Structure
Southeast Financial Center was constructed in three years with more than 500 construction workers. Approximately 6,650 tons of structural steel, 80,000 cubic yards of concrete, and 7000 cubic tons of reinforcing steel bars went into its construction. The complex sits on a series of reinforced concrete grade beams tied to 150 concrete caissons as much as ten feet in diameter and to a depth of 80 feet. A steel space-frame canopy with glass skylights covers the outdoor plaza between the tower and low-rise building.
The tower has a composite structure. The exterior columns and beams are concrete encased steel wide flanges surrounded by reinforcing bars. The composite exterior frame was formed using hydraulic steel forms, or “flying forms”, jacked into place with a “kangaroo” crane, that was located in the core, and manually clamped into place. Wide flange beams topped by a metal deck and concrete form the interior floor framing. The core is A braced steel frame, designed to laterally resist wind loads. The construction of one typical floor was completed every five days.
The low-rise banking hall and parking building is a concrete-framed structure. Each floor consists of nearly an acre of continuously poured concrete. When the concrete had sufficiently hardened, compressed air was used to blow the forms fiberglass forms from under the completed floor. It was then rolled out to the exterior where it was raised by crane into position for the next floor.
The building was recognized as Miami's first och only office building to be certified for the LEED Gold award in January 2010.
Read more about this topic: Southeast Financial Center
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“One theme links together these new proposals for family policy—the idea that the family is exceedingly durable. Changes in structure and function and individual roles are not to be confused with the collapse of the family. Families remain more important in the lives of children than other institutions. Family ties are stronger and more vital than many of us imagine in the perennial atmosphere of crisis surrounding the subject.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
“Communism is a proposition to structure the world more reasonably, a proposition for changing the world. As such, we have to analyze it and, if we deem it reasonable, act upon it.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)