OPTIMAL LOCATION OF SERVICE CORES IN MEDIUM RISE BUILDINGS

Abstract

Medium rise office structures are increasingly becoming a common sight in the business area of almost all metropolitans, all around the world. These structures are huge concentration of building materials, users, services etc. The needs of occupants must be ensured by the building service systems, the indoor environment and the structural safety of the building. Building services are an important aspect of any high and mid rise building and they are generally housed in an area termed as the service core. The service core is the key component to help in structural stability of the tall building as well as providing the necessary services in the building. Therefore the design and location of service core plays a major role in designing medium rise buildings. The predominant location of service core is at the centre in case of most of the office buildings and the number hardly exceeds one. Moving the core to the periphery of the building and increasing the number to more than one does have its effect on torsional and lateral force resistance of the building structure and also on the various services like staircase,. lifts, and ventilation etc. of the building. The purpose of the study is to understand the role of service core in physical planning and structural stability of the medium rise building structure. And also find out the optimal location and number of service core in medium rise building in terms of physical planning, services, structural stability and rentable area available at each floor. The study comprises of physical planning, and structural analysis of building structure for gravity as well as lateral loads like earthquake and wind. There are total six models of building with varying location and number of service core and number of storey are analysed for architectural planning, services and structural stability. The software used for this purpose is ETABS V9.5. . After analysis of results in present study, building with split core in two placed at the periphery of the building gives better response in terms of structural stability as well as in physical planning, building services, easy accessibility of fire exits, larger continuous office spaces and more appropriate division of rentable area. Moreover, building gives the users direct access to the external environment in case of any disaster or calamity, which would be lacking in case of central service core.