When it opened along the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok, Thailand, on Nov. 10, the massive luxury shopping mall Iconsiam—self-identified as “the Icon of Eternal Prosperity”—boasted a number of firsts, including the longest (400-plus meters) water feature in Southeast Asia, and the first project in the country to integrate road, rail, and water transportation. (The complex is 1 kilometer from a station for the BTS Skyway monorail that will be completed next year.)
This 750,000-sm (8.072-million-sf) mixed-use complex, with 525,000 sm of retail space over 10 floors, is connected to Thailand’s first Apple store (and the largest in Asia), and also features a 10,000-sm River Park, a 3,000-seat auditorium, the National Treasure Museum, and two condo towers.
The complex, which cost 54 billion Thai baht to complete (the equivalent of US$1.67 billion, based on today’s currency exchange rate), is being positioned as a regional destination attraction. Its owners—the retail developer Siam Piwat, the conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group, and MQDC Magnolia Quality Development—reportedly spent at least 1 billion baht promoting its complex’s debut, which included an opening-night performance by Alicia Keys and a red-carpet parade whose celebrities included the actress Naomi Watts.
But Iconsiam is more than just glitz and one-upmanship. From an engineering standpoint, it is distinguished by a pillarless suspended all-glass façade that is among the world’s longest: 300 meters long, up to 24 meters high, and having a surface area of 5,300 sm.
Iconsiam’s designer, Urban Architects, specified a pleated arrangement of glass panes that recalls local values and beliefs tied to the river, including “krathong” (a floating, folded sculpture) and “baisri” (the art of traditional flower arrangement with folded leaves.)
Installation of the glass panel assembly was achieved with a specially manufactured suction unit that allowed crews to position the panes into different angles. Image: Seele
To create this effect, the project’s building team, which included the façade construction specialist Seele, devised a special large-format (up to 25.6 sm for one piece), high-precision glass component weighing up to 3.5 tons per pane.
The façade is comprised of 333 glass panes that are supported by an equal number of 8- and 16-meters-long glass “fins.” The heat-strengthened glass used for the façade, known as TVG, was produced by Sedak. (This process cools the glass at a slower intensity, thereby producing compressive stresses that increase the glass’s strength.)
Seele produced the fins and stainless steel “shoes” for the façade off site at one of its locations in Germany.
The weight of the panes is absorbed at their lower end by transoms. Steel components connected directly to the glass were designed as bolted connections to eliminate losses in accuracy from welding distortion.
To install the façade assembly, Seele specifically developed for this project an apparatus with two suction units with counterweight and three-axial adjustment, which made it possible to lift the glass into its double-inclined position. (The glass fins have a 12-degree angle of inclination from the vertical. The inclination of the façade’s overhang is between 0 and 14 degrees.)
During the installation, custom-wood supports that formed the façade’s contour were used to temporarily stabilize the fins.
Thomas Spitzer, Managing Director of Se-Austria, a company within Seele, said in a prepared statement that the Building Team was able to complete the façade’s construction in under two years because the engineering and production were provided by a single source. “Iconsiam is a unique project for us,” he said.
Related Stories
| Apr 16, 2013
5 projects that profited from insulated metal panels
From an orchid-shaped visitor center to California’s largest public works project, each of these projects benefited from IMP technology.
| Apr 8, 2013
Oldcastle Architectural acquires Expocrete Concrete Products
Oldcastle® Architectural has acquired Expocrete Concrete Products Ltd., giving North America’s largest producer of concrete masonry and hardscape products an increased presence in the high-growth region of western Canada.
| Apr 8, 2013
Most daylight harvesting schemes fall short of performance goals, says study
Analysis of daylighting control systems in 20 office and public spaces shows that while the automatic daylighting harvesting schemes are helping to reduce lighting energy, most are not achieving optimal performance, according to a new study by the Energy Center of Wisconsin.
| Apr 3, 2013
AIA CES class: Sealant repairs that last – hybrid sealants for building restoration
It is hard to talk about restoration without talking about sustainability. This two-hour interactive online course discusses the role that restoration can and does play in the arena of sustainability, and specifically the role that sealants play in sustainable design and repair.
| Mar 27, 2013
Small but mighty: Berkeley public library’s net-zero gem
The Building Team for Berkeley, Calif.’s new 9,500-sf West Branch library aims to achieve net-zero—and possibly net-positive—energy performance with the help of clever passive design techniques.
| Mar 27, 2013
Kawneer dedicates new floodwall at its Bloomsburg facility
Kawneer Company, Inc., an Alcoa business and the leading manufacturer of architectural aluminum products and systems for commercial construction, dedicated a new floodwall at their Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania facility, heralding greater levels of safety and stability for employees and customers.
| Mar 23, 2013
Fire resistive curtain wall helps mixed-use residential building meet property line requirements
The majority of fire rated glazing applications occur inside the building in order to allow occupants to exit the building safely or provide an area of refuge during a fire. But what happens when the threat of fire comes from the outside? This was the case for The Kensington, a mixed-use residential building in Boston.
| Mar 23, 2013
CertainTeed strengthens commitment to quality, achieves ISO 9001 certification at Georgia roofing plant
CertainTeed Corporation has reached an important milestone in its quality management efforts — achieving globally recognized International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001 certification at its Peachtree City, Ga. roofing plant.
| Mar 20, 2013
Folding glass walls revitalize student center
Single-glazed storefronts in the student center at California’s West Valley College were replaced with aluminum-framed, thermally broken windows from NanaWall in a bronze finish that emulates the look of the original building.
| Mar 6, 2013
Centria announces leadership changes
CENTRIA President Mark Sherwin has announced his retirement beginning April 1, 2013. Sherwin has served as president of CENTRIA, an industry leader in the design, development and manufacture of architectural metal wall and roof systems, for more than 17 years.
