{"id":10972,"date":"2022-07-07T13:15:14","date_gmt":"2022-07-07T18:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.imegcorp.com\/?p=10972"},"modified":"2023-05-22T08:03:56","modified_gmt":"2023-05-22T13:03:56","slug":"walking-columns-the-structural-solution-for-the-tallest-residential-building-in-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.imegcorp.com\/insights\/blog\/walking-columns-the-structural-solution-for-the-tallest-residential-building-in-philadelphia\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking columns: The structural solution for the tallest residential building in Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">By D. Kirk Harman\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:257}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The Laurel Rittenhouse Square \u2013 a 50-story, 583,000-sf, ultra-luxury mixed-use tower \u2013 is the tallest all-residential building in the City of Philadelphia and required the use of a particularly unique structural strategy: walking columns.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:257}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Designed by architectural firm Solomon Corwell Buenz of Chicago, the building houses 65 condominiums and 184 apartments atop a three-story podium with 44,000 square feet of retail, dining and amenity space. The Laurel\u2019s 50 stories are constructed of a cast-in-place concrete flat plate system with concrete shear walls, and it sits next to one of the project\u2019s biggest challenges: a three-story historic building that needed to be preserved.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:257}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">The Harman Group, now IMEG provided structural design for the project. In order to maximize the floor-to-site-area ratio permitted by the City of Philadelphia Zoning Code per the developer\u2019s wishes, we had to find a way to expand the new tower floors above the historic structure to capture additional floor area where the edge columns would be located outboard of the columns below.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:257}\">\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Our solution was walking columns, which are used when a column is not located directly above the column below, creating an offset and eccentric load on both columns and resulting in horizontal forces at each end of the column that must be resolved into the floors above and below \u2013 in this case, in four successive floors to achieve the transferred column location in the 40-plus floors above.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:257}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">We resolved these horizontal forces in the design of the floor diaphragms with mechanically terminated tension drag struts to provide a load path to the concrete core. In areas outboard of the core, similar drag struts were designed, and then supplemental diaphragm reinforcing transferred the forces horizontally into the core.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:257}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Walking columns solved just one of the unique challenges our team encountered on this project. Fellow IMEG engineer Todd Campbell and I recently published an article in <\/span><i><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Structure Magazine<\/span><\/i><span data-contrast=\"auto\"> detailing all the challenges and successes we found in designing the building, incl<span class=\"TextRun SCXW83028401 BCX9\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW83028401 BCX9\">uding the foundations, a 12-hour continuous concrete pour, and more. Read the full article <\/span><\/span><a class=\"Hyperlink SCXW83028401 BCX9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.imegcorp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Whitepaper-The-Laurel-Rittenhouse-Square.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><span class=\"TextRun Underlined SCXW83028401 BCX9\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"none\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW83028401 BCX9\" data-ccp-charstyle=\"Hyperlink\">here<\/span><\/span><\/a><span class=\"TextRun SCXW83028401 BCX9\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\" data-contrast=\"auto\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCXW83028401 BCX9\">.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/manage\/videos\/755640281\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Watch a drone video by Elevated Angles of The Laurel Rittenhouse Square.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Engineering consulting firm The Harman Group, now IMEG, utilized a unique structural engineering solution, walking columns, in the structural design of the tallest all-residential building in the City of Philadelphia \u2013 The Laurel Rittenhouse Square.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,256],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Walking columns: The structural solution for the tallest residential building in Philadelphia - 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