Aqua | |
---|---|
General information | |
Status | Completed |
Type | Hotel Residential Retail Office |
Architectural style | Contemporary architecture |
Location | Chicago, Illinois |
Address | 225 N. Columbus Drive |
Coordinates | 41°53′11″N87°37′12″W / 41.8865°N 87.6201°W |
Construction started | 2007 |
Completed | 2009 |
Cost | US$300 million |
Owner | Aqua Realty Holdings LLC |
Height | 261.8 m (859 ft) |
Technical details | |
Floor count | 82 5 below ground |
Floor area | 1,990,635 sq ft (184,936.0 m2) |
Lifts/elevators | 24 |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Design: Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects; Architect of Record: James Loewenberg of Loewenberg & Assoc. |
Developer | Magellan Development Group |
Structural engineer | Magnusson Klemencic Associates |
Main contractor | James McHugh Construction Co |
Other information | |
Number of units | 747: Apartments 334: Hotel |
Website | |
www | |
References | |
[1] [2] [3] [4] |
Aqua is an 82-story mixed-use skyscraper in Lakeshore East, downtown Chicago, Illinois. [5] Designed by a team led by Jeanne Gang of Studio Gang Architects, with James Loewenberg of Loewenberg & Associates as the Architect of Record, it includes five levels of parking below ground. The building's eighty-story, 140,000 sq ft (13,000 m2) base is topped by a 82,550 sq ft (7,669 m2) terrace with gardens, gazebos, pools, hot tubs, a walking/running track and a fire pit. Each floor covers approximately 16,000 sq ft (1,500 m2). [6]
Aqua was awarded the Emporis Skyscraper Award as 2009 skyscraper of the year, [7] and was shortlisted in 2010 for the biennial International Highrise Award. [8] In celebration of the 2018 Illinois Bicentennial, Aqua was selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places [9] by the American Institute of Architects Illinois component (AIA Illinois) and was recognized by USA Today Travel magazine as one of AIA Illinois' selections for Illinois 25 Must See Places. It has been compared to 8 Spruce Street in New York City. [10]
When it was completed, the skyscraper was the world's tallest building designed by a woman. It was surpassed in 2020 by the nearby St. Regis, also located in Chicago and designed by Studio Gang Architects.
Aqua was designed by Studio Gang Architects, led by firm principal and founder, Jeanne Gang, and it was the firm's first skyscraper project. [11] The project was the largest ever awarded to an American firm headed by a woman. [12] Loewenberg & Associates are the architects of record, led by James Loewenberg. [13]
The Aqua Tower is located at 225 North Columbus Drive, and is surrounded by high-rises. The location where the tower was built was a former rail yard that is adjacent to the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. [14] To capture views of nearby landmarks for Aqua's residents, Gang stretched its balconies outward by as much as 12 ft (3.7 m). [15] The result is a building composed of irregularly shaped concrete floor slabs which lend the facade an undulating, sculptural quality. [2] [16] Gang cites the striated limestone outcroppings that are a common topographic feature of the Great Lakes region as inspiration for these slabs. [17] The tower is a late project for the repurposing of the site from industrial to commercial and residential use. [18]
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). [17] Aqua is the first downtown building to combine condos, apartments and a hotel. Strategic Hotels & Resorts had agreed to acquire the first 15 floors of hotel space upon completion of the building, but terminated its $84 million contract for the space in August 2008, citing significant changes in the economic environment. [19]
Carlson announced May 12, 2010, that it agreed to spend $125 million to open the first Radisson Blu hotel in the United States (Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel) on 18 vacant floors of the highrise. [20] The 334-room hotel opened on November 1, 2011. [21] The building was designed by the lead architect of Studio Gang Architects, Jeanne Gang. [22]
The name 'Aqua' was assigned to the building by Magellan Development Group LLC. It fits the nautical theme of the other buildings in the Lake Shore East development, and is derived from the wave-like forms of the balconies; the tower's proximity to nearby Lake Michigan also influenced the name. [2] Concrete Superintendent Paul Treacy, was nominated as one of Engineering News-Record's (ENR) top 25 news makers of 2008 for the design and implementation of the exterior formwork to mold the undulating façade of the Aqua. [23]
