The Metal in the White City: A Chicago Residential Tower Is the First in the Midwest to Meet LEED
by Jonathan McGaha | July 31, 2008 12:00 am
Once referred to as the “White City” for the classical white stucco buildings built to accommodate the 1893 World’s Fair, today Chicago is known for its modernism. In a city with a past and present filled with so many architectural marvels, it may be difficult to make even a 62-story, 1 million-square-foot (92,900-m2) residential tower stand out. However, the 340 on the Park project managed such a feat for two reasons: It’s a unique, modern aesthetic mix of glass and metal, and it’s the first LEED certified residential tower in the Midwest. Not only is the building chic, urban and luxurious, it’s also green.
The 340 on the Park building sits in a prominent area of downtown Chicago, near Lake Michigan and facing landmarks Grant and Millennium Parks. The architects at Solomon Cordwell Buenz, Chicago, including principal Martin Wolf and senior designer on the project Drew Ranieri, wanted the tower to fit into the rhythm of the area. They also wanted to create a modern building but one with “strength and depth, not just a flat box.”
According to Ranieri, it was key that the building not be all glass. “That was from the start,” Ranieri said. “We developed this layer or frame that fit over the building. We thought an all glass building of this height would be too anonymous.”
The curtainwall consists of approximately 32,000 square feet (2,973 m2) of organically coated aluminum panels and 288,000 square feet of glass (26,755 m2). According to Jerem Mucha, vice president of engineering at Portland, Ore.-based Benson Industries LLC, the curtainwall subcontractor on the project, the panels were made of 0.1-inch- (3-mm-) thick aluminum plate. Plate is a solid aluminum rather than a composite. The panels were welded at the corners and sprayed after fabrication with a Duranar paint finish.
“We used the metal so that every five stories there was a different kind of attitude to the building,” Ranieri went on. “There are two of these metal frames, one on the north and one on the south. They kind of sandwich this glass building. I wouldn’t call it an accessory, but it’s a major garment in making the building work.”
Going Green
For this 344-unit building, with an average unit size of roughly 1,700 square feet (158 m2), to achieve the LEED Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, Washington, D.C., it had to take a comprehensive approach to sustainability.
The metal used was one of many elements adding to the energy-efficiency at 340 on the Park. The aluminum panels reduce energy consumption and heat gain/loss because they form a continuous exterior surface along with the curtainwall system of low-E tinted glass.
“Having the metal helped to cut down the amount of surface without sacrificing the view,” Ranieri said.
According to Mucha, 30 percent of the aluminum was made from recycled content.
Other recycled construction materials used on the project included 100 percent of concrete reinforcing steel and 90 percent of other miscellaneous metals, and 27 percent of the building products were locally manufactured. Over 2,800 tons (2,520 metric tons) of construction waste-enough to fill 300 City of Chicago garbage trucks-was also recycled rather than sent to a landfill.
340 on the Park has two green roofs-a highly reflective, light-colored one at the top and another highly landscaped one on the second floor. The soil on the second-floor roof absorbs rainwater to be used later by plants and reduces the storm water entering the city’s water-processing system.
Meanwhile, an 11,000-gallon- (41,800-L- ) capacity storage tank sits under a ramp in the garage to collect rainwater and irrigate the landscape.
If you live in the building, in addition to being able to sit in a whirlpool and look out at Grant Park from the 25th floor amenity area while sipping on a cold drink, you’ll also be able to utilize variable speed toilets and kitchen and laundry exhaust fans that operate according to demand load. These sophisticated systems contribute to the building’s ability to operate using 10 percent less source energy than a building with conventional design standards.
A Nice Broach
Ranieri said other materials were considered to complete the building’s exterior, but along with wanting to avoid an all glass façade, exposed concrete was considered taboo. Instead, the aluminum panels allow for a unitized construction.
“This building was broken down into panels,” he said, “but they were able to take those… take it up to the floor they needed to go and just put them into place.”
The designers of 340 on the Park had to work within an envelope. On the east side, the structure comes to a point to allow for better view corridors for the building. Ranieri said the project also had to address fitting in with Grant Park, the surrounding buildings and the city’s tradition of modernism yet still maintain its own identity.
“It’s like the little jewel that gets nestled in with all these buildings at the end of Grant Park,” Ranieri said. “We didn’t take anything for granted. We didn’t just look at what’s the standard way to [design] a residential building.”
The two metal frameworks that kind of wrap the glass building were critical to define the larger context the building sits in, according to Ranieri. “It’s not just this solid box. It makes you look at it and wonder what turns around the corner,” he said of the aluminum frameworks.
“It was one of those things of having it blend in well but have it be noticeable. You didn’t want to call too much attention to yourself, but you still want to catch someone’s eye. It’s more like a nice broach than a hat with a feather in it.”
340 on the Park, Chicago
-Architect: Solomon Cordwell Buenz, Chicago, www.scb.com
-General contractor: Bovis Lend Lease, New York, www.bovislendlease.com
-Curtainwall subcontractor: Benson Industries LLC, Portland, www.bensonglobal.com
-Subcontractor: Mid-States Glass and Metal Inc., Niles, Ill., (847) 588-0001
-Developer: Related Midwest, Chicago, www.relatedmidwest.com
-Aluminum panel manufacturer: IEC Group Ltd., Jurong Industrial Estate, Singapore, www.iec.com.sg
-Glass fabricator: Viracon, Owatonna, Minn., www.viracon.com
Source URL: https://www.metalarchitecture.com/projects/the-metal-in-the-white-city-a-chicago-residential-tower-is-the-first-in-the-midwest-to-meet-leed/