DESIGN CONCEPT OF

PETRONAS TWIN TOWER

 ABSTRACT

The land where the PETRONAS twin towers were built is located in the heart of the
commercial and financial district of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The first phase of Kuala
Lumpur City Centre occupies six acres in the northeast sector of the property. The
towers evoke traditional motifs of Islamic art, honoring the Malaysian Muslim
heritage, combined with innovative technology. Represent a change in the style of
skyscrapers built in Kuala Lumpur, closer to traditional international style.
ABOUT PETRONAS TWIN TOWER
The PETRONAS Towers, located in Kuala Lumpur, majestic by day and dazzling at
night, were designed to herald the emergence of Malaysia into the global economy
and act as an easily identifiable symbol for the fast-growing country. The
development’s scope, scale, and design reflect the desire to create a representative
manifestation of local traditions and creativity.Living up to their status as a global
icon, the PETRONAS Twin Towers house an amazing collection of attractions. They
also function as an office building and the headquarters for the PETRONAS oil and
gas company.

The PETRONAS Twin Towers is inspired by Tun Mahathir Mohamad's vision for
Malaysia to be a global player.

RACE IN HEIGHT
The twin towers were originally proposed to be built at a height of only 1400 feet
(427 m) and were not meant to become the highest in the world, because at first
the maximum height of the pinnacle was 16 meters lower than the Sears Tower.
Then Dr. Mahathir saw greater potential in the building as the world's tallest
structures and pressed architects and engineers to include a few more meters in
height, in every way possible. With the tower already under construction, the
architecture team got down to work to stretch the minimum but enough to
overtake the Tower Sear s in total structural height. It was necessary to recalculate
some structural aspects and resubmit the towers to the wind tunnel.
The solution adopted was to not increase the number of plants and add a small
dome towers, a pinnacle height of 73.5m integrated into the structure of the tower,
reaching the current height: 451.9 meters. This was achieved, half, inorder to
overcome the Sears Tower in Chicago, which would retain the record of height to
the top floor. This topic has generated some controversy since the completion of
PETRONAS, in 1998, until finally the building Taipei 101 has been done with the
record high surpassing both towers of Kuala Lumpur as of Chicago.

MATERIALS
The towers are “smart” structures built with a system that coordinates perfectly
with telecommunications, environmental control, power supply, lighting, fire and
smoke control and building safety.

With 88 floors of reinforced concrete and steel facade, glass and aluminum, have a
total of 32,000 windows.

The main entrance lobbies and public use are decorated with moldings and
mirrored glass panels. The designs and patterns entrance halls reflect traditional
craftsmanship with numerous “songket” (tapestry) traditional in decor. In addition,
the wall panels and screens are also inspired by wood carvings on the east coast of
peninsular Malaysia. The floor designs are based on traditional weaving intricate
patterns.

 FACADE

The external enclosure is made of stainless steel, aluminum and glass. A system of
deep umbrellas modulates the vertical forms and produces a proper three-
dimensional facade to the tropics. The city of Kuala Lumpur is located only 2
degrees of Ecuador. The aluminum cornices protruding at the top of the windows
act as shields for horizontal floors accentuate the effect “pagoda” of buildings,
mostly at night, when illuminated from below. The facade formed of panels has
special assemblies that allow for modulation caused by wind and then return to its
original position.

The towers feature walls multifaceted stainless steel panels 33,000 and 55,000 glass
panels. Glass panels meet special features that allow viewing of both properties
have noise reduction filtering of light and provide a comfortable indoor
environment. The glass is covered with stainless steel viewers to further protect
visitors from the tropical sun.

Built with 899,000 ft² of stainless-steel extrusions, the building was surprisingly void
of heat and UV rays, with the addition of 590,000 ft² of lamination glass over the
surface of the skyscraper which would require 2 whole months just to clean every
single glass panel.

 BRIDGE

The sky bridge built by Kukdong Engineering & Construction, the 58 m bridge is a
popular tourist attraction and is also incorporated into the building’s fire safety
procedures, providing an exit into the other tower if a fire is within one of the
towers. The two floor bridge connecting the two towers was built with 500 pieces
made in South Korea, assembled on site and then positioned and locked in place.

 LIGHTING

The night lighting facades are designed to emphasize the effect pagoda and the
height of the towers. These lighting levels are becoming increasingly narrow time as
the building gets higher up off a kind of beacon located at the base of each pinnacle.
Powerful luminaires are located at street level, the coronation were placed at the
base of each auction.

