The Petronas Twin Towers - Essay Example

? 19 March The Petronas Twin Towers Introduction: Kuala Lumpur is a in Malaysiathat had no skyline as many as 10 years ago. In the present age, Kuala Lumpur forms a fundamental source of boom in the economy of Asia because of the fact that the Petronas Twin Towers that are the tallest buildings in the world are located in it. Aerial view of the city of Kuala Lumpur with the Petronas Twin Towers in the center (Leiter). The name Petronas is derived from the Petroliam National Bhd that is a national petroleum corporation in Malaysia whose establishment can be dated back to August, 1974 (trac.sun.ac.za). The Petronas Twin Towers are located in the centre of the city and are the property of an oil company owned by the government of Malaysia. The Petronas Twin Towers are 451.9 meters high in total starting from the street level. Excluding the pinnacle, the Petronas Twin Towers are 378 meters in height. The total area consumed by the Petronas Twin Towers is 341760 sq. meters. Each of the two twin towers has 10 escalators. Top of the Petronas Twin Tower (Leiter). The World Trade Center and the Chicago’s Sears Tower were the world’s tallest buildings before the Petronas Twin Towers were created. Each of the two towers is 21 ft taller as compared to the Chicago’s Sears Tower that has 110 stories in it. The Petronas Twin Towers were designed by Cesar Pelli. Cesar Pelli connected the Petronas Twin Towers with a skybridge that is located above the lower half of each tower. Each floor that is in the Petronas Twin Towers has been given a Star shape with eight corners. Total height of the Petronas Twin Towers is 1483 ft that makes them a total of 115 ft taller in comparison with the New York’s World Trade Center (“Dow Corning”). In the complex of the Petronas Twin Towers, there is a concert hall, offices and also, a grand shopping arcade which is spread over 5 stories. The Petronas Twin Towers are commonly referred to as the jewels of Kuala Lumpur. They have remained the world’s tallest structures for a considerable period of time from 1998 to 2004, and even now, they are the tallest towers in Malaysia. Petronas Twin Towers (wallpaperpimper.com). Project Information: Name……………………………….. Designation Government of Malaysia …………...Owner Samsumg Kukdong Jasatera J/V........ Contractor Cesar Pelli and Associates Ins……... Architect EdwinCon………………………….. Mechanical Contractor Material Examination: One of the primary drivers of this $800 million project is Johns Manville who has offered above 1.4 million sq ft. that makes part of the towers’ Permacote Linacoustic duct liner. The Petronas Twin Towers have been provided with fiber glass duct as well as pavilion at the base. Because of the Permacote Linacoustic duct liner, the Petronas Twin Towers have been provided with insulation that ensures improvement of the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). This duct liner is particularly suitable for use in systems of air conditioning and ventilation. Use of this product improves the durability of the structure as a whole that is otherwise, threatened by high velocity of air and extreme temperatures. The Permacote Linacoustic duct liner (“Johns Manville”). Design and shape: There are 16 cylindrical high strength reinforced concrete (RCC) columns arranged in the form of a ring in each of the two towers’ core structures. Size of the column varies as they converge as they rise. At the lowest level, the columns’ diameter is 2.4 meters and it shrinks to 1.2 meters at the top (“Detailed Structural Analysis”). The columns are arranged on the outside corners which make the additional arcs of the star floor that is the quintessential Islamic architectural symbol. The final look of the towers is tapered because of the staging sequence of the columns’ slope, which is inwards in six increments. The core concrete walls along with the ring beams link the columns together. Design of the Petronas Twin Towers (“Detailed Structural Analysis”). The glass facade: The curtainwall units installed in the Petronas Twin Towers have a size of 4 ft * 10 ft and are made up of stainless steel. In order to install them on the exterior side, the Dow Corning brand of silicon sealants was used by the architect. Dow Corning had tested the sealants for functionality before the start of construction, and also carefully supervised their installation while construction was in progress. Total number of windows in the Petronas Twin Towers is 32000. The glass facade used in the Petronas Twin Towers symbolizes the motifs of the traditional sophisticated Islamic art. Facade detail in the Petronas Twin Towers (Leiter). Construction: Construction of the Petronas Twin Towers was no less spectacular than the final look. It took one whole