{"id":36830,"date":"2024-01-19T12:35:28","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T05:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiapropertyawards.com\/?p=36830"},"modified":"2024-04-12T03:49:48","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T20:49:48","slug":"autograph-tower-rises-in-jakarta-a-story-of-family-ambition-and-national-honour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiapropertyawards.com\/en\/autograph-tower-rises-in-jakarta-a-story-of-family-ambition-and-national-honour\/","title":{"rendered":"The Southern Hemisphere’s tallest building rises in Jakarta"},"content":{"rendered":"
Autograph Tower showcases a story of family, ambition, and national honour<\/p>\n
<\/em><\/p>\n
Jakarta and New York City are more alike than one would think. These megacities, financial nuclei of their respective G20 nations, have hosted some of the world\u2019s tallest buildings.<\/p>\n
At 385 metres high, Autograph Tower in Jakarta topped out in 2021 as the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere\u2014outtowering its muse, the Empire State Building.<\/p>\n
Together with the adjacent, 304-metre-high Luminary Tower, Autograph Tower anchors the superblock known as Thamrin Nine. Stepping up in height from a low-rise retail podium, Agora, the massing amounts to a vertical village, a live-workstay-play destination for the megalopolis of 11 million.<\/p>\n
There are just so many different uses taking place there (in the tower). Just knowing this dynamic nature of existence in Jakarta, the building feels to me like an embodiment of that excitement and fluidity<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The architect, New York\u2019s Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF), has built giants before, among them the Shanghai World Financial Centre, Lotte World Tower, 30 Hudson Yards, and One Vanderbilt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got almost all of New York pulled into the Autograph Tower because there are just so many different uses taking place there,\u201d says KPF principal Robert Whitlock. \u201cJust knowing this dynamic nature of existence in Jakarta, the building feels to me like an embodiment of that excitement and fluidity.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the global financial crisis, property developer PT Putragaya Wahana contemplated constructing an office building beside its then-newly completed project, the 40-plus-storey UOB Plaza. Honouring the wishes of his father, Putragaya Wahana president director Alvin Gozali then thought of building a 50-storey building with a hospitality component.<\/p>\n
At 5.2 hectares, the underlying site, which neighbours Bunderan HI and the Hotel Indonesia roundabout, had taken more than two decades to acquire. \u201cIt was a herculean effort to get it cleared,\u201d says Michael Wiener, design director at Putragaya Wahana. \u201cImagine being in the middle of Times Square, Trafalgar Square, or Raffles Place. Putting it together and doing so over 20 years was a huge step.”<\/p>\nThe Thamrin Nine Superblock, bound by the Agora Lifestyle Mall which includes a concert hall and imax theatre, integrates all its mixed-use elements together<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The project gained momentum in 2018 when Jakarta relaxed its flight path rules, finally allowing for an edifice higher than 333 metres. The developer seized on the opportunity to build a supertall, playing up Jakarta and New York\u2019s shared history as Dutch colonies.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took the opportunity because we really would like to reference Autograph Tower with the Empire State Building, which is at a similar height,\u201d says Gozali. \u201cJakarta and Manhattan have a very strong relationship. So, we thought that it would be a nice story to tie the two cities together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emphasising the New York connection, the upper floors of the tower house a Waldorf Astoria hotel, the first in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Gozali had to fly to Las Vegas to convince the late Eugene Kohn, founder of KPF, to take on the project. \u201cEugene was concerned about whether we can do his design right, make sure that the quality came through, and not give people a watered-down version of a KPF concept,\u201d says Gozali.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope that we did him proud with the first supertall in Jakarta.\u201d<\/p>\n
KPF went on to meet with Putragaya Wahana in 2010 to work on the initial design studies for the towers. The team considered the broader masterplan for the site, which includes the colonial-inspired residential area now known as Le Parc.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal isn\u2019t to break height limits around the world,\u201d says Whitlock. \u201cHaving the building be the tallest gives it special attention and the attention that it deserves for all of the other things that it\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
KPF expressed Autograph Tower as pinwheeling glass planes with carefully positioned reveals. The angular, rectangular building is designed to have slightly recessive corners, portraying a character distinct from the main curtain type.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe design makes the building look taller and slender because the fa\u00e7ade is not going from corner to corner,\u201d says Whitlock. \u201cIt\u2019s also more dynamic in appearance, almost like it\u2019s spinning.\u201d<\/p>\nWith tall slab-to-slab heights, the lower floors of Autograph Tower make a grand prelude to its spacious, column-free office floor plans that can accommodate single and multiple tenants alike<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
