DOCUMENTATION

 “The unique SkyPark is an instant icon for the city and

has the potential to do for Singapore what the Sydney
Opera House did for Sydney.”
- Mun Summ Wong, CTBUH 2010 Awards Juror,
WOHA Architects
 Marina Bay Sands was recognized as a "Best Tall
Building Asia & Australasia Finalist" in the 2010
CTBUH Awards Program.
 Location
Singapore
Completion
June 2010
Height
207 m (679 ft)
Stories
57
Area
249,843 sq. m.
Primary Use
Hotel
Owner/Developer
Marina Bay Sands Pte. Ltd.
Design Architect
Safdie Architects
Associate architect
Aedas Ltd.
Structural Engineer
Arup
MEP Engineer
R. G. Vanderweil, LLP
Main Contractor
Ssangyong
 The curved and sweeping legs of the three hotel towers that rise up
to culminate in a continuous bridging SkyPark anchor its site at the
gateway to Singapore’s harbor with a strong and highly iconic
structure. The engineering and planning that went into the SkyPark’s
construction and incredible cantilever are commendable, as is the
bringing of amenity and green spaces to the top of the towers,
allowing further open space at grade.
 Marina Bay Sands is a 929,000-square meter (10 million-square foot),
high-density and mixed-use integrated resort complex that brings
together a 2,560-room hotel, a 120,000-square meter (1,292,000-
square foot) convention center, a shopping mall, an Art & Science
museum, two Sands Theatres, six restaurants, and a casino.
 It is located in Marina South, a peninsula of land reclaimed from the
sea in the late 1970s across the bay from Singapore’s Central
Business District. Conceived as not just a mere building project, but
as a city microcosm rooted in Singapore’s culture, climate, and
contemporary life, the project anchors Singapore’s waterfront,
creating a gateway to Singapore, and providing a dynamic setting for
vibrant public life.
 With a program of nearly 2,600 hotel rooms, the most efficient massing would have resulted in a
monolithic and wall-like building. Due to its prominent location within Marina Bay in Singapore, it
was decided that three towers would be created instead of one. Each concrete tower hotel is
designed at a height of 55 stories. Spanning across the top of the three towers is a 1.2-hectare (3-
acre) SkyPark, a new type of public space, framing large “urban windows” between the towers.
From the downtown area, framed views of the sea are created, and from the sea, a new city
gateway is viewed.
At 200 meters (656 feet) above the sea, the SkyPark spans from tower to tower and on one side
cantilevers 66.5 meters (218 feet) beyond. Longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall, and long enough to
park four and a-half A380 jumbo jets, the SkyPark accommodates a public observatory, garden
spaces, a 150-meter (495-foot) long infinity swimming pool, restaurants, jogging paths and offers
sweeping panoramic views – a formidable resource in a dense city like Singapore. Lavishly planted
with trees, the SkyPark celebrates the notion of the Garden City that has been the underpinning
of Singapore’s urban design strategy.
 Conceptually, each tower is composed of two slabs of east and west-facing rooms. The
double-loaded towers spread at the base forming a giant atrium at the lower levels,
and converge as they rise (see Figure 2). The tower slabs also give further character to
the massing and relate to the site context: the glazed west side faces the city center
while the east side is planted with lush bougainvilleas facing the botanical gardens and
ocean beyond. In plan, as the parcel varies in width, the cross section is decreased from
one tower to the next. The three void spaces are connected by one continuous and
conditioned-glazed atrium, filling the space between the towers with restaurants, retail
spaces, and a public thoroughfare. Each tower slab form is also twisted slightly in
relation to its pair, creating a dance-like relationship between the two parts and
accentuating the slenderness of the buildings, resulting in the appearance of six towers,
rather than three
 As the largest amount of heat gain occurs on the west
façade, it was of paramount importance that an innovative
solution be developed to maintain energy efficiency, without
limiting the view from the hotel rooms to Singapore’s
downtown.
The design solution proposed and implemented was a
custom double-glazed unitized curtain wall. The energy
efficient double-glazed units rest in a frame suspended from
the edge of the slab. Perpendicular to the façade, glass fins
were installed to provide shading. The outer skin follows the
natural curved shape of the buildings, and the use of
reflective glass creates a taught mirrored façade. One of the
keys to achieving this aesthetic was a minimal spandrel panel
at the floor slabs (350 millimeters/13.8 inches), with a
continuous double-glazed unit spanning the full 3 meters (10
feet) floor to floor. The glass fins are suspended out of the
horizontal stack joint in order to allow them to radiate out
in elevation. They are supported by a 3-sided aluminum
frame, with the forward edge exposed, which catches the
light of the sun, as well as reflections of the façade, to create
a unique effect. The fins use a 30%-reflective glass and are
responsible for shading the façade for up to 20% of all solar
gain (see Figure 4, 5).
The east façade handles heat gain differently, utilizing deep
planted terraces which follow the sloping radial geometry of
the building’s profile. The planters help to create
microclimate cooling, and the deep overhangs of the
balconies naturally shade the hotel rooms from direct sun.
Each planter, filled with bougainvilleas, will in time cover the
majority of this eastern façade.
