CTBUH Delegation Visited Capital City
On September 1-2, 2011, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), Capital Group and Central Institute for Scientific Research and Development of Residential Public Buildings conducted Moscow High-Rise Construction Days, a series of theoretical and practical lectures, master classes and business tours to the capital’s key high-rise buildings. The events were coincided with the first official visit of CTBUH delegation to Moscow, headed by the Council’s president, prof. Sang-De Kim. The goal of the visit was to make acquaintance with Russia’s contemporary high-rise construction practices as exemplified by the best projects and share experience.
One of the key points of the planned business program of the visit was the business tour to Capital City mixed-use complex, the skyscraper combining office and retail zones with residential apartments.
The complex was chosen by CTBUH delegation as Russia’s first operating representative of the mixed-use complex format, the worldwide trend in high-rise construction, and the tallest building in Europe according to CTBUH.
With an example of Capital City, representatives of CTBUH delegation saw high-quality project solutions implemented in Russia’s contemporary high-rise construction. Head of Assets Management Department at Capital Group Marina Gubanova and Chief Operating Officer at Capital City Oleg Tverdokhlebov presented the key zones of the complex — retail galleries, where people can shop, have their business meetings in deluxe restaurants, go to cafés, enjoy different services.
Then the guests visited Capital Group’s headquarters placed in 17-storey A class business center within the complex, went down to the Moscow City’s biggest 6-level underground parking zone, and finally visited residential apartments with designer’s finishing in the residential skyscrapers “Moscow” and “Saint Petersburg”, from where they could enjoy panoramic views of the city center.
The experts were particularly interested in the engineer solutions, people flows’ separation within the building, zoning patterns, and multi-level security and fire-fighting systems. Answering the numerous questions of the guests, Oleg Tverdoklebov said: “In terms of engineer systems, each functional zone of the complex represents an independent block, with separate access to the parking zone, elevator groups, smoke resistant fire-escape stairs, etc. This solution provided high level of security and comfort for all users of the mixed-use complex.”
Head of CTBUH delegation prof. Sang-De Kim found that the unique architectural solution became the excellent framing for the supermodern technologies implemented in the complex: “With an example of Capital City, we see that today’s high-rise architectural and engineer solutions have moved far forward, and now people can live and work in the skyscraper complex with maximum comfort. Besides, laying aside traditional square-cut constructions, today’s skyscrapers become the new visual symbols of the cities. I am sure that Capital City is a worthy contender for the title of the new symbol of Moscow, and it will become not only the significant landmark in the new panorama of the city, but also an important element of cultural heritage of Russian capital.”
On commenting the results of the event, Head of PR Department at Capital Group Dinara Lizunova said: “Although the history of skyscraper construction in our country comprises only several years, today we associate head-to-head with the world’s leading professionals in tall buildings construction. And this fact, as well high appreciation of our project, Capital City, clearly confirms that our offer meets international standards. Today we have launched our new project on the 16th plot of “Moscow City”, where our accumulated experience will see further development.”
Within the official visit business program, the guest also visited the Central Institute for Scientific Research and Development of Residential Public Buildings — the main institute for developing high-rise construction regulations in Russia, Moscow Architectural Institute, and also within the conference “High-Rise Buildings: History and Nowadays. South Korea” they presented reports on the current challenges and prospects of the world’s high-rise construction development, shared their knowledge and practices accumulated over several years of systematic work of CTBUH in South Korea.
