Structural Studio

EDION Peace Wing Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Japan
Architect: TOHATA ARCHITECTS & ENGINEERS, INC. + ENVIRONMENT DESIGN INSTITUTE + TAISEI DESIGN Planners Architects & Engineers
Structural Engineer: TAISEI DESIGN Planners Architects & Engineers (Structural Design)

EDION Peace Wing Hiroshima is a football-specific urban stadium completed in 2023 and opened in 2024, set within Hiroshima’s Central Park precinct near major civic destinations. Gross floor area is 65,878 m². Seating capacity is about 28,500. The planning logic prioritizes year-round public use: a wide concourse system and park connections keep circulation active beyond match days, positioning the stadium as daily infrastructure rather than a single-purpose venue.

The signature roof, expressed as the “Wings of Peace,” is a beam-string (tension–compression) roof configured around a north–south span of approximately 135 m. A cable-based tied keel-girder concept is used to suppress thrust, enabling comparatively slender supports and reinforcing the “floating” roof reading. At the roof edge, an approximately 14 m steel cantilever forms the thin leading profile toward the pitch. Support geometry differs by side: a single inclined column condition on one side and paired inclined “mountain” columns on the other, coordinating structure with open corners that maintain visual and airflow permeability.

The seating bowl structure is organized to keep the underside legible. Bracing is intentionally not placed at the soffit zone; instead, horizontal actions are collected and delivered to braced lines via upper-level arch beams, preserving the continuous horizontal expression of the raker/terrace geometry. Construction speed was a design constraint, addressed by extensive precast concrete (PCa) adoption for primary stand elements and by using half-precast slab systems to reduce shoring needs across approximately 9 m spans. The outcome is a clear demonstration of how long-span roof engineering, lateral-force routing, and industrialized precast delivery can be integrated into an urban stadium that also functions as a public learning object for structure and construction logic.

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✈️ Announcing our project:
Architectural Study Trip
🕌🐫 India 🇮🇳 7 Days 6 Nights
Departing January 24-30, 2026
Experience the historical architecture of ancient India, sophisticated engineering, urban planning, and World Heritage sites at
Taj Mahal & the Three-Colored City 💙💖💛 Palaces, fortresses, stepwells, and desert culture.
Organized by the Department of Building Innovation, Faculty of Architecture,
Kasetsart University (MBIT)
Limited spaces available. Apply by December 31, 2025.

*** ขยายเวลาจองถึงวันที่ 7 มกราคม 2569***

✈️ขอประชาสัมพันธ์โครงการ
Architectural Study Trip
🕌🐫 อินเดีย 🇮🇳 7 วัน 6 คืน
เดินทางวันที่ 24-30 ม.ค. 69

สัมผัสสถาปัตยกรรมประวัติศาสตร์ อินเดียโบราณ วิศวกรรมที่ซับซ้อน การวางผังเมือง และมรดกโลก ณ
ทัชมาฮาล & นคร 3 สี 💙💖💛พระราชวัง ป้อมปราการ บ่อน้ำขั้นบันได วัฒนธรรมท้องถิ่นทะเลทราย

จัดโดยภาควิชานวัตกรรมอาคาร คณะสถาปัตยกรรมศาสตร์
ม.เกษตรศาสตร์ (MBIT)

รับจำนวนจำกัด สนใจสมัครจองภายในวันที่ 7 มกราคม 2569 ค่ะ

รายละเอียดเพิ่มเติมสามารถชมได้ที่
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1btW4r2Iayzq33mXfkfFpK13FdiIWna1s/view?usp=sharing

Steel Nest (Sanei Kensetsu Iron Showroom), Nagoya, Japan
Architect: Takenaka Corporation
Structural Engineer: Takenaka Corporation

The Steel Nest is a small-scale industrial showroom and office building completed in 2019 for Sanei Kensetsu, a steel construction company based in Nagoya. The project functions as both a workspace and a demonstrative building, intended to visibly communicate the client’s expertise in steel fabrication. Its compact footprint and modest height are set within a light-industrial urban context, where the building is meant to be read closely at human scale rather than as a distant object.

The structural system is an exposed steel frame combined with a non-standard Voronoi-based steel lattice forming the façade and roof enclosure. Primary gravity loads are carried by a conventional steel column–beam system, while the Voronoi steel members act as a secondary structural skin, transferring self-weight and environmental loads back to the main frame. Lateral loads are resisted through rigid steel connections within the primary frame, supplemented by diaphragm action of the roof and floor slabs. Foundations are shallow reinforced concrete footings, appropriate for the light superstructure and urban site conditions. Computational design and BIM workflows were used to rationalize member geometry, node connections, and fabrication tolerances, ensuring constructability despite the irregular geometry.

