300 North LaSalle Building

The 300 North LaSalle Building is a Contemporary skyscraper designed by Pickard Chilton, in association with Kendall/Heaton Associates, and built between 2006 and 2008, for a reported $480 million dollars, in Chicago, IL.

Its precise street address is 300 North LaSalle, Chicago, IL. You can also find it on the map here.

The 300 North LaSalle Building has received multiple architecture awards for its architectural design since 2008. The following is a list of such prizes and awards:

• Honor Award AIA Connecticut in 2012
• Architectural Record's Good Design is Good Business Award in 2011
• Award for Excellence from the Urban Land Institute in 2011
• Crain’s Commercial Real Estate Awards in 2010
• The Best New Office Building Award Friends of Downtown Chicago in 2010
• Green Good Design Award in 2010
• Green Development of the Year award (NAIOP) in 2010
• Office Development of the Year award (NAIOP) in 2010

Instead of relying on domestic water, the building's cooling system uses river water as the condenser water for the HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system. This approach eliminates the need for rooftop cooling towers and reduces dependence on domestic water sources.

Pickard Chilton was the architecture firm in charge of the architectural design, in association with Kendall/Heaton Associates.

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 300 North LaSalle Building a reality:

• Magnusson Klemencic Associates in charge of Structural Engineering
• Clark Construction as the Main Contractor
• Permasteelisa Group in charge of Facade Consultancy
• KONE as the company in charge of the elevators system
• Hines as the Main Developer
• Alvine Engineering in charge of MEP Engineering
• Wolff Landscape Architecture in charge of Landscape Architecture

The 300 North LaSalle 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 300 North LaSalle Building is inspired by the international-style style.

The 300 North LaSalle Building uses a framed tube-in-tube structure , with Steel 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.

From an aesthetic point of view, the facade features a continuous glass and stainless steel curtain wall. Although the perimeter pillars are located inside the facade, they are visually represented as mullions running from the top to the bottom of the building, organizing the facade into eight bays on the long side. On the short side, the facade is divided into three sections, with the center section recessed from the other two.