The Eighth & Main Building is a Contemporary skyscraper designed in 2011 by Babcock Design Group, in association with CTA Architects Engineers, and built between 2012 and 2014, for a reported $76.0 million dollars, in Boise, ID.
Eighth & Main Building is not the only name you might know this building by though. The building is, or has also been known as Zions Bank Building.
Its precise street address is 800 West Main Street, Boise, ID. You can also find it on the map here.
Babcock Design Group was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design, in association with CTA Architects Engineers. But there was also one other architect involved, as far as we know. We are talking about CTA Architects Engineers.
That being said, architecture is a complex discipline involving many professionals from different fields, without whom this building would have not been possible. We will surely be leaving out a lot of names here, but at the very least we know that there was one other part involved, that was Engineered Structures Inc. (ESI) as the Main Contractor.
The Eighth & Main Building can be categorized as a Contemporary building.
Contemporary style architecture builds on top of the principles of Modernism and Postmodernism, but incorporates other variables which might not have been that important in the past, but certainly are today, such as technology, sustainability, inclusivity, and others.
From a historical point of view, it is hard to categorize things from a not-so-distant time, and therefore we choose to categorize most buildings built after the year 2000 as "Contemporary". It is possible that as time goes by and we, as a society, gain perspective on the things happening today, we'll be able to look back and recategorize all these buildings into more concrete subsections, some of which might not even exist today.
The Eighth & Main Building reaches an architectural height of 315ft (96m), 322ft (98m) if you count the antenna, with the last accesible floor being 217ft (66m) off the gorund. It has a total of 18 floors, served by 7 elevators, which combined offer a total of 355,209 sqf (33,000m2) of usable space.
In regards to parking space, the building has a total of 183 spots available, which roughly equals 10 spots per floor (above ground), or one parking spot per every 1,938 sqf (180m2) of usable space.
Ever since opening its doors to the public in 2014, the Eighth & Main Building has mainly been used as Commercial space, with other complementary uses such as retail space.
In addition to housing major corporate offices, the building also offers community spaces.
On the ground floor, there are restaurants with an eclectic dining selection.
The second floor features a large balcony that opens onto an outdoor terrace, along with a health club.
On the 17th floor, with panoramic views of the city, the Idaho and Snake River rooms are available for public rental for nonprofit events.
The Eighth & Main Building uses a frame structure made of steel covered in concrete columns and poured concrete over metal decking slabs.
A frame structure uses a combination of beams and columns to sustain the building's weight. The walls in this case are non-load bearing, which allows for more flexibility when distributing the interior spaces.
The facade uses a non-load bearing curtain wall system. This means the curtain wall modules are anchored to the building's structural frame, typically by being attached to the edge of the floor slabs. The curtain wall system connects to the slabs using brackets, anchors, and mullions, which transfer the loads imposed by wind and temperature changes, to the building's primary structural elements.
This setup allows the curtain wall to accommodate differential movement between the facade and the structural frame, such as thermal expansion, floor deflection, or sway from wind forces. This system's integration with the slab edges also allows for continuous insulation and weatherproofing layers.
From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a continuous blue-tinted glass surface with decorative sunshades at the corner where the antenna is placed. At night, the "aluminum fins" that serve as sunshades are illuminated.
Another notable detail of the facades is the light-colored concrete strips on the sides of the glazed corner, running from the ground up to the upper floors. These strips culminate in a double setback, also made of light-colored concrete, which contrasts with the dark glass.
The tower sits on a five-level base.