Moving through
Vertical core
office building hotel hospital apartment building public building
It is the block that brings together stairs, elevators, ducts and restrooms and rises through every floor of a building.
What it solves
It concentrates what moves people, water, air and energy and leaves the rest of the plan free. Its walls can bear loads and stiffen the building against earthquakes.
Today
Place the core so evacuation routes are short and the plan remains free and well lit. In the tropics it is best to give stairs and lobbies daylight and ventilation.
Common mistake
Enclosing stairs and elevator lobbies in the dark center of the plan, which forces them to be lit and ventilated by machines all day.
Tomorrow
A core with spare space in its ducts allows services to be changed without breaking floors. Wide, visible stairs with daylight invite people to walk up and to meet between levels.
Where it comes from
- 1Modern skyscraper Racine, United States, 1950
Frank Lloyd Wright supports the cantilevered floors of a laboratory tower from a central core with stairs and elevator. - 2Modern skyscraper Bartlesville, United States, 1956
In the Price Tower four grouped concrete piers at the center carry elevators, pipes and ducts. The floors extend from them like branches.
Masters
- Louis Kahn Richards Medical Research Laboratories, Philadelphia, United States, 1960
He moves stairs and ventilation ducts out into brick towers attached to the laboratories. He distinguishes servant spaces, which serve, from served spaces, which are inhabited. - Ken Yeang Menara Mesiniaga, Subang Jaya, Malaysia, 1992
In this tropical office tower, stairs, restrooms and elevator lobbies have natural ventilation and daylight. It received the Aga Khan Award in 1995.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Moving through
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.