year for the constructors to plan the construction of the Petronas Twin Towers. Total cost incurred in the construction of the Petronas Twin Towers was almost US $ 1.2. There is a capacious parking area in the towers’ basement, a concert hall that can accommodate up to 840 people, and also a gallery that is specifically meant for art exhibitions. Contract: Two totally different contracting companies were offered the opportunity to develop the Petronas Twin Towers. The two contractors had a very constructive competition. This paved way for the development of such circumstances in which speed of construction of the towers became unusually remarkable. The two contractors shared their experiences with each other and both learnt from each others’ mistakes, thus developing a cooperative environment that was conducive for successful completion of the project. Contractors for Tower One: Petronas headquarters are located in Tower One. This tower was constructed by a joint venture of J. A. Jones Construction of Charlotte North Carolina, Japanese Hazama Corporation, Ho Hop Construction of Japan, MMC Engineering, and Mitsubishi Corporation (“The Petronas Towers”). Contractors for Tower Two: Contractors selected for Tower Two were SKJ Consortium that included Dragages and Bachy-Soletanche from Singapore, Samsung Engineering and Construction, First Nationwide Engineering Sdn Bhd from Malaysia, Syarikat Jasatera, and Kuku Dong Engineering and Construction from Korea (“The Petronas Towers”). Foundation design: Construction of the Petronas Twin Towers commenced with the excavation of foundations in March of 1993, and the project approached completion within three years. Location that was initially planned for excavation was displaced up to 60 meters because bedrock was discovered during excavation of the originally planned site. In order to make room for the foundations, the earth was dug 30 meters under the surface of soil. Work for the excavation of foundations was done after sunset only. Every night, above 500 dump trucks of soil were moved away from the excavation site. Above 100 foundation piles were constructed for each of the two Petronas Twin Towers. It took as many as 2.5 days to pour the slabs of each of the two foundations after the forms were set. The two slabs were constructed with over 13000 cubic ft of concrete. It was the biggest and the most time consuming concrete pour in the history of Malaysian construction industry. Underneath either of the two Petronas Twin Towers, there is a slab that rests upon 104 concrete piles. The pile foundations are capped by concrete slabs upon which the twin towers rest. The underground car park: Right over the slab, a retaining wall was constructed, which is essentially the shell of the underground parking area. The underground car park was built in five levels with the length of wall above a kilometer and that was 21 meters high. The massive wall created a shell that now serves as the underground room for parking. Beautiful picture of the Petronas Twin Towers taken from the base (destination360.com). The Skybridge: Total floor space consumed by the twin towers is 1000000m2. The two distinct towers are linked by a central skybridge that is located between the 41st and 42nd storey of the twin towers. The distance of the skybridge from the surface of ground is 170m. With the length of 58.4m, the skybridge’s length is almost one-third its distance from the surface of ground. The weight of skybridge is 750 tonnes. It was made accessible to public at the end of the year, 2000. Entrance to the skybridge is generally free of charge and is open for visitors on all days of the week except for Monday. However, a total of 800 timed tickets are distributed every single day on which it is open to public. In order to avail the opportunity of acquiring the free ticket, visitors have to stand in a queue for long and wait for their turn. Once a visitor attains the free ticket to the skybridge, he/she can make a stay on the bridge for a limited duration i.e. 10 minutes. The duration is too small to attract many visitors. Instead of going over the skybridge, visitors consider it more worthy and interesting to make a trip to the Menara Kuala Lumpur observatory. The Skybride joining the Petronas Twin Towers (Leiter). Miscellaneous information about construction: Initially, the challenge of construction of the Petronas Twin Towers was taken by the constructors in 1991 as a fundamental component of Kuala Lumpur City Centre (KLCC) (trac.sun.ac.za). The towers were constructed with an intention of developing space for carrying out trade and other urban activities. In order to construct the world’s tallest structure, world’s top constructors, architects and builders joined hands in hands. The project’s planning