Operationally, the building serves as a full-scale prototype for digital-to-fabrication steel construction. The exposed structure allows direct inspection of joints, load paths, and detailing, making it a teaching tool for clients, engineers, and students. Material efficiency is emphasized by limiting member sizes to fabrication-ready steel sections and avoiding redundant structural layers. The project demonstrates how computational design, when tightly coupled with structural logic and BIM-based coordination, can expand architectural expression while remaining grounded in buildable steel engineering practice.

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Tokyu Kabukicho Tower, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan
Architect: Yuko Nagayama & Associates + KUME SEKKEI
Structural Engineer: KUME SEKKEI

Tokyu Kabukicho Tower is a 225 m, 48-storey (B5–48F–PH) mixed-use high-rise completed in 2023 on the former Shinjuku TOKYU MILANO site. The program stacks entertainment and hospitality rather than offices: live venue and night uses in the basements, retail and food at the lower levels, theatre and cinema in the mid-zone, and hotels above. Total floor area is about 87,400 m², with a deep basement package supporting the tower and the large-span venues.

The structural concept is a deliberately “mixed-by-use” stack with clear switching points. The lower theatre/cinema zone forms large, column-reduced volumes using an exterior braced system (with dampers) rather than dense interior frames. Above, the hotel tower is a high-stiffness moment-frame system using CFT columns to control drift in a slender shaft. The key transfer is a mega-truss zone (about 6 m deep) that re-routes vertical and lateral actions between the low-rise long-span volume and the taller hotel frame; floor diaphragms and collectors lock the truss and slabs together so in-plane forces can move reliably across the step in geometry. Seismic and wind response is reduced with a hybrid damping strategy: oil dampers are applied where brace demand is high in the large-volume zone, while the upper hotel uses combined devices tuned to both frequent wind comfort and rare large earthquakes. Roof-level active mass dampers target wind-induced acceleration to protect habitability at the highest occupied floors. The basements extend to roughly 52 m below grade, with the foundation strategy described as direct bearing via a mat slab supporting the stacked systems.

Operationally, the structure is sized around performance differences between venue and hotel: long-span spaces prioritize clear volume and vibration control, while the upper tower prioritizes drift and acceleration limits for comfort. The mega-truss + diaphragm strategy keeps the transfer legible and maintainable, avoiding scattered transfer beams across multiple floors. For students, it is a compact case study of “program-driven structure”: braced-and-damped large spans below, CFT moment framing above, and a single engineered switching layer that makes the whole stack behave as one building under earthquake and wind.

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Fukuoka Daimyo Garden City, Fukuoka, Japan
Architect: Kume Sekkei + Junkenchiku (Urban Design Institute)
Structural Engineer: Kume Sekkei

Fukuoka Daimyo Garden City is a mixed-use redevelopment on the former Daimyo Elementary School site, delivered as part of the Tenjin area’s renewal and opened in 2023. The project is organized around a central public garden, with an office–hotel tower (B1–25F) paired with lower community and event volumes. Total floor area is approximately 91,423 m², with the tower rising to about 111 m to form a new landmark on Meiji-dori.

The structural concept combines steel framing with CFT (concrete-filled steel tube) members and an explicit damping strategy. The tower’s south façade is formed by a large inclined “skin frame” that works as an exterior braced system, collecting gravity and lateral actions and returning them to the core and foundations. High-strength steel (around 550 N/mm² class) is used for the primary built-up members, with plate thicknesses up to about 55 mm; core concrete strengths are in the Fc60–Fc75 range. Typical office bays are about 18 m × 7.2 m with deep steel beams (roughly H600–H900), while hotel floors tighten perimeter spans to match room planning (about 7.2 m down to 4.8 m). Seismic response is reduced using a mix of damping devices (including oil dampers, steel dampers, and buckling-restrained braces), and transfer / belt elements at the functional change level redistribute large in-plane forces from the inclined frame into the main diaphragm and core.

Urban and operational value is driven by the “garden-first” planning: the public open space draws pedestrian flow through the block and ties office, hotel, and community programs into a single precinct. Structurally, the exterior inclined frame helps keep interior planning efficient while making the load path legible to students—core, diaphragm collection, perimeter frame action, damping, and foundations all visible in one system. The mixed steel–CFT approach places material where it is most effective for stiffness, drift control, and constructability, supporting long-term adaptability for office tenancy and hotel operations.

