150 North Riverside Building

The 150 North Riverside Building is a Contemporary skyscraper designed in 2013 by Goettsch Partners, with Jim Goettsch, Joachim Schuessler, and Erik Harris as lead architect, and built between 2014 and 2017, for a reported $270 million dollars, in Chicago, IL.

Its precise street address is 150 North Riverside Plaza, Chicago, IL. You can also find it on the map here.

The 150 North Riverside Building has received multiple architecture awards for its architectural design since 2017. The following is a list of such prizes and awards:

• Distinguished Building Honor Award – American Institute of Architects, Chicago Chapter in 2019
• Gold Award, Commercial Building – Pro+ Awards in 2020
• Finalist, Global Awards for Excellence – Urban Land Institute in 2019
• Award of Excellence, Urban Habitat - Single Site Scale – Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in 2019
• Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award – American Society of Civil Engineers in 2019
• Honor Award, Design (Built) – American Society of Landscape Architects, Illinois Chapter in 2019
• 3rd Place, Emporis International Skyscraper Award 2017 in 2017
• American Architecture Award – The Chicago Athenaeum in 2018
• Award of Excellence, Best Tall Building Americas – Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat in 2018
• Vision Award, Bold Design Solution – ULI Chicago in 2018
• Best New Building – Friends of Downtown in 2018
• National Award – Greater Than $75 Million, Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel (IDEAS2) – American Institute of Steel Construction in 2018
• National Grand Award – American Council of Engineering Companies in 2018
• Platinum Award, Structural Systems – American Council of Engineering Companies of Washington in 2018
• Merit Award, New York City Section – IES Illumination Awards in 2018
• Chicago Innovation Award in 2017
• Building Team Platinum Award – Building Design & Construction Magazine in 2017
• Project of the Year – ENR Midwest Magazine in 2017
• Best Project, Office/Retail/Mixed-Use – ENR Midwest Magazine in 2017
• Commercial Development of the Year – Chicago Commercial Real Estate Awards in 2017
• Office Development of the Year – NAIOP Chicago Chapter in 2016
• Jurors’ Favorite/Most Innovative Structure – Structural Engineers Association of Illinois in 2016

The distinctive shape of the building, with a small footprint that expands on higher floors, is not arbitrary. The unique conditions of the site allowed for a very small part of the land to be occupied, and therefore the design team had to get creative in order to maximize the building's gross area while respecting the site's limitation. More about this in the "structure" section, but if you are interested in learning more about the unique design solutions of the 150 North Riverside Building this video by Stewart Hicks is a great watch.

Goettsch Partners, with Jim Goettsch, Joachim Schuessler, and Erik Harris as the lead architect, was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design.

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 here is a list of the people we do know also played their part in making the 150 North Riverside Building a reality:

• Magnusson Klemencic Associates in charge of Structural Engineering
• Clark Construction as the Main Contractor
• Permasteelisa Group in charge of Facade Consultancy
• Schindler as the company in charge of the elevators system
• Riverside Investment & Development as the Main Developer
• Cosentini Associates in charge of MEP Engineering
• Wolff Landscape Architecture in charge of Landscape Architecture

The 150 North Riverside Building can be categorized as a Contemporary building.

That being said, and even thought being a contemporary building, probably taking advantage of modern materials, construction techniques, and technology, the design of the 150 North Riverside Building is inspired by the international-style style.

By today's standards the 150 North Riverside Building could probably be classified as a "high-tech" or "eco" building. Only time will tell if any of these substyles will grow and stick onto the history books, or if perhaps it will become a substyle of a larger style. Only time will tell. Until then, we believe it's best to refer to the 150 North Riverside Building as a contemporary building.

The 150 North Riverside Building uses a framed tube-in-tube structure , with steel and concrete columns and concrete slabs.

A framed tube-in-tube structure uses a central core, known as inner tube, which usually holds stairs, lifts and installations, and a perimeter of columns around it, which form the exterior tube. The interior tube is tipically more massive (often made of reinforced concrete), and the exterior tube is "lighter" (made of steel or concrete columns). Both tubes are conencted via horizontal elements which make up the floors and also transmit any horizontal froces from the facade to the core.

The facade employs a non-load bearing curtain wall system. This means the curtain wall modules are anchored to the building's structural frame at the edges of the floor slabs. The perimeter columns are set back slightly from the facade, allowing them to remain independent of the curtain wall system.

This configuration enables a completely free design of the curtain wall, unencumbered by structural elements, thus providing greater flexibility in aesthetic choices and maximizing the visual impact of the exterior.

At its core lies a robust concrete spine, housing the elevator core and efficiently transferring the load of the upper floors down to the foundation. Extending over 36 meters below grade level and anchored 1.5 meters into Chicago's bedrock, the caissons provide a secure foundation, crucial for stability in the city's swampy soil.

This innovative structural solution, combined with the magnitude of the forces generated by the building's weight, necessitated the construction of the largest I-beams ever made, weighing 450 kg per every 30 centimeters of length.

Another structural decision was to include a water-tuned mass damper on the top floor, which helps balance the building against horizontal forces such as wind

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a highly energy-efficient glass curtain wall system. Each module from the curtain wall is divided into two panes, both fixed. First, a large floor-to-ceiling glass pane, followed by a smaller one above to cover the technical ceiling and concrete floor slab.

Towards the top, the building features a series of setbacks at different heights and on both its longer and shorter sides.