 LIFTS

The vertical communication of each tower are guaranteed for 29 double-decker

elevators and high-speed passenger six service lifts heavy trucks and four executive
lifts. Its operation is based on a zoning agreement: two groups of 6 double-deck
elevators serve between levels 1-23 and 1-37, while another set of five double-
decker elevators take passengers directly to the Sky Lobby. Here, passengers take
another elevator to the upper areas.
Executives’ lifts are the largest tour of any office building in Malaysia. Lead to each
floor from the basement car park to the top of the towers in 90 seconds. Each
passenger can carry between 26-52 people in total, while the executive lifts can
carry an average of 10. His speed is between 3.5 m / s and 6.0 m / s, depending on
the area they are serving.

CONSTRUCTION DEVELOPMENT
Due to budgetary constraints, the development timeline of PETRONAS Towers was
constrained to six years, an ambitious feat considering that the original expected
construction time for the project was eight years. To speed things along, two
construction consortiums were hired, each being responsible for building one of the
towers each of 88 stories, resulting in a race between the Japanese and South
Korean consortiums. With an average of one floor being completed every four days,
the South Korean team was the first to reach its pinnacle. Due to their win, they
received the honor of building the iconic Sky Bridge that links the two towers like a
tendon.

The site planning for PETRONAS Twin

Towers began in January 1992.

Excavators began digging down 30 meters

below the surface of the site in March
1993. The work required moving over 500
truckloads of the earth every night.

Test boreholes found that the original

construction site effectively sat on the edge of a cliff. One half of the site was
decayed limestone while the other half was soft rock. The entire site was moved 61
meters (200 ft) to allow the buildings to sit entirely on the soft rock.  Because of the
depth of the bedrock, the buildings were built on the world's deepest
foundationsconcrete piles, ranging from 60 to 114 meters (197 to 374 ft) deep,
were bored into the ground. The concrete raft foundation, comprising 13,200 cubic
meters (470,000 cu ft) of concrete was continuously poured through a period of 54
hours for each tower. The raft is 4.6 meters (15 ft) thick, weighs 32,500 tonnes
(35,800 tons), and held the world record for the largest concrete pour until 2007.
The foundations were completed within 12 months by Bachy Soletanche and
required massive amounts of concrete.

The construction of the superstructure commenced in April 1994 after passing

multiple rigorous tests and simulations of
wind and structural loads on the design.
From this floor rose a 21-meter high
retaining wall, with a perimeter length of
over one kilometer. This concrete shell and
the basement area it encloses required
twoyears and up to 40 workers on site all day and night.Early into construction a
batch of concrete failed a routine strength test causing construction to come to a
complete halt. All the completed floors were tested but it was found that only one
had used a bad batch and it was demolished. As a result of the concrete failure,
each new batch was tested before being poured. The halt in construction had cost
US$700,000 per day and led to three separate concrete plants being set up on the
site to ensure that if one produced a bad batch, the other two could continue to
supply concrete.

Unlike most skyscrapers, the towers are more concrete than steel, as concrete is a
vastly cheaper and more familiar material to the contractors. The added weight of
the concrete helped ground the tower foundations, resulting in effective sway
reduction, which can be a problem over time for many tall buildings. Steel was used
for mostly decorative purposes, aiding in the striking reflective visuals all around the
towers.

A sky bridge has been incorporated on the 41st and 42nd floor, connecting the
towers and building in structural support.
At the bottom of the building’s design, a retail complex has been embedded, with
over 400 stores for tourists and locals to utilize, becoming one of the largest
shopping areas in the country. The complex also contains a theatre and aquarium,
suitable for all ages.

Finally, in June 1996, PETRONAS Twin

Towers was completed with its encasing in
steel and glass.

The spires of Tower 1 and Tower 2 were

completed on 1 March 1996.

The first batch of PETRONAS personnel

moved into the building on 1 January 1997.

The buildings were officially functional and

ceremoniously opened by the Prime
Minister on the 1st of August 1999.

The construction of PETRONAS Twin Towers took 6 years and cost the country a
fortune of over 6 billion (USD $1.6 billion) to complete.

PETRONAS TWIN TOWER IN ARCHITECTURAL ASPECT

 DESIGN

The interior motifs are designed to resemble Malaysia’s local handicrafts and
weaving patterns, with a stunning combination of stainless steel and glass finishing
on the building to form beautiful Islamic patterns. The design of each tower floor
plate is based on simple Islamic geometric forms of two interlocking squares,
creating a shape of an eight-pointed star. Architecturally, these forms represent the
important Islamic principles of unity, harmony, stability and rationality.

 ISLAMIC PATTERNS; RUB EL HIZB

The towers were designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, the towers are inspired by
Malaysia’s culture and portray Islamic influences within both its interior and
exterior construction. Both towers form an eight-pointed star, frequently found in
Islamic design, with the floors setting back slightly as the building rises, creating two
unique towers which have a religious and cultural influence to the city.

