After the 828-metre-high Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai, the world’s second tallest tower, at 703 metres, will be built in St. Petersburg, Russia. While the top floor of the former stands at a height of 587 metres, the Russian city’s Lakhta Center II will reach 590 metres, making it the tallest in use on the planet. The project, designed by Scottish architecture firm Kettle Collective, will join the existing Lakhta Centre I, currently the tallest building in Europe and home to natural gas giant Gazprom.
According to its architects, the conceptual design, “has been inspired by energy in all its forms, from the helical waves generated around deep-space quasars, to the spiralling energy of waves“. Indeed, the great tower seems to rise into the sky in kinetic spirals that give the structure a gracefulness, dynamism and mobility that characterise it. The design was also developed with sustainability and energy-efficiency in mind. The helical shapes reduce the tower’s wind loads and, as a result, the mass of the structural elements and foundations during construction. At the same time, the spiral columns running the length of the tower form an “open helical organic mesh” that allows for the incorporation of open atriums for light, ventilation and vertical green spaces.
The mixed-use Lakhta Center II will have eight sections, each organised around one of these atriums, with shared services and landscaped areas. The top floor will feature an observation deck over the skies above St. Petersburg. As its architects say, when it opens, the tower will be of “national significance”, as it will “place Russia on the world stage as an investor in business and innovation and creative thinking”.
