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Five Speculative Points for a Building Type

Conference Paper · July 2010

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.3310.8002

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FIVE SPECULATIVE POINTS FOR A BUILDING TYPE

Giorgio Marfella
University of Melbourne, g.marfella@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

ABSTRACT

High-rise commercial buildings can be analysed using disciplines like history, sociology,
building technology, economy, planning et cetera. Is it still possible to make research of
commercial high-rise simply in terms of building design? This paper presents how the
analysis of five typological parameters (floor plate efficiency, leasing depth, core
eccentricity, building module and stacking strategy) has helped to identify that square
plan skyscrapers in Melbourne constitute an homogeneous typological family. An ideal
skyscraper built on the relentless stacking of a 40 m x 40 floor plate.

Keywords: Melbourne, Skyscrapers, Office Buildings, Typology.

INTRODUCTION

Interpretations of buildings based on aesthetics are frequent. However, the

straightforwardness, lack of uniqueness and frequent lack of inventiveness of commercial
buildings, seems to escape these kind of critiques and run aground on paradoxes.
Obviously commercial buildings can be analysed using other disciplines like history,
sociology, building technology, economy, planning et cetera. Is it still possible to make
research of commercial high-rise simply in terms of building design? Perhaps this
dilemma can be approached with the critical tools of a discipline often overlooked and
probably out of fashion: building typology.

Typology should not be only about functional analysis in the manner of design
handbooks. Typological studies can span beyond the morphology of architectural
artefacts. They can be about architectural objects as much as urban design. About
building fruition as much as building production. The tools of investigation of building
typology are ambivalent: technical and graphical as well as theoretical and literary.
Typology as a discipline could even take the form of a more general critique of building
production that investigates facts that are already widespread and that prefers facts of
formal invariance. And inevitably, a typological critique should extend the field of
observation to the city and not limit the investigation to the aesthetic interpretation of
single works.

Perhaps a typological approach for making research on the built environment can be
useful and rewarding for all involved in the industry, whether planners, developers,
building contractors, design professionals or tertiary educators, and perhaps it can still
trigger questions about the built environment which are of general public interest. The
purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how a basic typological analysis has helped to
define a research path for a very strong phenomenon of formal invariance: the
proliferation of square plan office towers in Melbourne between the 1960s and the 1990s.

FIVE SPECULATIVE POINTS FOR A BUILDING TYPE

The pervasive diffusion of square plan skyscrapers in Melbourne

It has been noted (Neustupny 2006) that office buildings in Melbourne’s CBD can be
grouped in three families according to their siting condition: blocks on infill sites, side-
core slabs on corner sites, and free standing towers, either directly above ground or over a
podium. Besides formal and morphological considerations, each one of these classes is
connected to a specific time co-ordinate of urban development (Figure 1).

At first, office blocks on infill sites predominate the speculative boom of the late 1950s,
while the corner slab takes over the role of pace-setter for rental markets over the 1960s.
A third typological class, the centre-core skyscraper, gradually rises in the late 1960s and
finally dominates in Melbourne up until the 1990s. This class is dominant for its visual
impact on the streetscape as well as from a quantitative supply of office area: ‘The Big
Six’ (Georgiev 1991) for example (Bourke Place, Melbourne Central, and 101, 120, 333
and 530 Collins St ) were built simultaneously in the CBD in a frantic race to finish first
on the market. Their impact on the supply side of the market was unprecedented in
quantitative terms for the late 1980s with ‘any two of them approximately equal the total
annual take-up of office space in the CBD’ (Rust 1988).

Figure 1.Typological evolution of office blocks in Collins Street, Melbourne: infill blocks (1950s), corner
slabs (1960s) and the rise and affirmation of free standing towers, directly above ground (1970s) and above
podiums (1980s and 1990s).

