Tall buildings subjected to horizontal loading: Analysis of two case studies by an in-house numerical code

Tall building structures are usually calculated by finite element models since the early design stages. This approach, although giving detailed information, is time-consuming and often leads to lose sight of parameters and variables that govern the general problem. In this contribution, an original methodology related to the preliminary design of high-rise buildings is proposed. The approach effectiveness is demonstrated by two examples on real structures. In particular, the studies are focused on two tall buildings recently built in the City of Turin: the Intesa Sanpaolo Tower, inaugurated in 2015, and the Piedmont Region Headquarters, still under construction. The first building, 167 meters tall, consists of reinforced concrete cores composed by thin-wall open-sections and six large steel columns. The peculiarity of this structure is the great eccentricity of the cores with respect to the floors’ centroid. The second building, 209 meters tall, is composed by four cores and three frames placed along the perimeter, all made in reinforced concrete. The particularity of this structure is that the cores are connected in pairs, to further reduce the transverse displacements.