The building site was an equilateral triangular shape, a product of the nineteenth-century railway lines and former rail yards. To mitigate the long sides and sharp corners of the building site, the plan of the tower was shaped as a soft triangle, with three curved sides and smaller-radiused curves at the corners.
Responding to the architect’s vision for the tower, WSP designed an elegant system of concrete slabs supported by geometrically shaped concrete columns to support the floors of the hotel and residential levels.
A key challenge of the design was to resist hurricane force wind loading and control movements of the tower to ensure occupant comfort. WSP Building Structures devised a triangular-shaped concrete core with composite steel and concrete belt and hat trusses that distribute loading to the perimeter columns. This efficient structural system mobilizes all the structural frame elements to work together in resisting the large lateral loads from the wind. To further control building movements, WSP worked with the wind engineer to incorporate a slosh damper system in the upper mechanical penthouse.
Innovative Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning
Due to the mixed-use nature of the building, One Dalton was designed to allow separation of operation costs related to Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC), electrical and plumbing between the hotel and the condominium programs. This requirement necessitated comprehensive distribution planning and metering for the systems and programming the relationships between mechanical and electrical levels into the building.
WSP’s MEP engineers responded with a flexible HVAC system – a critical component for this mixed-use project. The system was integrated with hotel room controls and features a modular design to overcome future logistical challenges related to maintenance and replacement.
