AQUA TOWER, CHICAGO

SUBMITTED BY:SHRUTI SIDHU

ROLL NO. 9037

9TH SEMESTER

B. ARCHITECTURE

NAME : AQUAALTERNATIVE NAME : AQUA TOWER, LAKESHORE EAST BUILDING 2-PEBN, 190323

AQUA

Chicago, Illinois

Usage• Main usage -

residential; condominium; hotel; rental apartments • Side usage

parking; commercial office; shop(s)

Built - 2007-2009

Cost - US$300 million

Owner - Aqua Realty Holdings LLC

Floor count -82

1 below ground

Height – 859 ft (262 m)

Floor area - 1,990,635 sq ft (184,936.0 m2)

Lifts/elevators – 24

Number of apartments - 739

Number of hotel rooms - 215

Number of parking spaces - 1557

Architect Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects

DeveloperMagellan Development Group

Structural EngineerMagnusson Klemencic Associates

main ContractorJames McHugh Construction Co

Aqua is an 82-story mixed-use residential skyscraper in the Lakeshore East development in downtown Chicago, Illinois. It is designed by Jeanne Gang , principal and founder of Studio Gang Architects, and it is her first skyscraper project. This is the largest project ever awarded to an American firm headed by a woman. Loewenberg & Associates are the architects of record, led by James Loewenberg. Each floor covers approximately 16,000 sq ft (1,500 m2). The Aqua was named the Emporis Skyscraper Award 2009 skyscraper of the year, and was shortlisted in 2010 for the biannual International Highrise Award.

• The building contains 55,000 sq ft (5,100 m2) of retail and office space, in addition to 215 hotel rooms (floors 1-18), 476 rental residential units (floors 19-52), and 263 condominium units & Penthouses (floors 53-81).

Aqua is the first downtown building to combine condos, apartments and a hotel.

• To capture views of nearby landmarks for Aqua's residents, Gang stretched its balconies outward by as much as 12 ft (3.7 m). The result is a building composed of irregularly shaped concrete floor slabs which lend the facade an undulating, sculptural quality.

• A daring piece of architecture for The Loop area, Aqua comes off more as a massive sculpture than as a residential block in the crowded heart of the city. The name 'Aqua' fits the nautical theme of the Lakeshore East development, and is derived from the wave-like forms of the balconies. The name also matches the blue-green tint of the windows.

• Aqua is a daring new addition to the Chicago skyline.

• Concrete is utilized in both the structural support and the tower’s architectural expression.

• The tower’s façade features vertical glass with undulating balconies of reinforced concrete that varies slightly from floor to floor, creating a rippling, wavelike effect. Overall, the exterior mimics the natural striated limestone outcroppings and formations that are plentiful throughout the Great Lakes region.

• The sinuously curved concrete decks on each floor assume different configurations where balconies extend anywhere from 2 to 12 feet. Although the architects used computer modeling to create the rippling contours, the fact that each floor slab is unique in shape meant calculations had to be done separately for each floor.

• At the base of the tower, a three-story podium contains the hotel and apartment lobbies, the hotel ballroom, and other public rooms. But the coup de théatre is the 80,000-square-foot podium roof garden, with an outdoor swimming pool and a running track. In this park-like roof, meandering paths weave between low evergreen plants and deciduous plantings that may not be native but generate a “geometric naturalism,”.

• Aqua is an amazing tower demonstrating how concrete can be creatively applied to achieve both outstanding architecture and a durable structure.

• Residents and visitors of the Aqua Tower are able to occupy the building while retaining the sense of also being a part of a metropolis at large.

The typical tower floors are 16,000 square feet and offer spectacular views of Lake Michigan, the Chicago River and some of Chicago’s

architecture gems.

View of Lake Michigan/ Navy Pier

View of neighborhood park

View of Chicago RiverView of Millennium Park

Jeanne Gang, FAIA, of Studio Gang, had not designed a high-rise structure (not to mention a sustainable one) before Aqua, the 82-story tower in Chicago’s downtown. Her small 38-person firm, in business in the city since 1997, had, however, distinguished itself with community centers, schools, and houses. Then in 2004 she met developer and architect James Loewenberg of the Magellan Development Group, who is behind the 28-acre Lakeshore East mixed-use complex, which has been under construction on the old Illinois Central Railroad yards along Lake Michigan during much of the last decade. Loewenberg asked Gang to come up with a fresh design for a new 1.9 million-square-foot structure in Lakeshore East, for which he would be both the client and the executive architect. Now the $300-million (construction) residential tower, which rises from a podium on the 179,946-square-foot site near Millennium Park, has just been completed. In a city known for its rectilinear Miesian skyscrapers, Gang brought back the curve by wrapping her residential tower with sinuously swerving concrete balconies.

