Prudential Headquarters

Prudential Tower (TRX) is a Grade A, LEED Gold-certified and MISC-status office building with gross floor area of approximately 560,000ft². The Prudential Tower is strategically situated along Persiaran TRX Barat located towards the west side of Kuala Lumpur’s latest upcoming international financial district, the Tun Razak Exchange. The building structure is a 28-storey office tower which consist of 2-storey of basement parking along with a tunnel connection to TRX tunnel, 3-storey of podium retail, 5-storey of podium carpark, 1-storey of M&E floor and 17-storey of office floor.

Technical Description

The site where the Prudential Tower was erected is underlain by KL limestone formation. Large diameter bored piles of up to 2.5m in diameter size were adopted for the foundations, where a clear objective was to minimise the number of piles due to the restricted site area. Rock probe was carried out for all pile point to optimize the design and also to locate cavities which will be grouted before boring for bored piles commencement. Secant pile walls with 750mm in diameter size were installed along Jalan Barat, acting as the basement retaining structure, while the other three remaining sides of the basement excavation was carried out with an open cut excavation along with reinforced concrete basement wall.

Basement slab B2 and B3 were designed as 600mm thick raft-foundation to resist 5.5m – 9.0m uplift water pressure, and basement B1 was designed as a banded beam slab system, while the ground floor is a conventional beam slab system due to the many changes in levels and also to incorporate the landscape structure. Slanted columns were adopted along the building’s perimeter at ground floor which helps in creating additional free space to achieve the minimum firefighting truck turning radius requirement.

The superstructure was initially designed as a post-tensioned band beam slab system to maximise the headroom and to reduce the construction time. Column free layout up to 14m with post tensioned band beam provides a shallower structure depth and capable of achieving a 14-day cycle per floor. Central core and perimeter columns were designed using G60 concrete to maximise the useable floor area. Subsequently, due to a limited construction period timeline, the structure system was changed to a steel-concrete composite design with perimeter steel column encased in concrete from carpark Level (L4) on-wards to further reduce the construction cycle time while the construction work was already reaching Level 1 (L1). The design using composite steel concrete and construction works were carried out concurrently in order to deliver the project on time.

The time for construction works of the Prudential Tower was further reduced and the construction rate on average per floor was reduced to a new average of 7-day cycle per floor from the 14-day cycle per floor with the new proposed idea.

Project Highlights, Achievement and Recognition:

• LEED certified and MSC status office tower
• Able to provide quick technical solution and was able to meet the demand of the client by reducing the construction period of per floor by approximately 50%.
• Able to deliver all required submissions inclusive of the new building structural system details and meeting every drawing issuance dateline under a situation where the design and construction works were carried out concurrently.