The Bangkok Terminal - Morchit
Development
Bangkok, Thailand
The Bangkok Terminal (Morchit) project, which encompasses 10 million
square feet of transportation facilities, and retail and office space, may be considered
as one of the largest building projects currently under construction in the world. More
than 90 million people per year are expected to use the facilities.
The floor plate can be divided into two functional components, the
transportation hub and the commercial center. The transportation hub includes a light rail
station depot and workshop on the first level, two levels of bus terminals, a concourse
level, six levels of parking, and a rooftop garden. The office/retail complex consists of
six levels of subterranean parking, a 7story retail podium, and two mid-rise office
towers.
The multi-use nature of this project presented many unique design challenges. The
long-span requirements of the BTS station are counter to that of the bus terminal and the
parking levels, which will work with short span parking/driving aisles. In order to
maintain an efficient structure, the spans shall be relatively short and regularly spaced.
Main columns split into four "branches" above the BTS level to for a
"tree" column system. This solution reduces the span length and provides a
regular column pattern resulting in an efficient and coherent structural system that
satisfies the diverse requirements. A structural steel frame with composite metal deck
slab gravity framing system was selected for the BTS Terminal Building because of its
versatility and unparalleled speed of erection. This system was the only system that could
meet the original stringent schedule requirements.
The retail/office complex utilizes reinforced concrete construction. The typical span of
10m coupled with relatively low live load requirements resulted in efficient framing using
a flat slab system. The lateral system consists of a central shear wall core and exterior
moment frames.
