The Spektrum Tower (formerly TP S.A. Tower) is a highrise office tower in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, the capital of Poland. It is located at 14/16 Twarda Street in the Warszawa-Śródmieście

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...

of the city and used to house the

headquarters Headquarters (often referred to as HQ) notes the location where most or all of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. The term is used in a wide variety of situations, including private sector corporations, non-profits, mil ...

of its investor, the telecom operator Telekomunikacja Polska S.A. (TP S.A.), with some space being leased to other companies. The building of the tower was initially contracted to ''PIA Piasecki S.A.'' on 1 August 1997, originally due to be completed 30 June 2002. In 2002, however, the contractor was found unable to complete the structure due to strained financial standing, and the investor turned to ''PORR Polska S.A.'' (who has completed a number of other office buildings and towers in Warsaw) to finish the construction. The Tower was finally completed in December 2003. The Tower was built using the "top-down" technology, with both the over- and underground parts of the structure being constructed simultaneously. During the excavation for the foundation of the Tower, a 580 kg

artillery shell A shell, in a modern military context, is a projectile whose payload contains an explosive, incendiary device, incendiary, or other chemical filling. Originally it was called a bombshell, but "shell" has come to be unambiguous in a military ...

from World War II was discovered 8 metres below ground level. The Tower was designed by architects from ''Apar-Projekt'' and ''Arca A&C'' bureaus, and consists of a composition of

cylinders A cylinder () has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infinite ...

and

cuboid In geometry, a cuboid is a hexahedron with quadrilateral faces, meaning it is a polyhedron with six Face (geometry), faces; it has eight Vertex (geometry), vertices and twelve Edge (geometry), edges. A ''rectangular cuboid'' (sometimes also calle ...

s. The structural design was the responsibility of ''TMJ Tomasz Ziętała''. The Tower has 30 overground and 5 underground floors, extending 16.5 metres below ground level and rising to 128 metres above ground. The building comprises almost 50,000 m² of space, over 41,000 of which is usable. Unique features of the building include the

helipad A helipad is the landing area of a heliport, in use by helicopters, powered lift, and vertical lift aircraft to land on surface. While helicopters and powered lift aircraft are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fa ...

on the roof and the external

elevator shaft An elevator (American English) or lift (Commonwealth English) is a machine that vertically transports people or freight between levels. They are typically powered by electric motors that drive traction cables and counterweight systems such ...

, sloped 14°, which connects the street level with one of the higher office floors with an elevator cabin travelling at 2.5 m/s. Apart from it, there are seven other straight-up elevator shafts in the building core. The Tower is a modern

intelligent building Building automation (BAS), also known as building management system (BMS) or building energy management system (BEMS), is the automatic centralized control of a building's HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), electrical, lighting, ...

, fitted with

building automation Building automation (BAS), also known as building management system (BMS) or building energy management system (BEMS), is the automatic centralized control of a building's HVAC, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), electrical, light ...

systems. In July 2008 it was sold to Danish investment fund Baltic Property Trust Optima which sold it in 2012 to a London-based Europa Capital LLP fund

References

* {{Warsaw Skyscrapers Commercial buildings completed in 2003 Skyscraper office buildings in Warsaw Śródmieście Północne

See also

References