People often ask - is it possible to get on a tour of the construction site of Lakhta Center? Today came that pleasant day when I finally can answer: “Yes”!
Photo by Viktor SukhorukovWishing to wait under the cut.
All - on the tour!
The usual answer to the question - how to see the construction of the tallest skyscraper in Europe alive - is negative. Severe engineers who can easily quote at any time of the day or night, the desired point of safety regulations and internal mode, do not leave loopholes. Tourists must be instructed, equipped, led through the construction landscape and escorted to the checkpoint, returning to everyday life in the same ruddy form and good health that they were on arrival. Meanwhile, under their responsibility - twelve thousand people working in construction.
Fields for activities and without excursions enoughFrom this situation - in general, fair and understandable, it was still a bit sad: construction is soon ending and I really want the unprecedented process of building a tower with the most northerly of the skyscraper coordinates on the planet to be remembered by eyewitnesses concerned with it. After all, then a whole different story begins.
People will come to the amphitheater on the coast, or to the observation platform, or to the science center, or to the planetarium - and that's great. But never to the visitors of the opened complex to see what is in reality behind these objects. They will not see titanic reinforced concrete structures, tens of thousands of tons of metal, ultra-deep shaft piles, giant drill drilling equipment and mega massive sections of tower cranes.
Construction stages and types of the complex, which have already become history
Much more will not be seen behind the elegance of the curtained interiors and exteriors. How to be? And so - we came up with.
Lakhta 360
Where not to go with the accompanying, spend technology. We prepared an interactive tour - the construction site was filmed in 360 ° format. Moving behind the guide, you can look right-left, under your feet and up. At the top, our assistant is sometimes noticeable - a hung cock with a camera. The construction site is accompanied by the host of a series of excursions “Petersburg through the eyes of an engineer”, Anton Zhirnov.
Our companion is not like this - his speech is meaningful for the mind and pleasing to the ear.
Anton has behind him - kilometers of pedestrian tours to the places of engineering glory of St. Petersburg: people go to Vitebsky railway station with him, including loft rooms and a secret waiting room for important passengers of tsarist times. They watch the proletarian vanguard in the Palace of Culture and Technology. Gaza, which was built for the workers of Krasnoputylov. The old industrial buildings of Vasilyevsky Island are a whole epoch with its own atmosphere. Of course - to St. Petersburg bridges, exploring the complex lifting mechanisms. And now, now - to us, at the construction site. For the first time - with a virtual tour.
Bad, what not to walk like your feet? Do not hurry - the route is excellent and a lot of interesting things hit the camera.
About the route
Points of the tour route (clickable)The beginning of the tour - under the ground, in the transport tunnel under the stylobate.
Dungeons Lakhta Center ... Here are such neat, not at all terrible, due to which they are deprived of any romance. The underground transport tunnel is a pragmatic and elegant solution: there will be no traffic, traffic jams or loading and unloading on the above-ground territory of the complex. All transport logistics, warehouses, parking lots are underground.
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Next - look at the Arch of the main entrance. We already
wrote about it , but since then much has changed. The builders nevertheless managed to assemble the main construct before the frost - it was necessary so as not to overturn the bolted connections of the metal trusses of the supporting arch structure, 98 meters long at the vanishing points. On the record constructive from arched trusses peeps even through a dense grid of forests.
Now the builders have begun to work on the facade: some of the glass columns have already been installed, to which the Arch shell will be fixed.
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The next item is a journey through the core of the tower. Of course, we are talking about a trip by elevator and a story about vertical transport. There will be two stops - on the 31st floor - the first interchange and 83m - at the level of the many-world space of the observation platform. Unfortunately, the overlying levels of the spike space are not visible from this point - the scaffolding interferes, but right on the course there is also something to look at.
31st floor: first interchange, for those who need to get from the lower to the middle or upper transport zone. The space is two-level: on the lower level - landing on the first deck of the
double-decker elevator , on the upper level - on the second.
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After going to the most complex complex facility. Yes, it is not a tower.
The multifunctional building of Lakhta Center overturns expectations - a significant drop in elevation, two buildings, eight bearing cores, a base area of more than 2 hectares, a facade length - 260 meters - longer than the Winter Palace, the largest atrium in Russia covered with a translucent roof, 50 types of facade glazing - and that's not all.
In the photo: two of the four cores of the southern block of the FPThis building invariably evokes an emotional response on the verge of antagonism and adoration even with many international contractors. The object, of course, has a powerful potential for research on the theme of the construction of super-complex architectural designs: it’s one thing when they are on paper, and it’s quite another not to depart from the idea, saving you from the difficulties of materialization. Of course, it is not known for certain what will be remembered when looking back in 10-15-20 years, Samsung C & T Corporation, AECOM, Liebherr, Renaissance Construction among its title and most complex objects. It seems to me that the MFZ Lakhta Center will be in their list.
Gold construction and engineering practice, the champion building - that is what MFZSo, what about the object? Be sure to - the roof, first on top. The roofs of Petersburg are after all - classics of Petersburg excursion traditions.
Then take a look at the roof of the atrium zone below. Due to the translucency of the structure, it will also look approximately in the future.
Structural elements of the roof of the atriumThen we will go to one of the most interesting public facilities of the complex - the planetarium in the shape of a ball. When the first visitors enter the MFZ atrium and see a levitating object with a 16-meter diameter, it remains to be seen what they will think. Well, we'll just see at the expense of which structures the hovering effect will be achieved - now they are perfectly visible.
What else? Hall-transformer, view of the bay,
SOF . I didn’t plan so many spoilers, but it's hard to stop - the tour really went out rich. However, you will see and hear everything yourself. Good walk!
TRAILER EXCURSIONS
VR-tour of the construction site
here . We recommend viewing through the YouTube VR application using a VR headset.