Sustainability was an important factor in Aqua's design. Gang and her team refined the terrace extensions to maximize solar shading, and other sustainable features include a water-efficient irrigation system and energy-efficient lighting. The green roof on top of the tower base is one of the largest in Chicago. The tower is certified LEED-NC. [24] [25] Despite its effort to be sustainable, its monolithic concrete slab design without an insulation break transfers heat very efficiently from the inside to outside (winter) and from the outside to inside (summer) due to thermal bridging. Infra-red images of this building illustrates this concept.The waste from the construction of the tower was 16% with the 84% going to recycling centers instead of landfills. Many eco-friendly features were offered to the residents of the establishment. These features included bamboo flooring which was better to produce than hardwood, Greenguard certified HanStone Quartz countertops and plumbing fixtures that would reduce the number of gallons per flow for water conservation. [26]
Jeanne Gang was a rising architect when she and Studio Gang (her firm) took on the project. With the training Jeanne had received during school, Jeanne began with her design that would included balconies extending 2-12 feet outwards. Jeanne was inspired for this design from the topography layered limestone outcropping along the Great Lakes. The balconies are 9 inches thick and get thinner as they extend outwards to help with drainage. James Loewenberg helped SGA by finding an efficient way of creating the concrete balconies. He found that having an edge-form steel plate would guide the pour and once it was done drying it could be snapped back into a straight plane and reused for different curves on the other balconies. This method did leave the balconies without thermal breaks which caused criticism as it would cause a loss of heat during winters due to radiator effect. [27] A function of the curve balconies is that they protect the building from harsh winds which happens to be one of the most difficult challenges in skyscraper engineering. [28]
A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources define skyscrapers as being at least 100 meters (330 ft) or 150 meters (490 ft) in height, though there is no universally accepted definition, other than being very tall high-rise buildings. Historically, the term first referred to buildings with between 10 and 15 stories when these types of buildings began to be constructed in the 1880s. Skyscrapers may host offices, hotels, residential spaces, and retail spaces.
The Trump International Hotel and Tower is a skyscraper condo-hotel in downtown Chicago, Illinois. The building, named for Donald Trump, was designed by architect Adrian Smith of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Bovis Lend Lease built the 100-story structure, which reaches a height of 1,388 feet (423.2 m) including its spire, its roof topping out at 1,171 feet (357 m). It is next to the main branch of the Chicago River, with a view of the entry to Lake Michigan beyond a series of bridges over the river. The building received publicity when the winner of the first season of The Apprentice reality television show, Bill Rancic, chose to manage the construction of the tower over managing a Rancho Palos Verdes–based Trump National Golf Course & Resort in the Los Angeles metro area.
Park Tower is a skyscraper located at 800 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. Completed in 2000 and standing at 844 feet (257 m) tall with 70 floors — 67 floors for practical use, it is the twelfth-tallest building in Chicago, the 43rd-tallest building in the United States, and the 83rd-tallest in the world by architectural detail. It is one of the world's tallest buildings to be clad with architectural precast concrete. It is one of the tallest non-steel framed structures in the world—it is a cast-in-place concrete framed structure. This building was originally intended to be 650 ft (200 m) tall. But later, the ceiling heights were increased allowing it to reach 844 ft (257 m).
Marina City is a mixed-use residential-commercial building complex in Chicago, Illinois, United States, North America, designed by architect Bertrand Goldberg. The multi-building complex on State Street on the north bank of the Chicago River on the Near North Side, directly across from the Loop, opened between 1963 and 1967. Portions of the complex were designated a Chicago Landmark in 2016. The towers' symbolic similarity to rural Illinois corncobs has often been noted in media.
10 Holloway Circus is a 400-foot (122 m) tall mixed-use skyscraper in Birmingham city centre, England. It was originally named after the developers, Beetham Organisation, and was designed by Ian Simpson and built by Laing O'Rourke. The entire development covers an area of 7,000 square feet (650 m2). It is the second tallest building in Birmingham and the 74th tallest building in the United Kingdom.
OneEleven is a luxury rental apartment tower located in downtown Chicago, Illinois. The building is located between LaSalle Street and Clark Street, adjacent to River North and directly on the Chicago River.
