Lakhta Center (formally Gazprom Tower) is a 462 m (1,516 ft) tall tower located in Saint Petersburg’s Central Business District. The 330,000 sq m (3.5 million sq ft) complex includes commercial office space as well as retail, leisure and residential developments, all situated on a 17-hectare brownfield site. The overall scheme was designed by architects RMJM. The building’s design includes a double skin façade that provides both natural ventilation and thermal insulation which reduces heating and air conditioning costs.

The geometry of the skyscraper changes throughout the 462m height, with the glass façade comprised of 16,500 pieces of curved glass divided into 21 types. To achieve a smooth appearance as the tower geometry expands, tapers and twists, the façade elements are required to adapt and change from each other. Advances in digital design and fabrication workflows allowed for such a quantities of unique façade glass components to be used in a tower for the first time.

Newtecnic was responsible for the façade design engineering during the competion, schematic and detailed design stages of the project, including geometry analysis and development, and façade system design.