In addition to the 0.9 million square meters
(9.6 million square feet) of built space, the
project program also called for the
development of extensive exterior gardens
with swimming pools, jogging paths, and
public spaces. As one of the aims of the
project had been to minimize the height of
the podium buildings, seeking to reference
Singapore’s pastoral hills more than its
urban core, the problem emerged that the
complex program left no vacant land
suitable for these amenities. Creating
gardens on top of the roof of the casino
and the convention center was studied,
however these vast spaces lacked views,
overshadowed and overpowered by the
adjacent hotel towers. The idea emerged to
bridge between the three towers in order
to reclaim exterior garden space and create
a 2.5-acre park in the sky
Another façade of the project which required careful consideration was thus the “belly”
of the SkyPark. Made of more than 9,000 silver-painted metal-composite panels, this
skin encloses the mega trusses which bridge the buildings at level 55, as well as a
multitude of back of house spaces (i.e. large mechanical rooms with water tanks
supporting the pools and a network of corridors and offices for hotel operations staff).
The geometry of the SkyPark began with a platonic toroid form, which was then
further shaped to streamline the cross sections of the building. The resulting surface
was then regularized and panelized using a computer script, triangulating the façade into
simple shapes. The shapes were water-jet cut from flat sheet panels and shipped to the
building site in containers pre-designed to be lifted to the top levels of the building.
 One of the primary design issues tackled by the architects and engineers was building movement. The
unique design of three buildings connected by a SkyPark called for many engineering innovations.
The dynamic properties of a tall building structure are particularly hard to predict as many elements
contribute to the building movement. The wind engineers carried out extensive wind testing on the
towers and SkyPark to provide the design team with the data necessary to develop the design
approach. In addition to determining the loads for each tower in isolation, it was necessary to predict
the behavior and movement of each tower relative to the others. This allowed for strategies to be
developed for the steel-spanned SkyPark, as well as to determine appropriate measures to guarantee
the safety and comfort of the building users.
The site and surrounding buildings were modeled at a scale of 1:400 and tested in a wind simulator.
Mean and gust wind speed ratios were measured at 28 locations on the SkyPark model. The measured
wind speed ratios were then combined with a statistical model of the local wind climate to determine
the predicted pedestrian comfort in and around the development.
The studies also showed that each tower could sway as much as 250 millimeters (9.8 inches) from
center. To deal with the differential building sway, the engineers developed a series of aluminum and
stainless steel plates, and multi-directional bearings, located at the bridge spans between towers, which
act as sliding components and allow for the natural and individual movement of each tower.
The continuous 150-meter (492-foot) long infinity edge pool was also a challenge, and underwater
movement joints were designed with interconnecting three distinct 50-meter (164-foot) stainless steel
pool enclosures into a flexible singular whole. In order to test the design, a full scale mock-up of the
design solution was built and tested under movement conditions. In addition to building sway, the pool
design also accommodates building settlement, and is built upon adjustable steel jacks, which ensure the
infinity edge will maintain its horizontal level over time.
 Construction Challenges
Once the project was awarded, teams were on the ground immediately to begin the fast tracking of
the construction. The first and most critical task was to secure the building footprint. The entire
complex sits on 0.56 million square meters (6 million square feet) of reclaimed land – sand infill on
deep soft marine clay deposits. Marina Bay is a former salt water estuary that is now a fresh water
reserve. Prior to excavation, the site needed to be reinforced. In order to do this, 1.5 meter thick (5
feet) steel-reinforced concrete diaphragm walls (coffer dams of up to 120 meters or 394 feet in
diameter) were extended 50 meters (164 feet) into the ground providing an enclosure for excavation.
The key challenge of building the hotel towers was the construction of the part of the towers that
slope at an incline. Unsupported, they could buckle under their own weight. The sloping leg induces an
enormous external force onto the structure, which needed to be addressed during construction.
The structural engineer conceived of an approach to build large temporary struts of structural steel
to prop up the sloping towers as they rise (see Figure 10). Like a suspension bridge, high-tensile steel
tendons give an added layer of support inside the walls. Both the struts and the tension cables were
designed as temporary supports and planned to be removed once the giant linked trusses that
connect the towers on the 23rd floor were installed. However during the construction process it was
decided that the cables would become permanent.
The most practical method of erecting the SkyPark was to prefabricate each of the 14-main steel
segments off-site, truck them to the site, lift them into place and assemble them on top of the tower.
Taking a cue from bridge building, the design team engaged Swiss/French company VSL to assist with
the complicated lifting.VSL employed a strand jacking process (the largest and longest of its kind),
utilizing hydraulic jacks to lift the box girders to the top of the towers and slide them into place. The
two largest sections to be lifted were the 80-meter (262-foot) long, 1.70-metric ton (1,400-ton) pair
of box girders that would form the cantilever. At a lifting speed of 14 meters (46 feet) per hour, it
took over 16 hours to lift the girders and slide them into place
 The principle challenge for the Marina Bay Sands project was the combination of
complex design parameters matched with a very fast project schedule, from initial
sketches to substantial completion within four years. This meant arranging close and
intensive relationships between the engineering, construction management and design
teams on site, such that coordinated solutions could be quickly negotiated as they
arose.
The success of the project lies in the fact that the inventiveness of the design (the
conception of the hotels and the SkyPark) was matched by an equally inventive and
novel approach developed by the engineering and construction teams.
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