commenced in January, 1992 and fourteen months later, the excavation was in progress. The Petronas Twin Towers were built till March, 1996 (“Dow Corning”). “Each tower used 11,000 tons of reinforcement steel, 2,825,120 cubic feet of high-strength concrete, almost 7,500 tons of structural steel beams and 830,000 square feet of glass window” (“Detailed Structural Analysis”). Tourism: The Petronas Twin Towers, with their 88 storeys proudly stand in the middle of the Golden Triangle. Suria KLCC, the famous shopping complex with 6 storeys is the center of attraction of most of the tourists both from within Malaysia and the foreigners. The Petronas Twin Towers are just as marvelous from inside as eye-catching they appear from the outside. Visitors are not charged upon entry to the Petronas Twin Towers. However, every day, people are provided with limited amount of timed tickets. Free tours are offered to the Petronas Twin Towers on daily basis, but the number of tickets is limited. People have to be well in time to acquire the tickets in order to benefit from this offer. Not many people manage to lay their hands on the free tickets. Visitors have to be really early. There have been times when all of the free tickets had been distributed by the management to the visitors even before 8:30 am. In addition to that, visitors who manage to be in lead of the long queue manage to spend more time inside the Petronas Twin Towers than those who are behind, because they spend a major portion of their time acquiring the ticket. A vast majority of visitors manage to make a very short trip to the towers, though the trip is always worth the effort. A broader view of the Petronas Twin Towers (Dal). Normally, the visit people make is not an extensive one. The visit is based upon three main points. First, the visitors are shown a promotional ad about the Petronas. Length of the ad is 15 minutes. Once the visitors are done with the ad, they start to explore the tour. Conventionally, the tour comprises visit to the skybridge that connects the two towers and is located between the 41st and the 42nd floor. Visitors have no more than 15 minutes to be on the skybridge, admire its beauty and the look of a vast portion of Malaysia from it. View of the Kuala Lumpur gained by a visitor while standing on the skybridge is simple marvelous. Top view captured from the skybridge in the Petronas Twin Towers (Leiter). In the third section of the trip, visitors have to make their way down to the basement of the building where they can attend a well organized exhibition regarding the history, architecture and general knowledge of the Petronas Twin Towers and also purchase gifts for their loved ones from the gift shops in the basement of the towers. For people who want to make a purchased tour to the Petronas Twin Towers, minimum price of the ticket is RM 10 per head. However, if an individual is MyKad holder, which essentially means that he/she is a citizen of Malaysia, the price of ticket for him/her drops down to RM 3. However, these ticket prices are for the visit of basic nature. There is also a premium package that is offered to people who spend as much as RM 350 per head. In the premium package, an individual can have the wonderful experience of dining in the famous Malaysian Petroleum Club. Details of several packages that are commonly offered to the visitors are as follows: Package 1: This package offers visit to the Petronas Twin Towers Skybridge. It is based upon a well guided tour. Visiting hours are from 9 am to 7 pm. Price of this package is RM 10 per head for foreigners and RM 3 per head for people in possession of the MyKad. Price of the ticket for children below 12 years of age is also the same. Package 2: This package offers visit to the Observation deck in addition to the routinely tour to the Petronas Twin Towers Skybridge. This, like the previous package, is also a guided tour. Visitors avail the opportunity to observation deck on the Petronas Tower 2’s top floor which happens to be on the level 86. After visiting the observation deck, the visitors make the normal visit to the towers’ skybridge. Visiting time for the package 2 is significantly different from that for the package 1. For this package, people can visit first from 11 am to 12 pm, and the second shift ranges from 5 pm to 6 pm. This clearly tells that a visitor has only 1 hr at hand to visit the Petronas Twin Towers in the second package. Price for this package is RM 40 per head. For people who hold the citizenship of Malaysia, the ticket for package 2 is half of its price for the foreigners. Both the local people and children below 12 years of age can purchase the second package in only RM 20. Picture showing the interior of the Observation Deck in the Petronas Twin Towers (Katsumata). Package 3: This is the premium package. In this package, a visitor can enjoy trip to the Petronas Twin Towers Skybridge as usual. But in addition to that, the visitor can also have either a lunch or dinner at MPC along with visiting the observation deck as ion package 2. Like package 1 and package 2, package 3 is also a guided tour. In this package, the visitor first visits the observation deck at the 86th level of the Tower 2. The visit to observation deck is followed by that to the skybridge at the 41st level. Finally, the visitor enjoys the fine dining experience in the most wanted and longed for segment of the Petronas Twin Towers, i.e. the Malaysia Petroleum Club (MPC). Conventionally, entry to the MPC is only granted to the people in possession of the membership. Like the Petronas Twin Towers Skybridge, the MPC also happens to be on the 41st level. So right after the visitor has been to the skybridge, they go straight inside the MPC. Visiting hours for the premium package are from 12 pm to 1 pm, and then from 6 pm to 7 pm. These times accord with the times of lunch and dinner respectively. Ticket for this package is obviously the maximum. Ticket can be purchased for RM 200 if the visitor wants to have lunch at MPC between 12 pm and 1 pm. Cost of the ticket increases up to RM 350, if the person wants to have dinner in the MPC between 6 pm and 7 pm. Visitors are provided with the leverage to have the lunch or dinner any time after their visit to the observation deck and the Skybridge is completed. The 1 hr duration is only meant for the visit to observation deck and the Skybridge. Lunch or dinner is not included in that. The Malaysian Petroleum Club (MPC) captured from the skybridge (Leiter). Interesting information about the Malaysian Petronas Towers: Until 2004, the Petronas Twin Towers have sustained the title of world’s tallest buildings. After then, the Taipei 101 in Taiwan surpassed it in height. However, no building to date has taken over the “world’s tallest twin building” title from the Petrnos Twin Towers. The Petronas Twin Towers constitute 88 stories in total. Designer of the Petronas Twin Towers was the famous architect Cesar Pelli from America. Builder of the Petronas Twin Towers’ pile foundation is Bachy Soletanche. The towers are mainly occupied by Petronas which is Malaysia’s national oil company. Some companies which have taken offices in the towers upon rent are Reuters, TCS, Microsoft, Al Jazeera English, Khazanah National Berhad, Boeing, Accenture, IBM, Carigali Hess Bloomberg, and McKinsey & Co. (“Facts About Petronas Towers”). The Petronas Twin Towers have a proper maintenance system. The service building that is contracted to ensure the operations of the Petronas Twin Towers is located towards its east. On 20 March, 1997, a French urban climber named Alain “Spiderman” Robert made an attempt to mount the Petronas Towers without putting anything of his feet or hands (“Facts About Petronas Towers”). He successfully climbed 59 floors. However, soon as he climbed up to 60th floor, police arrested him. But Robert would not stop. Ten years after that and on the same day, 20 March, 2007, Robert again made an attempt to climb up to the tower’s top. This time, he tried to climb up the second tower. Coincidentally, he could only manage to climb up to 59 stories without being caught by the police. Like before, the moment he reached the 60th floor, police was waiting there to arrest him. Works Cited: Dal. “#5 Petronas Twin Towers-Malaysia (452m 88 floors).” n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. . “Detailed Structural Analysis.” 18 Mar. 2010. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. . “Dow Corning: Case Study Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur.” n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. . “Facts About Petronas Towers.” n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. . “Johns Manville: Petronas Towers Project Report.” 2002. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. . Katsumata Ei. “Inside The Observation Deck Of The Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Stock Image.” 2011. Web. 19 Mar. 2011. . Katsumata, Ei. “View From The Observation Deck Of The Petronas Towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Stock Photo.” 2011. Web. 19 Mar. 2011. . “ Kuala Lumpur Petronas Towers Wallpaper.” 2007. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. . Leiter, Manfred. “Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia).” 12 Sep. 2010. Web. 11 Mar. 2010. . “Petronas Towers.” 2010. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. . “Petronas Twin Towers.” n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2011. . “The Petronas Towers.” 25 Mar. 2010. Web. 18 Mar. 2011. . Read More