A close scrutiny of mega-buildings like the ‘Big Six’, as well as of their earlier
incubators, will unveil that many of them have a very important feature in common. Most
of these ‘blockbusters’ (Quarry 1990), share a similar plan: square with centre core
configuration. Four of the ‘Big Six’ are indeed perfectly square: Bourke Place,
Melbourne Central, 101 Collins Street and 530 Collins Street; and one quasi square: 120
Collins Street. Going back in time the list of notorious perfect squares in Melbourne
continues: 222 Exhibition Street, State Bank Centre, ANZ Tower, National Bank House,
Collins Wales House, BHP House, AMP Square, Treasury Place, ACI House and Feltex
House. The family can include also the octagonal Nauru House and the Royal Insurance
House, a square footprint intent interrupted only by limited site conditions. The list
extends if Collins Tower, Transport House and Rialto are seen as the result of a cellular
aggregation of two square plan towers. The sample could extend further, but perhaps
Figure 2 is sufficiently eloquent.

Figure 2. The widespread, formal invariance of square or quasi-square skyscrapers in Melbourne CBD.

Why so many, so tall and so morphologically similar towers have been pervasive in
Melbourne? Superficially the question might seem tautological. Perhaps anyone with
decades of local experience on commercial high rise will quickly guess some answers.
For reasons of space and time this question will remain unanswered here. For now, it will
suffice to say that a skyscraper does not have to be square in plan. The reference models
of BHP house, the Seagram Building in New York and John Hancock Center in Chicago
for instance, are not square at all. The first has a rectangular plan, the second is also
rectangular as well as vertically tapered. The reference model of AMP Square, the CBS
Building in New York is also not square in plan but rather rectangular.

What follows is how the analysis of five typological parameters has helped to identify
that square plan skyscrapers in Melbourne constitute a strictly homogeneous family. The
data presented here is drawn from a sample of 16 tall office buildings in Melbourne CBD
from the late 1960s to the 1990s. While most of the data relative to the sample could
easily be extended to a larger group of at least 20 to 25 buildings, the buildings chosen
for this paper are seminal skyline landmarks and are canonically square or informed by
simple geometrical manipulation of square envelopes.

Figure 3. Five speculative parameters for office building design: floor plate efficiency (1), leasing depth
(2), service core configuration, modular co-ordination (4) and stacking strategy (5).

The parameters are identified as ‘speculative points’ in virtue of their crucial association
with rental space production: floor plate efficiency, leasing depth, core eccentricity,
building module and stacking strategy.

First point: efficiency

The Net Lettable Area (NLA), used for the calculation of rents, is a measure that
quantifies the potential investment return of buildings. The efficiency of a floor plate,
determined as the ratio of Net Lettable Area over Gross Floor Area (GFA), represents the
economy of means from a developer point of view. Generally, modernist real estate
standards demand efficiency to be not less than 80% (Willis 1995). The sample seems to
conform rigorously to the rule that a minimum efficiency target of between 80% and 85%
is not negotiable. A corollary of the efficiency rule for this sample is that while most
typical floor GFA of the buildings is around 1500 sqm the typical floor generally
produces between 1200 sqm and 1275 sqm NLA.

Table 1. Typical floor plate efficiency of 16 square plan office towers in Melbourne CBD.

Second point: leasing depth

A factor closely related to floor efficiency is the amount of open space between core and
building envelope. This space is determined by a distance known as leasing depth. This
dimension is critical for natural light penetration as well as for interior planning, multi-
tenant subdivision and fitout flexibility. While early office buildings relied entirely on
natural light and ventilation, the introduction of neon lighting and air conditioning has
allowed to increase the depth beyond the initial 8 or 10m of early skyscrapers, reaching
depths of 12 m to 18m and beyond (Willis 1995). Table 2 shows that the majority of the
sample functions around a typical leasing depth of 11m for their worse case scenarios,
that is their low-rise floor plates.

Table 2. Typical leasing depth (core to glass distance) of 16 square plan office towers in Melbourne CBD.

