TURNING TORSO


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HSB Turning Torso
190 metres/623 feet
57 stories
Completed: 2005
tallest building of Sweden and Scandinavia

Some Turning Torso facts & figures:
- the building can be found in Malmö, Sweden, and was designed by Spanish
architect, sculptor and painter Santiago Calatrava;
- construction started in June of 2001; because of some budget difficulties during construction
it wasn't until November of 2005 that the building was finally completed;
- the building is based on a sculpture by Calatrava, called turning torso;
Johnny Örbäck of HSB saw it in 1999 in a brochure and got the idea to build
a skyscraper in Malmö similar in design to the sculpture;
- The tower's design uses nine five-story cubes that twist as it rises; the top-most segment
is twisted ninety degrees clockwise with respect to the ground floor.
Each floor basically consists of a rectangular section surrounding the central core, along with a triangular
section, which is partially supported by an exterior steel scaffold;
- the two bottom cubes are in use as office space (4000 m²); the other seven cubes house
149 luxury apartments (13,500m²), while the two top floors holds meeting facilities;
- the 43rd floor has a sauna, gym and guest room section with showers and toilets;
- a large room with capacity for 20 people is located on the 43rd and 49th floors (between cubes 7 and 8, and between cubes 8 and 9);
- the building has the highest apartments in Europe;
- building costs were approximately euro 175 million;
- because the building twists, the façade is double curved, which made its construction very complicated.
The façade is a glass and aluminium construction. There are approximately 2,800 panels and 2,250 windows in the façade.
The panels are curved and the glass panels are flat. Each cube has about 300 panels.
- the foundation of the building was built directly on the limestone bedrock.
Profiled steel plates, forming the foundation shaft, were driven 15 metres into the ground and a further
3 metres into the limestone bedrock by an enormous vibrating sheeting machine;
- the steel support is a welded construction with a very thorough paint treatment for optimal protection against corrosion;
- the outer steel support consists of a steel column at the pointed end of the building’s floors,
and 20 horizontal and 18 diagonal ”steel cigars” incasing the glazed-in pointy part of the façade.
These ”cigars” are connected with structural walls spanning two floors at the top of each cube.
The purpose of these walls is to transfer sharing forces from the steel frame to the supporting concrete core.
In addition, the steel column is connected to two stabilizing elements on each floor. These stabilizers support the steel column;
- the horizontal steel ”cigars” each weigh 8 tons, the diagonal ”cigars” between 12 and 20 tons.
As there are 20 horizontal and 18 diagonal ”cigars”, their combined weight is 460 tons.
The total weight of the steel support frame is approximately 820 tons;
- similar styled buildings, even taller in height, are planned in Dubai (Infinity Tower;
330m/1,083f, under construction, 2009), Chicago (Fordham Spire; 610m/2,000f, proposed, 2010),
Valencia (Torres de Calatrava; 81, 78 and 58 stories tall; proposed);
The Chicago and Valencia buildings are (co) designed by Calatrava as well;
- the building has a pool surrounding the ground floor, with two sculptures designed by Calatrava;
- HSB is a housing cooperative, which was set up in 1923;



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