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Wilshire Grand Center, Los Angeles, California, USA
Architect: AC Martin
Structural Engineer: Thornton Tomasetti

Wilshire Grand Center was completed in 2017 as a 335 m tall mixed-use tower combining hotel, offices, observation deck, and retail in downtown Los Angeles. With 73 storeys above grade, it is the tallest building on the U.S. West Coast. The tower replaces the former Wilshire Grand Hotel on a dense urban site and introduces a tapered profile topped by a sculpted steel crown and spire, departing from the city’s long-standing flat-roof skyline.

The structural system is defined by a reinforced-concrete core paired with a perimeter steel moment frame, deliberately avoiding conventional outrigger and belt-truss systems. Lateral resistance relies on controlled flexibility rather than maximum stiffness, allowing the tower to undergo limited rocking during major earthquakes to reduce force demand. Composite steel floor framing spans between the core and perimeter columns, while viscous dampers and yielding connections dissipate seismic energy. The steel crown is structurally independent of occupied floors and detailed to accommodate wind and seismic movements without amplifying forces below. Foundations consist of a thick reinforced-concrete mat supported by large-diameter drilled shafts socketed into bedrock to resist overturning and settlement.

From an operational and resilience perspective, the outrigger-free system improves floor planning efficiency and eliminates deep structural transfer zones at mechanical levels. Accepting controlled movement limits damage concentration in extreme seismic events and supports faster post-earthquake recovery. Extensive prefabrication of steel components improved er****on speed and accuracy in a constrained downtown site. Wilshire Grand Center stands as a reference project for performance-based seismic design, demonstrating how tall buildings in high-seismic regions can balance height, flexibility, and long-term resilience.

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Jubilee Place, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Australia
Architect: Blight Rayner
Structural Engineer: Robert Bird Group

Jubilee Place is a 14-storey commercial tower completed in 2022 beside the heritage-listed Jubilee Hotel. The 18,000 m² building sits on a tight urban corner above a major transport node, using a distinctive external diagrid to lift office floors clear of the site constraints. A through-site public laneway and podium terraces link the restored hotel, new retail fronts and the tower lobby, forming a combined commercial and civic precinct for Fortitude Valley’s renewal.

The structural concept centres on a full-height steel diagrid placed outside the façade to maximise usable floor area and remove the need for deep internal transfer structures. Large X-shaped perimeter members carry vertical and lateral loads to a limited number of foundation points, allowing the tower to “bridge” over easements and tunnels. Floor plates are lightweight composite steel decks spanning between diagrid nodes, keeping floor depths shallow and services zones efficient. At the ground level, a transfer column system and braced steel cores stabilise the building during er****on and in service. Digital modelling and coordinated node prefabrication reduced on-site welding, enabling rapid assembly of the complex geometry within the constrained site.

Operationally, the exposed diagrid improves daylight access by reducing the number of internal supports and permitting more transparent façades. Deeply shaded façades, operable elements and efficient floorplates reduce heat load and lighting demand. The integration of the historic Jubilee Hotel—retained, strengthened and reopened—anchors the project in its heritage setting, while the publicly accessible laneway and terraces provide additional circulation and activation for the precinct. The project demonstrates how an external diagrid can resolve site constraints, increase net lettable area, and create a recognisable structural identity in a dense urban context.

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Hong Kong West Kowloon Station, Hong Kong, China
Architect: Andrew Bromberg at Aedas
Structural Engineer: Buro Happold (station and roof)

Hong Kong West Kowloon Station opened in 2018 as the Hong Kong terminus of the Guangzhou–Shenzhen–Hong Kong Express Rail Link. With about 400,000 m² of usable floor area on a footprint of roughly 10 ha, it is one of the largest below-grade rail stations in the world. The terminal reaches about 30 m below ground, with platforms and underpasses stacked beneath a sloping urban park and a 45 m high arrival hall that frames views of Victoria Harbour and the Hong Kong Island skyline.

The structural concept separates a robust underground box from a lightweight long-span roof. The buried station is a reinforced-concrete structure with thick diaphragm walls, slabs and cross-walls resisting soil and water pressure on reclaimed land. Above the concourse, a steel roof fans up and southwards in a series of warped ribs. Tapered steel arches and leaning columns work together as a three-dimensional frame; secondary members carry roughly 4,000 glass panels and metal decking while acting as in-plane collectors. The roof thrusts and unbalanced moments are resolved through inclined supports, concrete cores and deep transfer elements along the southern edge. Construction used top-down methods for the concrete box and balanced cantilever er****on for the roof, allowing large prefabricated steel assemblies to be lifted into place over the excavated station.

