The Atwater Apartments Building is a Contemporary skyscraper designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz, and built between 2007 and 2009, for a reported $150 million dollars, in Chicago, IL.
Its precise street address is 355 East Ohio Street, Chicago, IL. You can also find it on the map here.
The building underwent a major restoration in 2015.
Solomon Cordwell Buenz 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 Atwater Apartments Building a reality:
The Atwater Apartments 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 Atwater Apartments Building reaches an architectural height of 554ft (169m). It has a total of 53 floors.
In regards to parking space, the building has a total of 401 spots available, which roughly equals 8 spots per floor (above ground).
Ever since opening its doors to the public in 2009, the Atwater Apartments Building has mainly been used as Residential space.
The Atwater Apartments Building has a total of 480 residential units throughout its 53 floors. If you are interested in learning more about the residences and their availability, you can check the Atwater Apartments Building's website.
The Atwater Apartments Building uses a frame structure made of concrete columns and beams.
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 green-tinted glass curtain wall that emphasizes each floor's slab by representing it with a lighter element. Balconies are also embedded into the volume oft he tower.
