Department of Civil Engineering

Building Construction & Planning Lab- (BCP)

IV SEMESTER, BE IN CIVIL ENGINEERING
2020

ASSIGNMENT PHASE

SIDDARTH P KOCHERI
Name
1RV19CV097
USN
B
Section
Prof.Shrithi S Badami (SSD)
Faculty In-charge

Elbphilharmonie
Topic

23-05-2021
Date of Submission of Report

Certificate
This is to certify that Mr. SIDDARTH P KOCHERI of IV Semester,
BE, Civil Engineering, has successfully completed the assignment
prescribed by the institution in the course Building
Construction & Planning Lab- (BCP) 18CV44 , for the
academic year 2020-2021.

Maximum Marks Marks Obtained

Signature of the Student Signature of the Course

Coordinator
Abstract
The Elbe philharmonie hall or Elbe concert hall is one of the world’s biggest concert hall, if
not for world but for Europe at least. It is one of the successful mega structure accomplished
by engineers. It’s an engineering marvel indeed. Construction was success after overcoming
many problem, problems not only related to engineering and planning of structure but also
political and fund related problem as well. The $880 million project, originally budgeted at
about $80 million, took 13 years from conception to the opening of its public plaza on the
eighth floor. The first concert was held in January 2017. It’s perfect designing and
architecture work can be appreciated by this fact that even after being near one of the busy
port of Europe, the interior of concert hall is almost sound proof to low frequency ship horns.
There are many such facts that make this mega structure an engineering marvel which are
discussed in this report.

Elbphilharmonie

Elbe philharmonie hall

The Elbe concert hall is situated in Hamburg city of Germany. The concert hall houses a
concert building, a wellness and conference zone, 47 owner-occupied apartments and a five-
star hotel with 250 rooms. The footprint of the building measures 120,000 square metres
(1.3 million square feet). It is built on the Kaispeicher A factory building which was built in

Kaispeicher
1960s. Factory was a big block shaped brick masonry best fitted word would a huge
warehouse on which modern concert hall was decided to build. This factory is used as plinth
for concert hall. In present day it is used as parking lot. This warehouse design was re-
engineered to with stand the dead load and live load provided by above lying concert hall.

For the structure acoustic engineering was provided by well-known acoustic engineer
Yasuhisa Toyota. The Elbe philharmonie hall has perfect acoustic with well-balanced reverb.
To attain this perfection in architecture many problems had to be overcome.
Starting with the concert hall itself, in order to make concert hall complete sound proof from
outside disturbance it was designed in such a that, they came up with an idea of isolating
concert hall from entire structure that is having double concrete wall. This design enabled
engineers to make concert hall sound proof that is even if low frequency sound from port
could enter through thick outer concrete wall it could not enter concert hall due to double
wall arrangement.

And to support this isolated concert hall engineers did not use direct physically connced
supports, as it could help trasmitting of outside sound. Hence they came up with the idea of
using steel spring as a support.
This design helped engineers to achieve perfect acoustic for concert hall. With approximately
2,150 seats, the large concert auditorium takes pride of place in the Elbe Philharmonic Hall
with one of the best sound
engineering being provided. Unlike
any other concert hall, Elbe
philharmonie has modern 21st
century architecture and design
which provides urban style design
with eye pleasing interior. The
concert hall does not follow the
concept of so-called shoebox stage
which enhances its looks and
appearance.

In contrast to the stoic brick facade of the Kaispeicher A, the new building above has a glass
facade, consisting in part of curved panels, some of them cut open. The glass facade
transforms the new building into a gigantic, iridescent crystal whose textured appearance
changes as it catches the reflections of the sky, the water and the city and transforms them
into an intricate puzzle on its facade. If we carefully observe glass facades they have chrome
mirror dots on them, these dots are not for looks but they help to stop reflection of sonar
signal from ship. Hence ship entering Hamburg port won’t misinterpret the structure as any
colliding object.
The Elbe philharmonie also house the longest escalator of Europe. The elongated escalator
curves slightly as it leads to the top of the Kaispeicher A, so that it cannot be seen in full from
one end to the other. The escalator offers its users a surprising spatial experience through the
entire Kaispeicher A. The first escalator leads up to a large panoramic window, the second
escalator ends at the Plaza.
Upon reaching the top of the Kaispeicher A, visitors find an open space, a public Plaza above
the city. Between the
top of the Kaispeicher
A and beneath the new
building – at the joint
between old and new –
is a new public space
that offers unique
panoramic views.
Along its edges, vault-
shaped openings create
spectacular, theatrical
views of both the River
Elbe and the City of
Hamburg.
Conclusion
The Elbe philharmonie is an engineering marvel indeed. But even it was surrounded with
controversies in initial days of construction. As construction time exceeded then what was
planned earlier, it was surrounded with controversy. The project was criticized because of its
cost and schedule overruns; construction was originally estimated to cost about 200 million
euro, while the final cost was 870 million euro. But at any rate construction was success as
structure provide service for what it was built for.

Reference
World’s Greatest Concert Hall | Megastructures | Free Documentary
https://youtu.be/pRs_gx2bX0w