The depth of the floor plate gauges where structural performance and economy and
methods of construction meet. For example, the 42 ft (13 m) deep open space of the steel
framed floors of AMP Square seems to be the determinant factor for its speculative
requisites. In order to achieve this planning depth the exterior columns have a
cantilevered stub that allows the span of the steel girders to be reduced by 5 feet. This
device allowed an economical floor to floor to be maintained by keeping the structural
depth of the steel girders to their minimum (Architecture Today 1969). With time steel
framing in Melbourne has become the exception rather than the norm while post-
tensioned band beam and slab flooring systems have become increasingly more common
and economical (Reinforced Concrete Digest 1988).
Third point: service core configuration

Central core layouts in high-rise construction are common for their good performance
against wind loads, and for the obvious all-round provision of frontage. Other benefits
include rational distribution of services and flexibility for multi-tenant subdivisions.
While side cores are not rare in Melbourne and atrium configurations have remained
mostly unexplored, centre-core tower configurations have taken a dominant character for
the taller buildings of the late 1960s and onwards. A primary factor to consider for core
layouts and configuration is also the strategy for fire egress. The sample shows a
conservative approach for compliance with fire safety requirements with two opposite
stair shafts and maximum distance to a fire exit or ‘point of choice’ typically between 20
m and 25 m. A plausible explanation to be considered for this homogeneity is the
necessity to comply with prescriptive building regulations such as the older versions of
the Victorian Building Regulations. Arguably, performance-based regulations such as the
current Building Code of Australia could have introduced more flexibility and open the
field for more innovative fire engineering solutions with scissor stairs or perhaps even
with only one single exit stair.

Figure 4. Core configuration and the strive to reach the ideal leasing depth in early square plan towers.
From left to right: Feltex House (Architect: Guilford Bell, 1958), ACI House (Architect: Buchan Laird &
Buchan; Builder: E. A. Watts, 1966), State Government Offices in Mac Arthur Street (Architect: Yuncken
Freeman; Builder: John and Seccull).

A centre-core however does not necessarily imply a bisymmetrical inscription of a square

core within a square plan tower. A certain amount of core elongation is often found even
in the most geometrically rigorous square samples. While the necessary core elongation
is exacerbated by the smaller footprints of the earliest towers of the sample (Figure 4),
this planning device remains, also for later examples such as AMP Square, BHP House
and subtly even at ANZ Tower as a mean to establish a hierarchy between the two or
more different frontage conditions or for solar orientation (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Core elongation as a mean to establish a hierarchy between frontages. From left to right: AMP
Square (Architects: Skidmore Owings and Merrill and Bates Smart and McCutcheon; Builder: E. A. Watts,
1965-69), BHP House (Architect: Yuncken Freeman; 1969-72), ANZ Tower, Collins Place (Architect: I.
M. Pei & Cobb; Builder: Builder: E. A. Watts, 1970-80).

Fourth point: modular co-ordination

Dimensions, proportions and anthropometric considerations in office buildings are

determined within a modular grid. The grid allows structural bays, curtain wall panels,
ceiling grids, cellular subdivision and fitout to coexist seamlessly. Standard metric units
often used today are 1200 mm, 1350 mm, 1500 mm and 1800 mm. Before the
introduction of the metric system, modules of 4 feet, with variations in the order of inches
to allow trimming of 1 or 2 feet ceiling tiles, were widely accepted (Architecture Today
1967). With the introduction of the metric system, basic modules of 1200 mm or 1350
mm have become common. The 1500 mm module seems particularly profitable, since it
allows intensive subdivision of 3m wide rooms to integrate with economical structural
bays of 6 m by 12 m and 1500mm curtain wall panels. Modules of 1200 mm or 1350 mm
however have the benefit of been modular with 8400 mm a very common structural bay
suitable for car parks. The modules adopted by the sample are initially inconsistent, while
from the 1980s onwards the metric module of 1350 becomes clearly predominant.
Table 3. Façade module (basic building module) of 16 square plan office towers in Melbourne CBD.

Fifth point: stacking strategy

The size of typical floors is crucial for the strategy of vertical assembly (stacking) of
office towers. The initial massing of the building can be simply determined by a formula:

Number of floors = Total NLA / Typical floor plate NLA

Besides area calculations, the height of the building has to be considered with
technological factors in mind. One of them is the separation of levels into zones to be
served by different groups of lifts: low-rise, medium-rise, high-rise and sky-rise. Other
elements that count are the vertical distribution of building services, the most cost-
effective floor to floor height and the overall aspect ratio of the tower to be tested against
lateral stability: in this study the height ranges between 3.6 m and 3.9 m. The grouping
of lift risers of the samples generally has increments of 10 to 15 office floors organized in
three risers. The extra-run of sky-rise is often introduced for buildings around and beyond
200m height.
Table 4. Vertical stacking and lift diagrams of 16 square plan office towers in Melbourne CBD. Only floors
with habitable office space are counted.

