With municipal services that should have been under one roof situated in several buildings, Orlando clearly needed a new City Hall.
The new City Hall is now under construction. This $32.5 million structure is a nine-storey reinforced concrete tower, clad in granite-aggregate precast concrete panels and surmounted by a 120 ft diameter copper dome.
While the dome is the structure's most important visual feature, the view at ground level will be impressive as well. The main entrance will be through the "Great Room", a circular space 80 ft in diameter and 35 ft tall. Beneath the main tower is a basement added for structural rather than architectural reasons.
The soil at the City Hall site is quite dense, fine sand down to about 38 ft, with a mix of sand and clay of increasing hardness below. Ground water was about 12 ft below the surface.
We designed a system of 60 and 125 ton capacity precast concrete piles, with each pile group rigidly connected to individual columns by 5,000 psi reinforced concrete pile caps about 5 ft deep. The design required for the piles to be driven about 100 ft below ground.
The only shallow foundation feasible was a mat foundation. It was placed by Brasfield & Gorrie General Contractor, Inc., Orlando. To make the site ready, they dewatered the soil to a minimum of 30 ft below ground level for 2 weeks before excavation. After compacting the soil at the bottom of the excavation, they poured a thin concrete mat to provide a good surface for steel placement.
We designed the foundation for a maximum allowable gross bearing pressure of 5,000 psf. The mat had to be 4½ ft thick, with a concrete strength of 7,000 psi. Some 4,400 cu yd of concrete were placed in all, along with 290 tons of reinforcement. The mat was concreted in a single, 13-hour continuous pour without construction joints.
The attached low-rise section rests on individual spread footings. This part of the building was constructed after the tower was finished, in order to minimize differential settlements. A construction joint with dowels and reinforcement connects the two sections.
The typical floor plate in the tower is square, varying from 154 ft at the fourth floor to 148 ft 4in at the ninth. The building perimeter steps inward at the third, fourth, sixth, eighth and ninth floors. From the fourth to the ninth, the interior framing for each floor is basically the same. However, the perimeter framing cantilevers outward on all four sides, with spans varying from 15 ft at the fourth floor to 12 ft 2in at the ninth.
The framing scheme is a reinforced concrete joist system with post-tensioned girders. By prestressing the girders, we were able to span longer distances. For wind resistance, wind beams spanning parallel to the joists and located on column grids serve as lateral-force-resisting beams and are post-tensioned at the perimeter cantilevers.
We designed two adjacent bays north and south of the interior core for significantly higher loads. These areas measure 52 ft by 36 ft and can be used for heavier rooms.
Above the large space of the Great Room, a tower column rises seven floors to the domed roof. To transfer the load from the tower column, two perpendicular pairs of long-span, post-tensioned girders are supported on tall, slender columns.
The four long-span transfer girders work together to support the tower column. We designed each with the proper amount of prestress force and reinforcement for its part of the transferred load from the column. Because of the high level of prestress force required for the final service load, stage stressing was to be used.
Framing of City Hall's 120 ft copper dome began in mid-October. The dome's skin rests on structural steel trusses, supported by a centre circular steel frame with 12 columns bearing on a reinforced concrete frame. The frame rises 21 ft 8in above roof level. A perimeter circular steel frame with 12 columns bearing directly on the roof girders also supports the trusses.
Notes:
City Hall çäàíèå ìóíèöèïàëèòåòà
dewater v. îñóøàòü
dome n. êóïîë
domed roof êóïîëüíîå ïîêðûòèå
excavation n. çåìëÿíûå ðàáîòû (ïðè ñòðîèòåëüñòâå çäàíèÿ)
granite n. ãðàíèò
gross bearing pressure ñîâîêóïíîå îïîðíîå äàâëåíèå
impressive adj. âïå÷àòëÿþùèé
make ready ïîäãîòîâèòü
municipal adj. ìóíèöèïàëüíûé
view n. âèä
visual adj. âèçóàëüíûé