Lakhta Center II is the name of what will be the second tallest skyscraper in the world, located in St. Petersburg, Russia. The project of the Scottish architecture studio Kettle Collective is a 703-meter-high spiral skyscraper.

According to the website specialized in design and architecture, Dezeen, the 150-story building would also have the highest occupied floor in the world at 590 meters high. Lakhta Center II will be located next to the Lakhta Center, the headquarters of the Russian energy company Gazprom, a building that was completed in October 2018 and is currently the tallest one in Russia.

Renders provided to the media by the studio Kettle Collective show a glazed helical-shaped tower cradled inside a metal exoskeleton. Although the visual of Lakhta Center II, seems to exhibit an isolated tower in the Baltic Sea, it was revealed that it won’t be on an island. And although the final location of the tower hasn’t been confirmed, Gazprom – the company that commissioned the project – said it would provide the land as part of an “urban improvement” program for the city.

Beautiful, tall, resilient, and sustainable

Tony Kettle, the founder of Kettle Collective, indicated that the design of Lakhta Center II is both aesthetic and functional. “The tower will reduce the force of the wind that will impact the structure, thus reducing the size of the structural elements required within the building,” he explained.

Kettle also said that the building’s outer layer will be created from spiral columns that will form an open organic helical grid, while the structure is carved by a series of spiral atriums shared with vertical public spaces.

Sustainability is something that will also characterize the Lakhta Center II tower.  In the words of Kettle: “The new Lakhta Center will be a template of sustainable design for global high-rise projects.”

According to CNN, the CEO of Kettle Collective assured that this skyscraper “will have the best-in-class low energy design and a mix of uses that will create a vertical atrium space with a vibrant centre as the heart for this new business district.”

A twisted office center

The press release issued by Kettle Collective states that the world’s second tallest skyscraper will have office spaces, accommodation and relaxation areas distributed over 150 floors.

The design proposed by the Scottish studio for Lakhta Center II is certainly impressive. The tower will rotate a total of 90 degrees from its foundation to its top resembling a sinuous needle.

If the render presented is the final design for Lakhta Center II, it would add another important recognition to this tower: being one of the tallest “twisted” skyscrapers in the world.

Without a doubt, Lakhta Center II reflects the race for the domination of the sky that exists in the great capitals. However, in this race, the tallest building in the world is still the 828-meter-high Burj Khalifa in Dubai, which was designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM).