The Ribboned Chicago

Two Mix-used Towers as the Tallest Landmark in Chicago

Fall 2022 @ Yale (Published in Yale Retrospecta 46)

Chicago

In collaboration with Nikhil Makhjiani and Hope Chao

Standing next to famous tourist attractions, the building mediates land and ocean, the form gets a curved and smooth profile, and creates multi-layered urban ribbons. The higher commercial tower is wrapped with metal ribbons that takes a more reflective expression, so it’s blurred with city context. While the shorter residential tower is highlighted with white ribbons to get a more private and autonomous appearance. As a continuation of the form, the landscape design extends the ribbon pattern to the other side of the highway that brings people to the waterfront smoothly, which metaphors water ripples that are blended with the natural environment. 

Vertical sky gardens are created to take advantage of the additions and subtractions of the form. Each sky garden module is four-level high and takes place between the two curtain wall skins, like a buffer zone between inside and outside The outer skin is made out of 35mm laminated glass with an aluminum extrusion system. The facade panels have different transparencies to function as shading devices.  There are two way space trusses to attach the panels to the curtain wall, while in between there are circular struts attached to the pipe around the perimeter to link the two layers, which follows the grid system. There are also pairs of steel hanger rods hung from floor above and take place at every intersection of strut and perimeter pipe to support the system vertically. The inner skin is made out of 30mm insulated low-e glass. The sky gardens serve as the vertical green ribbons that wrap around the tower and get the best views of the city and ocean.

Differentiated residential access to the park from public access is intentionally designed. Various paths are separated by canals, so people don’t interact with each other. These canals come from the ocean and get blended as part of the building landscape. The design creates a very private community space and lobby for residents only. The lifted facade panels shape the entrances that are inviting. The second level only takes a 30m 50m slab as the circulation level. People take the escalator to the platform while enjoying the waterfall, and on the second level office people and hotel people are guided towards different zones, each zone is enclosed with security check.