The structural design company, Swetch, is currently developing a project of prefabricated reinforced concrete and steel structures for the VISTA International Business Centre to be located in Malmö right by the Øresund Strait.
This impressive office building will be the fourth building of real estate developer, Wihlborgs Fastigheter, in Hyllie region, Sweden. Moreover, it will be the first structure that will greet anyone travelling over the Øresundsbron bridge from Copenhagen with the impressive size of this expected building.
Time savings by designing and modelling directly in FEM-Design
Thanks to the use of the FEM-Design software, the full-fledged execution of a structurally complex model had a direct impact on the speed of design work and the quality of the obtained results.
“Each project that is received for execution, at the first stage of the project, is almost always associated with the need to design the loads on the foundations as soon as possible and report them to the foundation designers, as well as significantly determine the total weight of the structure. This is also the stage where we check the overall stability of the structure.”
“Another significant advantage is the ability to very quickly determine individual cross-sections of structural elements, which allows us to return to the architects with comments on the geometry of the structure at the initial stage of the project. No engineer needs to be told how crucial such possibilities are.”
Remarks are provided by Artur Buszmicz, the lead structural engineer/designer at Swetch.
FEM-Design model for the office complex
Dynamic adaptation of the construction project
With an international office centre of this scale – just like VISTA is, conceptual changes in the project are inevitable. Such changes often also affect the supporting structures of the building.
“The dynamics of such projects are determined by the number of changes in the project. For example, at the initial stage of the project, the highest core, which was supposed to be the main bearing element, got weakened by additional doors and other installation holes. It was a rather big challenge – to prevent the deformation of the building in such a situation. The most important in this situation was to get accurate results and the possibility to read them clearly – that gave a better understanding of the changed behaviour of the structure.”
A new dimension in structural analysis
In highly loaded cross-sections, it is important to correctly identify internal forces and areas that require special attention from the structural engineer. The ease of determining the strength of a structure directly affects the safety of the structure.
“Variety of results and easy review is an undoubted advantage of FEM-Design,” states Artur.
“Various options exist here for displaying results, for example, from stress maps, sections, cross-sectional forces at a given point, as well as complex calculations according to the Eurocode. There are so many possibilities that everyone will be able to find a way to interpret and present them.”
“For us at Swetch, the main advantage is the ability to easily and quickly read the stresses in the connections between pre-cast concrete elements, which actually reflect their behaviour. This possibility allows us to quickly evaluate the reactions between two elements introduced, for example, by different materials,” – adds Artur.
The VISTA business centre will be 15 floors high, of which a total of 5 floors are dedicated to parking lots (2 underground floors and 3 above-ground floors) and 10 floors for office spaces with a total area of 39,203 m2. Most floors will have their own or shared terraces for work and relaxation.
The two underground floors of the office complex will have more than 400 car parking spaces, as well as bicycle charging stations.
“The FEM-Design model improves the control of all loads and connections, and the program interface supports the designer at every step of the work.”
The company “Veidekke Sverige” plans to start construction of the building in the fall of 2023. The building will be available to its users already in 2025.
