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Studio Gang’s Aqua Tower Lets Views Flow Out to the Lake Michigan Waterfront

Sited amid a cluster of tall buildings in downtown Chicago near the Lake Michigan waterfront, <a href='http://www.studiogang.net/'>Studio Gang’s</a> 82-story Aqua Tower is designed to peek between gaps and around corners. The building recent won an AIA Chicago design award. All images courtesy of Steve Hall © Hedrich Blessing.

Acting as spatial extensions of the interior, the terraces shade the building envelope and reach out to provide unique views of the city around it. A series of sculpturally curving ledges wrapped around a strictly Chicago-style Miesian box, this contrasting combination of forms create rich textures, contours, and dimples.

The tower’s undulating terraces connect condominium inhabitants to specific views of Chicago landmarks from unexpected orientations on the building.

Un-shaded areas are treated as “pools” of high-performance glazing on the facade. Combined, the topography of the slabs, the reflective pools, and structure create the tower’s image.

The terraces are cantilevered structural floor slabs that vary in shape and size over the height of the tower, with no two exactly alike. Jeanne Gang, FAIA, the tower’s designer, has said that she was interested in building a <a href='http://info.aia.org/aiarchitect/thisweek08/1010/1010d_aqua.cfm'>“topographic, specific high-rise, as opposed to a universal, iconic high-rise,”</a> and the Aqua’s every curve and contour creates unique views through its other high rise neighbors and into the urban fabric below.

Aqua’s terraces make an outdoor space for residents to become part of a living façade, and part of the city at the same time.

The lower-level public spaces include canopied walkways and an elegant entrance for residents.

Atop the tower’s pedestal is an 80,000-sqaure-foot landscaped deck, whose verdant roof garden can be accessed by grand public stairs that connect the street above to a park at grade level.

Gang has always been an architect primarily interested in the philosophical possibilities of materials and making, and with the Aqua Tower, she sculpts concrete in a way that truly evokes its nickname--“liquid stone.” In Gang’s best work, she fearlessly challenges materials to work in ways they’ve never managed before, and with this building, it’s possible she’s done the same with high rise buildings.

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