Photo © Lucid
Two new buildings on Brussels’ Albert Square, designed by B-architecten after winning a municipal competition, house a restaurant, an auditorium and a sports hall on opposite sides of the square above the Albert subway station. With foundation space severely restricted by the station below, the auditorium and sports hall were built as a large steel structure cantilevering about 9 metres from a pile-founded concrete core, using tension bars and lattice girders for support and stiffness, with Diamonds used to run the code checks and verify the structure’s eigenfrequencies wouldn’t interfere with normal use of the sports hall.
The project
“Since the construction of the Albert subway station in the 1980s, the Albert Square in Vorst (Brussels) had become a large open space in the city landscape. To revive this part of the city into a thriving area for the residents, the Vorst municipality organized an architectural design competition. B-architecten’s design for two buildings with various facilities such as a restaurant, an auditorium, and a sports hall at opposing sides of the Albert Square, came out as the winner,” Pieter Ochelen says.
Extremely limited foundation options next to a subway station
Due to the presence of the Albert subway station, foundation possibilities were quite limited in this case. For the building on one side of the Albert Square, a concrete core located outside the subway station’s perimeter was founded on piles. For the building on the other side of the square, the situation was even more complex as foundations could only be realized in the far corner of the building plot.
A 9-metre cantilevering steel structure with tension bars and lattice girders
The auditorium and the sports hall were designed as a large steel structure that cantilevers for about 9 meters. This cantilever structure is hinged to the concrete core, while tension bars provide additional support and lattice girders ensure sufficient rigidity for the cantilever steel box.
The auditorium and the sports hall were designed as a large steel structure that cantilevers for about 9 meters. Diamonds was used to perform all required code checks and evaluate the eigenfrequencies.
Checking eigenfrequencies to avoid interference with normal sports-hall use
In addition to the usual structural analyses and code checks with Diamonds, we evaluated the cantilever’s eigenfrequencies to make sure there is no interference with normal use conditions of the sports hall.”
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UTIL
Designing a transparent structure to power high-quality architectural concepts, that is what UTIL is all about. The UTIL engineering office was founded in 2007 and is managed by MScs in Engineering and Architecture Frans Leenaerts, Pieter Ochelen, Filip Van de Voorde, and Rolf Vansteenwegen.
From the heart of Brussels, more than 20 UTIL employees work on various projects throughout Belgium and Europe. As strong interaction with the architectural design team typifies UTIL’s approach. The UTIL engineering team has been using the BuildSoft structural analysis software for more than 10 years. Thanks to its exceptional user-friendliness, this software is particularly suitable for developing comprehensible and practically usable analysis models that describe the very essence of structural design. Especially as projects and structures are becoming increasingly complex, UTIL engineers consider it crucial to focus on simple and solid concepts and stay in control throughout the entire structural design analysis process.
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