CONCLUSION

It seems that the majority of high-rise landmarks in Melbourne belong to the same
typological family. A family known in Melbourne with the nickname ‘40 x 40’. The most
recognizable traits of 40 x 40 are the following:

1) A square plan offset around an ideal envelope of 40 m x 40 sides with a tolerance of

plus or minus 5 m; The ideal envelope is often materialized on a perfectly square plan,
while in other cases a slight manipulation creates variants: eight shaped aggregation
(Rialto and Collins Tower), octagonal (Nauru House), cruciform (101 Collins Street);

2) A reasonable speculative performance with typical efficiency between 80% and 85%,
typical floor plates ranging between 1200 sqm and 1275 sqm NLA and average leasing
depth of 11m;

3) Building height not less than 100m and not more than 200m (excluding antennas,
pinnacle features and the like), typically broken down in three or maximum four lift
risers; Stacking is achieved by relentless aggregation of the same square envelope
described above without tapering, pyramidal setbacks or any other device that follows the
reduction in size of service cores; It appears that the progressive loss of lift shafts is often
planned with a slight bias towards elongation in order to maximize floor depth and area
on selected frontages of an otherwise indistinct perimeter condition;

4) As a resilient placeless typology the family is suitable for all urban fabric conditions:
large consolidated blocks, infill sites, corner sites; The family has proven a remarkable
capacity to survive the drastic planning regulation changes of the late 1970s (National
Trust of Australia 1978) changing from a free-standing tower on plaza into a tower on
podium.

To conclude, the initial question of why are these buildings so dominant can be extended
with two more renewed and yet more specific ones, which hopefully will help to initiate a
reflection about the production of commercial architecture in Melbourne:

1) What forces encouraged the diffusion of square plan skyscrapers in Melbourne?

To what degree can we restrict these forces only within the realm of economic
pragmatism? To what extent can we instead recognize a conscious choice from
developers, architects and builders for a model of monolithic purism?

2) Is 40 x 40 an import product of Modernist Internationalism or is it mainly a

Melbournian, or at the most Australian, phenomenon driven by unrepeatable local
circumstances? To what extent have controls set by local building regulations, such as
fire egress distances for example, acted as a straitjacket for local designers?

The answers are to be found in another forum. Besides real estate speculation, their
formulation will need to come to terms with urban planning and zoning controls, building
regulations, construction industry methods and last but not least the creation of
architectural image.
Table 5. Selected case studies and summary of typological parameters observed.
Table 6. Selected case studies and summary of typological parameters observed.
 REFERENCES

Architecture Today, 1967. ‘Essential Overhead’, June, pp 29-33 (part 1), and July, pp 39-
42 (part 2).

Architecture Today, 1969. ‘AMP Square, Melbourne’, December, pp. 16-19.

Georgiev, P., 1991. “The Big Six Office Buildings: 530 Collins Street, 333 Collins Street,
120 Collins Street, 101 Collins Street, Bourke Place, Melbourne Central” in Architect
(Melbourne), August 1991, pp 5-17.

National Trust of Australia 1978. Collins Street Report: a Report by the Urban
Conservation Committee of the National Trust of Australia (Victoria) on Suggested
Planning Policies and Guidelines for Collins Street, Melbourne, National Trust of
Australia (Victoria).

Neustupny, M., Curtain Call: Melbourne's Mid-Century Curtain Walls, Melbourne,

RMIT Publishing Press.

Quarry, N., 1990, Trading Places: Mega-Block-Busters, Architecture Australia,

September 1990, pp 38-50.

Reinforced Concrete Digest, 1988. ‘Bourke Place’, June. 8 page leaflet.

Rust I., 1988, ‘Real Estate’ in Architect (Melbourne), October – December 1988, p. 34.

Willis, C., 1995. Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and
Chicago, New York, Princeton Architectural Press.

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