The towers constructed in the shape of an M, the exterior slanted edges represent
Malaysia’s cultural heritage with respect to basket weaving. Within the building’s
interior, the 560,000 square meters are spacious within its column-free design.

One concern Pelli had for the new design is the limited floor space. To overcome
this concern, he added semicircles to each of the inner angles. Each tower now has
a total of 43,600 square yards (36,455 m2) of floor space, including an additional
circular annex referred to as ‘bustle’, standing 44 stories high.
In particular, the design is based on Islamic geometry, a reflection of Malaysia’s
cultural heritage.

PETRONAS TWIN TOWER IN STRUCTURAL ASPECT

 STRUCTURE

The central structure is based on a square core, 23x23m basically concrete attached
to a peripheral ring 16 also of concrete columns.
The composite floor systems are conventional structural steel beams of rolled steel
457mm cant, spaced approximately 2.8m at the center.
The towers rest on a concrete slab shared, which in turn is placed on a “forest”
underground concrete and steel pillars. In the development in height, the two
towers are shaking and staggering to be topped by a conical pinnacle, 73.5 m high.
Each tower will retracting in his ascent to maintain the vertical axis and follow its
design. The walls of the upper floors are also inclined inward to taper and converge
at the pinnacle.

 CENTRAL NUCLEUS

The only metal frame was discarded in this case due to the unwillingness of Malays
to work with steel, the high cost representing importation and the need to minimize
vibrations in the tops of the towers builders. Instead he resorted to a central
concrete structure and floors made with metal panels and steel filler. This central,
large and square, shaft joins the perimeter ring through four levels riostradas steel
beams, each double height. The connection between these two structural
components from minimizes wind loads on the towers.

 OUTWARD STRUCTURE

Each tower structure

outwardly from a perimeter
ring 16 mega reinforced
concrete cylindrical columns,
each of which occupies a
corner of the star, creating a
base with a diameter of 46m.
A very tough for the pillars
did not have too thick and
allow a more slender towers
concrete was used, the
complexity of the perimeter became necessary to resort to a secondary frame.
Columns with a diameter of 2.4 meters, tapers upwards and are finally joined to one
another by arched beams reinforced concrete also. Between each column there is a
separation between 8 and 10 meters which is filled with a mega-frame reinforced
concrete and steel. Influences the slender towers display only the facades a small
part of the columns, with the 16 perimeter columns and the structural core who
bear the lateral loads.

 BRIDGE
The bridge connecting the two towers is supported by a consistent arc three hinges
on a giant bearing shaped central ring at the base. Its structural design, with 58.4m
in length and
approximately 48m span,
was the difficulty of having
to accommodate any
difference in movements
and settlements between
each tower.

This difficulty was solved

by attaching the bridge to
each tower with two
articulated supports, inclined and arranged in an inverted V shape that rest on the
29th floor and allow the bridge equidistant keep the two towers in any case, since
they can oscillate independently without transmitting forces. These supports are
fixed to a box girder Conveniently situated in the center of the bridge

PETRONAS TWIN TOWER IN ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECT

PETRONAS twin towers were designed and built before sustainability was a
common design priority.The towers design conserves energy through attention to
climate and location. The towers subtly incorporate sustainability in design. Shading
devices are built into the façade at every story to take advantage of Malaysia’s high
sun angle, a traditional practice in tropical architecture. Also, laminated glass was
used to reflect radiation away from the interiors and minimize heat gain, thus
reducing the use of air-conditioning.

SUMMARY
Today, due to our increased knowledge and improved technology, reinforced
concrete buildings can be tall, graceful and elegant. Due, in part, to the use of shear
walls, innovative structural systems and ultimate strength design, very little usable
floor space is occupied by the structure. HSC and lightweight structural concrete
allow us to use smaller member sizes and less steel reinforcement.

Because of the rapid developments of concrete construction and technology, with

every passing year the use of concrete for tall buildings is becoming a constant
reality. The mold ability of concrete is a major factor in creating exciting building
forms with elegant aesthetic expression. Compared to steel, concrete tall buildings
have larger masses and damping ratios that help in minimizing motion perception. A
heavier concrete structure also provides better stability against overturning caused
by lateral loads.

New structural systems including the composite ones that are popular now have
allowed concrete high-rises to reach new heights during the last four decades.

Although steel will continue to be the structural material of choice for many tall
buildings for its strength and ductility, we may expect to see more and more
concrete and composite high-rise structures shaping the skylines of major cities of
the world in the forthcoming years.