The station’s roof and landscape act as a civic platform rather than a conventional concourse cover. Sloping green terraces and paved ramps draw daylight deep into the hall, reducing daytime lighting demand and helping passengers orient visually toward the harbour. Compact track and platform layouts release more than 3 ha of surface as public park, tying directly into the West Kowloon Cultural District. The project demonstrates how long-span steel roofs, deep excavation and high-speed rail requirements can be combined into a single structural and urban gesture that manages crowd flows, border control and wayfinding while contributing usable open space to a dense waterfront district.

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West Bund Orbit, Shanghai, China
Architect: Heatherwick Studio (Interiors: Wutopia Lab)
Structural Engineer: Arup

West Bund Orbit is a six-level public exhibition hall on Shanghai’s West Bund, completed in 2023 as a cultural focus for the new Xuhui Financial District. The circular building sits on the Huangpu riverfront with about 4,500 m² of above-ground floor area arranged around a tall, column-free central hall. Three external ramps coil around the façade as a continuous walkable promenade, turning a compact footprint into an extended riverside route that connects plaza, exhibition levels and roof terrace.

Structurally, the project concentrates gravity and lateral resistance in a reinforced-concrete core and floor plates, freeing the perimeter for glass and ramps. The ground floor forms a roughly 2,000 m², 10 m high multifunctional space, with roof and intermediate slabs spanning back to the core to avoid interior columns. Around this, the external ramps act as steel plate–beam bands: layered box sections and radial ribs vary in depth and stiffness along the helical path, tying back into the slabs at discrete nodes to control torsion, crowd-induced vibration and temperature movements. A zigzag glass curtain wall is hung from steel joists without conventional transoms, while a secondary steel subframe carries six rings of GRC “ribbons.” The ribbons are fully parametrised; panels are clustered into repeatable geometries, and the GRC is supported on adjustable steel ribs to follow the double curvature while keeping tolerances within fabrication limits.

The façade system is both environmental and educational. Large-format glazing and the deep ribbons admit diffuse daylight while shading the halls and terraces, reducing daytime lighting demand and solar gain. Parametric optimisation of the GRC geometry increased mould reuse and cut material waste, while BIM-based clash checks coordinated the GRC ribs, primary structure, and building services. The continuous ramps provide universally accessible circulation and extend the public realm vertically, offering views over the river and the city. As a result, West Bund Orbit operates as a case study in how a clear structural core plus expressive steel-and-GRC ribbons can merge circulation, shading, façade performance and urban promenade into one integrated system.

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Frank Gehry reshaped our skylines and showed the world that buildings can be bold, emotional and alive. He may be gone, but his shimmering halls and twisted towers will carry his spirit on forever

Dechatiwong Bridge, Nakhon Sawan, Thailand
Designer / Owner: Department of Highways (Thailand)
Structural Type: Reinforced-concrete road arch bridge

Dechatiwong Bridge opened in 1950 as a key highway crossing of the Chao Phraya River on Phaholyothin Road, just before entering central Nakhon Sawan. Construction began in 1942 during the Greater East Asia War, was interrupted, then completed after the war as part of a national policy to shift long-distance travel from river to road. The bridge’s name comes from Major M.L. Kri Dechatiwong, then Director-General of the Department of Highways. Today it forms part of a group of three parallel bridges (1–3), with the original structure preserved as a historic gateway and viewpoint over the confluence of the Ping and Nan Rivers into the Chao Phraya.

The original bridge is a reinforced-concrete arch structure about 404 m long, composed of four arch spans each slightly over 60 m. The roadway is approximately 6.5 m wide with sidewalks on both sides, reflecting early post-war highway dimensions. The deck is carried on spandrel columns over the concrete arches, which deliver thrust to river piers and abutments on the banks. The design was adapted from the earlier Pridi Thamrong Bridge in Ayutthaya, modified to reduce material usage while maintaining the required span and clearance. Later twin bridges (Dechatiwong 2 and 3) use parallel reinforced-concrete systems to carry increased traffic volumes, allowing the historic first bridge to operate with lower structural demand and mainly local loads.

Operationally, Dechatiwong Bridge shifted north–south movement from boats to highway traffic and became a symbolic “gateway to the North.” Its position above the “two-colour river” makes it a natural lookout, now supported by viewing points and lighting installations that highlight the arches and river junction. The bridge’s continued use, alongside newer structures, illustrates how early ferro-concrete infrastructure can be conserved within an expanded corridor instead of being demolished, and how a relatively modest four-span highway bridge can become both a heritage object and a contemporary urban landmark for Nakhon Sawan.

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