Foster + Partners
The 120-metre-high tower of the new MOL headquarters in the south of Budapest is the tallest building in Hungary and may remain so for a long time after the high-rise ban in the Hungarian capital was passed in 2018.
Lighthouse project for convenience and sustainability
The new corporate headquarters of the Hungarian oil and natural gas company MOL, with a total area of 86,000 square metres and a capacity of 2,500 workplaces was designed to achieve BREEAM Excellent and LEED Platinum certification.
[New wood-aluminium element facade for high-rise buildings]
The aluminum-glass facade is composed of 24,800 square metres of element facade and 1,700 square metres of post-and-beam facade, prefabricated and assembled by Scheldebouw. A total of around 14,000 square metres of plane insulating glazing was supplied by AGC Interpane Plattling. Around 500 cylindrically curved (convex and concave) and multi-curved panes, some with extreme curvature, were manufactured at Finiglas in Dülmen.
90 per cent of rooms have access to natural daylight
Foster + Partners
For the four-sided structural glazing system, partly as toggle glazing, partly with acoustic film, color-neutral Clearvision was used throughout, with Stopray Vision 50/50T double silver coating on the outside. The flat, double-glazed units consisted of laminated safety glass on the outside and 6 mm toughened safety glass or laminated safety glass/TVG on the inside, while the triple-glazed units consisted of 10 mm toughened safety glass on the outside, 6 mm toughened safety glass with screen printing on position 2 and laminated safety glass/TVG with thermal insulation coating on the inside. The curved insulating glass units are made with VSG on both sides. 16 mm and 18 mm Super Spacer SG were used as warm edge spacers.
[Generating electricity from facade glass]
To ensure a distortion-free view, Koltay Facades specified annealed laminated glass where possible. Due to the extensive glazing, daylight can be used in 90 per cent of the rooms. Modern building automation, individual shading options and chilled ceilings prevent overheating and ensure comfort. The Ucw-value of the curtain wall in the tower is max 1.4 W/m2K, while the Ug-value for the glazing, at max 1.0 W/m2K, meets the local requirements for passive houses, although triple glazing was only used for skylight glazing.
3D modelling makes free-form geometry possible
Koltay Facades
Even though double-curved insulating glass units play a key role in the building's elegant appearance, they were to be used as sparingly as possible. Agnes Koltay explains: "The transition between the podium and the tower of MOL Campus only runs over two floors. Therefore, double-curved glass was considered in this area to ensure fluidity, instead of approaching the curvature by faceting the panes. In addition, the two podium floors and tower floors have very different footprints, which also lead to curved shapes. To ease buildability, we optimized the bending radii and the arrangement of the modules, among other improvements in the modulation, and fine-tuned the geometry." BIM is now standard for large projects of this type and Koltay Facades relies on parametric design for free-form facades to optimize the geometry as well as the individual modules and to be able to update the plans automatically. In addition to the different wind loads for plane, curved and double-curved, structural, acoustic and safety requirements also had to be included and simulated. The nearby rail lines and train station increases the external noise level on one side of the building.
Super Spacer spacer specified for curved insulating glass units
As a spacer, Koltay Facades specified Super Spacer, an already proven system. "The Opus" by Zaha Hadid and the spectacular Killa-designed "Museum of the Future" in Dubai are just two of the most prestigious free-form facades designed by Koltay Facades and realized with Super Spacer.