Usage• Main usage -

residential; condominium; hotel; rental apartments • Side usage

parking; commercial office; shop(s)

Access• The building has its main access from North Columbus Drive.

PorchSapphire neon illuminates

The entrance of Radisson

Blu Aqua hotel. The azure

lighting drives home the

branding of the hotel. Blu is

the luxury offshoot of

Radisson Hotels, once known

for reliable, staid, moderate

hotels.

Orientation• The east-west orientation of the building maximizes exposure in winter, facilitating

passive heating.• The balconies on the south facade are deliberately larger to reduce exposure in summer. • In addition to low e-coating on all glass, the design team modeled seasonal sun patterns

to identify areas requiring additional glazing in order to increase the tower’s energy performance. 

• Glass on the east and south façades are reflective in areas without a protective balcony, while glass facing west has a tinted coating that improves its shading coefficient.

• The undulating slab edges disrupted or “confused” the flow of wind around the tower, effectively reducing the wind demands, and this, combined with the effectiveness of the structural design, eliminated the need for a supplemental damping system.

• Much of the exposed glass is fritted, not only to help reduce heat and glare, but, along with dark gray aluminum balustrades, to keep birds from crashing into the tower. Already this strategy won Aqua a Proggy award (named for “progress”) from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

• At the base of the tower, a three-story podium is topped with the 80,000-square-foot podium roof garden. . The roof’s vegetation is not only aesthetic but also combats the heat- island effect during the hot summer months by lowering ambient temperatures around the building.

LAKE MICHIGAN

CH

ICA

GO

RIV

ER

N

MILLENIUM PARK – A major tourist spot of the city.

82 – STOREY AQUA TOWER

3 – STOREY PODIUMwith 80.000 sq.ft. roof

garden

SWISSOTEL CHICAGO

THREE ILLINOIS CENTER

BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD BUILDING

Aqua creates a strong identity through its architecture and has become a landmark addition to the Chicago skyline.

Traffic considerations:•Aqua's entrances serve a variety of users and residents. •Canopied walkways lead visitors to the building's main entrance while two grand public stairs bring pedestrians from Upper Columbus Drive down to a park at grade level, providing access to Chicago's downtown area and lakefront. •The tower also connects to Chicago's extensive underground pedway system, linking users and residents to restaurants, retail, cultural activities and jobs in the Loop and on the Magnificent Mile. •Additional consideration was made when designing the tower's garage exits below grade to minimize congestion at pedestrian levels. •To further reduce traffic and confusion, the garage's three levels have different access points that correlate to the tower's specific uses and users.

3RD FLOOR WITH ROOF GARDEN

TYPICAL FLOOR PLAN

STRUCTURE SYSTEM

• An 87-story, 868-foot-tall building designed to look like the wind is blowing waves across its surface — each floor sporting graceful, thin curved balconies that look like fins between the floors. An architectural achievement, perhaps, but definitely an engineering challenge.

• Magnusson Klemencic Associates was chosen to turn architect Jeanne Gang’s vision of “a vertically deployed landscape” into reality. Ultimately, the challenge required several major engineering innovations, starting with a custom floor plate design to create the unusual wave-like facade.

• Aqua has 78 individually curving floor plates with cantilevered balconies that extend up to 12 feet, both for looks and to capture the best views.

• The balconies are cast monolithically with the floor slabs.

• The 9-inch-thick balcony slabs thin out as they extend from the cladding line to the edge of the cantilever. This profile helps in drainage and keeps rainwater off the face of the building.

• Dozens of computer models were created to analyze the strength and deflection of these unique floor slabs and their 8 miles of continuously varying edges.

• In a wind analysis, Aqua’s balcony design actually seemed to “confuse” the wind, reducing forces rather than creating additional pressures or suction.

OUTRIGGER WALLS55-58TH STOREY

OUTRIGGER WALLS81-82ND STOREY

BELT WALLS57TH STOREY

MKA also needed to develop a new structural system to enable the construction of the building. The new system combined a concrete core, stepped concrete shear walls, outrigger walls at levels 55 to 58 and 81 to 82, belt walls at level 57, and building columns, all on top of 31 drilled rock caissons(diameters ranging from 4 to 10 feet and extending up to 112 feet below grade and six feet into a layer of dolomite).The core and shear walls incorporate four different concrete strengths to optimize performance and consolidate strength while the strategically located outriggers and belt walls broaden the stance of the building and engage the building’s exterior columns to resist sway.

CONCRETE CORE

BALCONIES EXTEND

FROM 2 TO 12 FEET

SAME FLOOR PLAN ON EACH STOREY

UNDULATING BALCONIES :EACH INDIVIDUAL TO THE STOREY

CONSTRUCTION IMAGES