The luxurious Marina Bay Sands building is 929,000 square meters and its constituted by 2,560 hotel rooms, a convention center and a shopping mall, also an Art & Science museum, two theaters, six restaurants and a casino. It was build in order to attract tourists and therefore increase singaporean economy. The construction site was studied and analyzed by many foreign, also local profesional architects and engineers in order to get the safest structure and the best position for it. It is worldwide known because of the outrageous/odd shape it has and because it is the world's most expensive standalone casino property billed at S$8 billion, in it the cost of prime land is included.
The building was meant to be finished in one phase in 2009 but due to the continuous increase of the material it was delayed, it was opened in various phases. The resort and SkyPark were opened on 23 and 24 june, 2010, respectively. The casino opened later the same year, on april 27th. After that, the theater was opened on 30 november 2010 and the indoor skating rink, was presente to the public on december 18th. The next year the ArtScience Museum opened on February 19th, which was marked as the completion of the entire resort. Finally Marina Bay Sands opening was held on February 17, 2011.
Under construction
For the construction of it, was needed a 0.56 million square meters reclaimed land, filled with sand on deep soft marine clay. Obviously it cannot be used for construction therefore it had to be reinforced with 1.5 meter thick steel-reinforced concrete diaphragm walls which were extended 50 meters into the ground providing an enclosure for excavation.
Another big challenge on the construction of the building was the ideal to construct the part of the towers that slope at an incline. They could buckle under their own weight, although it would be unsupported. Taking an example of a suspension bridge, it can be say that high-tensile steel tendons give a layer of support inside the walls. The struts and the tension cable were designed for a temporary time and it was supposed to be removed once the linked trusses that connect the towers on the 23rd floor were installed but afterwards the team decide to leave it as permanent so the building would be more secure.
For a better comprehension of the behavior of the buildings and the wind, a set of experiments were carried on by a group of engineers. The place and it's surroundings were modeled at a 1:400 scale in a wind simulator. "Mean and gust wind speed ratios were measured at 28 locations on the SkyPark model. The measured wind speed ratios were then combined with a statistical model of the local wind climate to determine the predicted pedestrian comfort in and around the development. Two improvements in structural design were made in relation to the dynamic performance of the building. First, the taper of the main supporting box girders was reduced to improve the response of the cantilever under human excitation. Second, a 4.5-metric ton (5-ton) tuned mass damper was introduced and located at the tip of the cantilever, hidden within the belly of the architectural form, and aimed to add an additional percentage of damping to the structure. The damper was suspended from transverse girders and accessed via catwalks already present for the inspection and maintenance of the box girders." (Moshe Safdie, 2011).
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| Pool's full scale movement test. |
Personal opinion
Even though the construction of the Marina Bay Sands was on behalf the benefits for Singapore and their citizens, it is a dangerous building to have because of the outrageous and innovative design. As everyone knows, nowadays it does not matter the structure of a building when the nature comes in, because it will take away everything on its way, specially something of this magnitude. It is also a concern the fact that a floating platform was needed and afterwards the ground had to be prepared for something it cannot handle. The government should not allow this kind of buildings before intensive studies and thoughts about the problems it might cause in a long time. It is also a violation of the nature because is known when the land is modified, it will cause tectonics movement which can cause a mayor problem in some countries.
References: http://www.ctbuh.org/TallBuildings/FeaturedTallBuildings/MarinaBaySands/tabid/1766/language/en-US/Default.aspx
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