The Radisson Collection Royal Hotel, Copenhagen is a historic hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Jeanne Gang is an American architect and the founder and leader of Studio Gang, an architecture and urban design practice with offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Paris. Gang was first widely recognized for the Aqua Tower, the tallest woman-designed building in the world at the time of its completion. Aqua has since been surpassed by the nearby St. Regis Chicago, also of her design. Surface has called Gang one of Chicago's most prominent architects of her generation, and her projects have been widely awarded.
The 800 Tower, formerly The 800 Apartments, is a 29-story residential skyscraper in Louisville, Kentucky, located in the city's SoBro neighborhood, nestled between Old Louisville and downtown. At the time construction was complete in 1963, The 800 was the tallest building in Louisville, a record it maintained for nearly a decade.
Studio Gang is an American architecture and urban design practice with offices in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Paris. Founded and led by architect Jeanne Gang, the Studio is known for its material research and experimentation, collaboration across a wide range of disciplines, and focus on sustainability. The firm's works range in scale and typology from the 82-story mixed-use Aqua Tower to the 10,000-square-foot Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership at Kalamazoo College to the 14-acre Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo. Studio Gang has won numerous awards for design excellence, including the 2016 Architizer A+ Firm of the Year Award and the 2013 National Design Award for Architecture from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, as well as various awards from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and AIA Chicago.
Colcord Hotel is a luxury boutique hotel located in downtown Oklahoma City, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The building was finished in 1909 and has been considered Oklahoma City's first skyscraper. It is 145 feet (44 m) tall and has 14 floors.
Radisson Blu is an international chain of hotels operated by Radisson Hotels. With roots dating back to the 1960s, the Radisson Blu brand name came into existence in 2009 with a rebranding from Radisson SAS. Its hotels are found in major cities, key airport gateways and leisure destinations.
Meridian Gate is a hotel and residential skyscraper complex in Cardiff, Wales. It has two buildings, the taller of which is 63 metres high, has 21 floors, and is operated by Radisson Blu. It is the joint-fifth tallest building in Cardiff. The smaller building, Meridian Plaza, is 33 metres high, has 11 floors, and contains luxury residential apartments.
Hotel Ukraina, also branded and marketed as the Radisson Collection Hotel, Moscow, is a five-star luxury hotel in the city centre of Moscow, on a bend of the Moskva River. The hotel is one of the "Seven Sisters", and stands 206 metres (676 ft) tall. It is the tallest hotel in Russia, the tallest hotel in Europe, and the 52nd-tallest hotel in the world. It is a Radisson Collection hotel, managed by the Rezidor Hotel Group.
The St. Regis Chicago, formerly Wanda Vista Tower, is a 101-story, 1,198 ft (365 m) multi-use supertall skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois. Construction started in August 2016, and was completed in 2020. Upon completion it became the city's third-tallest building at 1,198 ft (365 m), behind the Willis Tower and Trump Hotel and Tower, and surpassing the Aon Center. It is the tallest structure in the world designed by a woman. It forms a part of the Lakeshore East development and overlooks the Chicago River near Lake Michigan.
One Bennett Park is a skyscraper at 451 East Grand Avenue, in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago. The project was first announced as the building at 451 E. Grand Ave. in July 2014, approved in December 2014, and named One Bennett Park in October 2015. Both the building and the adjacent park are named for Edward H. Bennett, the Chicago architect and urban planner who coauthored the 1909 Plan of Chicago. The building topped-out in late 2018, and later opened in the spring of 2019. It is among Chicago's tallest skyscrapers.
150 North Riverside Plaza is a highrise building in Chicago, Illinois, completed in 2017 and anchored by William Blair and Co. The building is 54 stories tall. The building occupies a two-acre site on the west bank of the Chicago River, whose size and location demanded an unusually small base for the building. The building features 1.2 million square feet (110,000 m2) of leasable office space. Due to its unique superstructure design, it encompasses just 25 percent of the lot. In 2019, the building was given the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects' highest award for design excellence.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)Commendation certificates were awarded to the 262-meter high-rise apartment building Aqua Tower (Chicago) by Studio Flores (Chicago)...
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires |journal=
(help)