.com/en/reference/teaching_resources/architectural_studio_reference/design/bridges/bridge_form/>.
Broadgate - Exchange House. SOM.com. 28 July 2008 <http://www.som.com/content.cfm/broadgate_exchange_house>.
Broadgate [Image of Broadgate Exchange House with scaffolding up the front of it.]. Digital image. Victor Buyck Steel Construction. 30 July 2008

<http://www.buyck.be/broadgate.htm>.
Bussel, Abby. SOM Evolutions: Recent Work of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Basel: Birkhauser, 2000.
Dobney, Stephen, ed. The Master Arcchitect Series Skidmore, Owings & Merrill: Selected and Current Works. Mulgrave: The Images Group Pty Ltd,

1995.
Iyengar, Hal, William Baker, and R. C. Sinn. Broadgate Exchange House: Structural System. The Structural Engineer 71 (1993): 149-59.
Sarrach, Richard. 22 June 2008. SOM-BroadGate-Exchange House, Pratt Architectural Design Studios, NYC. Flickr. 24 June 2008. 26 Aug. 2008

<http://flickr.com/photos/8507144@n08/2609098558/>.

Works Cited

Weger, Tonya. Hal Iyengars three decades at SOM: From Chicagos Sears Tower to Spains Guggenheim Museum. Modern Steel Con

struction May 2000.