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Sustainable Buildings: Commerzbank
Sustainable Buildings: Commerzbank
Sustainable Buildings: Commerzbank
A00820288
COMMERZBANK
This building designed by Foster and partners located in Frankfurt Germany its cataloged as a
sustainable skyscraper. In its time, it was the tallest building in Europe with 259 meters and 56
floors. The building has 121,000 square meters of surface that houses the offices of
Commerzbank. The skyscraper has 9 different gardens at different heights and was designed
with a system of natural light. The construction started in 1994 took three years to be finished.
Its main material is steel, from which more than 18,000 tons of it where used. The project
propose exploring the nature of the office tower and conceiving new ideas about its use and
ecological use.
The central idea of the building was a natural system of lightning and ventilation, so all offices
can count with natural light and windows that allows to control the environment. The energy
consumption of the Commerzbank, is equivalent to a half of a conventional offices building.
To support the large spans of the gardens, special attention was paid to the structural system of
the building. The triangular shaped floor plan provides the rigid structural support, and at each
corner of it, the cores are located. Here is where the vertical loads rests.
The Financial Times adopted it as a symbol of Frankfurt, as it has been made with Parliament
and the Eiffel Towers as symbols of London and Paris. It has been commemorated with a
serious of awards toward it sustainability.