Calatrava receives 10 Year Award at the CTBUH Annual Award Ceremony
Santiago Calatrava, accepted the 10 Year Award on behalf Santiago Calatrava Architects & Engineers for the Turning Torso in Malmö, Sweden
New York, NY (August 6, 2015) – The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) today awarded Santiago Calatrava’s Turning Torso building its prestigious “10 Year Award.” Completed in 2005, HSB Malmö commissioned Calatrava to design the tower to help transform the decaying industrial district in a new neighborhood of homes, businesses, culture and entertainment in Malmö, Sweden. This international award recognizes the Turning Tower’s value, contribution to culture and urban iconography, its social role, and its technical development ten years after its inauguration.
“Iconic, astonishing and inspirational, the unusual building has had a deep influence in our industry and has added a unique feature to Malmö’s skyline (...). Since this project was announced 15 years ago, architects worldwide have been inspired,” said Vincent Tse, CTBUH Trustee, CTBUH Technical Awards Juror, and Managing Director of Parsons Brinckerhoff, Building MEP China Region. “Today, there are more than 30 towers that twist upwards (...). Looking back at innovations over the past decade, few have had the lasting power and influence of the Turning Torso.”
The Turning Torso is the first skyscraper in the world to twist. It is also one of the tallest buildings in Europe, standing at over 57 stories and 623 feet tall. Turning Torso is Calatrava’s first high-rise building and was inspired by his white marble sculpture that evokes the abstraction of the human figure, whereby several cubes revolve around a vertical axis like a torso spinning around a spine. The building’s nine pentagonal sections rotate 90 degrees as it increases in height to form the building’s curved shape. A steel exoskeleton that resembles a spine twisting upward with the structure connects these units. The two lower sections of the building are dedicated to office functions, while the upper seven sections contain a total of 147 residences, with each floor accommodating one to five apartments.
CTBUH also recognized the Turning Torso for its pioneering sustainable design and for its execution of sustainable industry standards far ahead of its time. One hundred percent of the energy consumed in the building comes from renewable sources, including geothermal, hydro, solar and wind. Each unit has electricity consumption meters, allowing tenants to make more informed decisions regarding the amount of energy they are consuming at any time. In addition, each unit has an organic waste disposal unit that is connected to a series of pipes leading to a municipal biogas facility that converts the material into energy.
The award will be presented on November 12 at the CTBUH 14th Annual Awards Symposium in Chicago at Crown Hall, the landmark building designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the Illinois Institute of Technology and the School of Architecture. Past winners of the 10 Year Award include Bonn, Germany’s Post Tower in 2014 and London’s 30 St. Mary Axe in 2013.
This project will be featured in the Best Tall Buildings book, published in conjunction with Images Publishing, and distributed internationally each year.