KPF sought high-performance curtain walls and deep shading devices for the building. The high-efficiency skin resulted in an envelope thermal transfer value (ETTV) value of under 40 watts per square metre.<\/p>\n
The fa\u00e7ade uses double low-E glass like most sustainably designed projects worldwide, with an innovative caveat. A coloured substrate reduces the reflective element of the glass, letting occupants command city views without their reflections in the way.<\/p>\n
Horizontal sunshades, followed by a set of verticals, project from the fa\u00e7ade. \u201cTo me, the fa\u00e7ade feels kind of woven and screenlike in nature,\u201d says Whitlock. \u201cThere\u2019re plenty of examples in Indonesian culture, like the wayang<\/em> or shadow puppets or just the natural shading that takes place in traditional indigenous construction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Autograph Tower uses light shelves, which bounce sunlight onto the ceiling and lessen the need for perimetre lighting.<\/p>\n
The central atrium of the Waldorf Astoria features a skylight. Guests walk on sunlit corridors, instead of dark hallways, to their rooms as a result.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the amazing things about Jakarta is the quality of the natural light,\u201d says Whitlock.<\/p>\n
The tower\u2019s use of an elongated offset core freed up space for the atrium. Consequently, the core-to-perimetre distances deepened to as much as 15 metres. Blocking over half the west-facing fa\u00e7ade, the offset core also served to diminish the heat gain from the sunlight bombarding Jakarta from that direction.<\/p>\nThe tower houses a wide range of vertical transportation systems, including high-speed destination-controlled lifts, VIP elevators, and a cargo lift big enough for a luxury vehicle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Shooting heavenwards at nine metres per second, Thamrin Nine\u2019s destination-controlled lifts are some of the fastest in Indonesia. Autograph Tower features a wide lift with a five-ton capacity, able to convey everything from luxury cars to chillers towards the top floors. The development also has security accoutrements comparable to the ones in Burj Khalifa, complete with Honeywell facial recognition systems.<\/p>\n
Autograph Tower is as heavy as it is tall, its girth and mass apropos of its situation in a seismic zone. Predominantly made of concrete rebar and built with a high-density concrete aggregate, the tower can withstand earthquakes without the need for a seismic bearing. In place of a damper system, the tower utilises a belt truss, the largest to be approved by the city government.<\/p>\n
The structural engineering team, which includes Seattle\u2019s Magnusson Klemencic Associates (MKA) and Singapore\u2019s Meinhardt, went above and beyond Jakarta\u2019s seismic code to implement a trailblazing performancebased design for the tower.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to make sure that it\u2019s structurally very sound,\u201d says Gozali. \u201cIt\u2019s our first time, the city\u2019s first time, the country\u2019s first time, so all eyes were on us.\u201d<\/p>\n
From basement to the spire\u2014a photogenic vantage point of the tower called the Campanile\u2014the tower structure spans 109 floors and over 400 metres. Four illuminated observation decks cantilever off the Thamrin Nine massing.<\/p>\nThamrin Nine has wide outdoor spaces, recapturing the footprint of Autograph Tower as greenery from within and around the building towards the plaza fronting the drop-off and lobby<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
From Autograph Tower, the Skyline Observatorium commands city views as high as 325 metres above ground level. Thrill-seekers can fasten themselves to the building and stroll along an open-air walkway.<\/p>\n
Down below, Autograph Tower has the deepest piles of any building in Indonesia at around 85 metres. With contractors that included major players like Acset Indonusa and Total Bangun Persada, the site was excavated at depths of more than 20 metres, exhuming about 600,000 cubic metres of dirt.<\/p>\n
The subterranean works continue. This year, the developer is tunnelling direct access to the Dukuh Atas MRT station.<\/p>\n
The completion of Jakarta\u2019s first MRT system inspired the diversification of the Thamrin Nine programming over the last few years. The base of the complex has expanded to encompass long-span spaces like an amphitheatre, ballrooms, a sports hall, and an IMAX theatre.<\/p>\n
\u201cNegotiating that sheer density and overlaps of programs was fascinating for me,\u201d says KPF director Daniel Dadoyan. \u201cIt was a very fluid process and at times we felt like magicians,\u201d Whitlock adds.<\/p>\n
Pursuing a BCA Green Mark Platinum certification, Autograph Tower reclaims the flora from its footprint with vertical green walls and landscaping on the rooftop and public plaza. Thamrin Nine is piloting the biodiverse Organica wastewater treatment plant in Indonesia, with infiltration wells and retention ponds ensuring zero run-off.<\/p>\n
Autograph Tower also houses an alternative to cardependent, Silicon Valley-style campuses in the suburbs with its penthouse office suites. The suites offer a cavernous option in addition to the tower\u2019s Grade-A offices: multi-level office spaces at triple heights, set in the CBD.<\/p>\n
Despite the Gotham association, Jakarta is a city beyond compare, and Autograph Tower is very much a structure derived from its distinctive context.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe delivered the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere,\u201d says Gozali. \u201cIt gives us a bit of nationalistic pride that we could do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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