#BALCONY ARCHITECTURE SKYSCRAPER CHICAGO SERIES#

The advent of lightweight terra cotta allowed architects to combine ceramic's resistance to fire with iron's efficient strength, leading to hybrid structures that allowed the safe exploitation of the skeletal frame.įire also reshaped building codes, but new regulations reflected the competing desires of owners, tenants, architects, and skilled tradespersons that, in turn, influenced skyscraper massing and composition. Iron promised improvements over timber, but Chicago's Great Fire in 1871 revealed its vulnerability to collapse. Brick remained the only truly fireproof material, but owners and designers remained frustrated by its weight and inefficiency.

#BALCONY ARCHITECTURE SKYSCRAPER CHICAGO SERIES#

Marrying good design and profitable development, Aqua will hopefully inspire other real estate investors to erect thoughtful, innovative buildings.The fourth session of the Construction History series will examine the various dimensions in which the threat of fire affected skyscraper development. Claims of 'fireproof building' were regularly disproved, often in cataclysmic fashion.

An exciting rethinking of the possibilities of the glazed skyscraper and the value of good design in commercial development, Aqua is as important for its potential influence as for its observed impact. With a large green roof, sun-shading balconies, UV-reflective glazing, and Chicago’s first public electric-vehicle charging station, Aqua also reflects a contemporary concern with sustainability. Observed individually, the balconies are thin, apparently fragile structures, sinuously hovering out beyond the face of the building, while taken as a mass they become reef-like and powerful in their mass.Īqua is perhaps the tallest building ever built by a woman-led firm, Studio Gang, which served as design architect for the building with Loewenberg and Associates as the architect of record working with the Magellan Development Company. In areas without balconies, the blue-glazed envelope is revealed in irregular pond-shaped areas of glazing that is treated with reflective film to heighten the drama of the expression. The curving and varied balconies provide residents with particular views of Lake Michigan to the east, as well as the city rising to the north, south, and west. Balconies on each level are unique to their specific floors, and extend out from the face of the building, curving out to a depth of twelve feet in some locations, and producing a tactile, rippling effect.

The glazed tower rises from the center of the structure. On the wide entry plinth, a thickened, curving porte-cochere covers the automobile drop off for the hotel on the north, while on the south, a landscaped garden covers a large hotel banquet room. These balconies were inspired by the weathered stone outcroppings that Gang observed along the shores of nearby Lake Michigan, providing Aqua with an abstracted marine character referencing both its location and Bertram Goldberg’s nearby Marina City. Serving as sun shades and wind blocks, the resulting balconies are supremely functional, while also providing the building with an unusual, innovative expressionism. Architect Jeanne Gang’s balconies pierce that uninterrupted verticality with surging horizontal concrete planes. The 82-story, mixed-use high-rise accommodates commercial and office space, a hotel, and luxury condominiums.Ī conventional rectilinear, glass-enclosed structure with a wide base, Aqua is differentiated from its more conventional neighbors by undulating balconies that protrude from the taut envelope. Built on the western edge of the former Illinois Central Railroad yard, two blocks north of Millenium Park, Aqua is the most architecturally distinguished of more than a dozen high-rise mixed-use structures built in the Lakeshore East neighborhood since development of the 28-acre parcel began in 2001.

Balcony architecture skyscraper chicago