Environment + SUSTAINABILITY
Building with Foam-Control Geofoam allowedWolff Landscape Architecture to create a two-tier park system that addresses vertical movement onsite through a combination of ramps and stairs. Photo: ©Tom Rossiter Photography
to-impossible,” said Erik Harris, an associate principal with Goettsch Partners. Hemmed in by a combination of barriers, including the city’s set-back zoning requirements along the Chicago River and a bustling, seven-line Amtrak right-of-way spanning more than 140-feet, the developable parcel offered only a small sliver of land just 55-feet wide upon which to build. Meeting the challenge of building a cost-effective high-rise on this site came down to delivering the required floorplate area with a 45-foot lease span supported by four-story trusses on either side of the 39-foot-wide core. While the striking geometry of 150 North Riverside will always make the perched structure remarkable to the passerby, the site’s incredible landscape is an almost equally impressive engineering accomplish- ment that will likely go largely unnoticed. “From the hard edge of the building, we were able to secure the air rights over the Amtrak right-of-way,” Harris said. “We decked over it to create two and a half acres of public greenspace that conceals the parking structure, lobby area, and loading dock enclosing about 28 percent of the site. Though the building is extremely vertical, the site is quite horizontal — both presented equations to solve.” Filling the horizontal void and creating beneficial pedestrian con- nections to the urban fabric surrounding 150 North Riverside was a multidisciplinary effort involving every aspect of civil, structural, and mechanical engineering integrated within the unique landscape. Craig Soncrant, a principal with Wolff Landscape Architecture led the firm’s work on the project, relishing the challenge.
High-rise landscapes
Geofoam provides lightweight structural fill for multi-level urban green space and pedestrian connection. By Sean O’Keefe
The City of Chicago lives a legacy of architectural excellence derived from an insistence on pushing boundaries through experimentation and innovation. Long viewed as a design laboratory, Chicago’s unique architectural heritage owes much to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which left the decimated city ripe for redevelopment. Chicago has also had the fortune of being home to more than a few 20th Century archi- tectural giants, including American-icon Frank Lloyd Wright; father of skyscrapers, Louis Sullivan; and modernist pioneer, Mies van der Rohe. Famous for what he called “skin and bones” architecture defined by a minimal framework of structural order to achieve open unobstructed space, van der Rohe established his Chicago practice in 1938. Today that practice lives on as Goettsch Partners, a firm more than willing to take on some of the world’s greatest design challenges. Among Chica- go’s latest legacy assets, one of Goettsch Partners’ newest additions to the cityscape — 150 North Riverside — stands out as an immediately obvious example of the incredible made possible. “150 North Riverside is located along Chicago’s famous loop on a fan- tastic site where designing something buildable was considered next-
47
august 2018
csengineermag.com
Made with FlippingBook Annual report