The Huntington Bank Tower is a Contemporary skyscraper designed by Neumann/Smith Architecture, and built between 2019 and 2022, for a reported $104 thousand dollars, in Detroit, MI.
Huntington Bank Tower is not the only name you might know this building by though. The building is, or has also been known as Huntington Tower.
Its precise street address is 2025 Woodward Ave &, E Elizabeth St, Detroit, MI. You can also find it on the map here.
Neumann/Smith Architecture 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 at the very least we know that there was one other part involved, that was GPC Adams LLC as the Main Developer.
The Huntington Bank Tower 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.
That being said, and even thought being a contemporary building, probably taking advantage of modern materials, construction techniques, and technology, the design of the Huntington Bank Tower is inspired by the postmodernism style.
The Huntington Bank Tower reaches an architectural height of 312ft (95m). It has a total of 21 floors, which combined offer a total of 427,004 sqf (39,670m2) of usable space.
Ever since opening its doors to the public in 2022, the Huntington Bank Tower has been a mixed use building. It incorporates 2 main uses, which are commercial, and parking spaces.
The Huntington Bank Tower uses a frame structure made of reinforced 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 dark blue-colored curtain. On the first 11 floors, which are dedicated to the parking, the curtain wall is hidden by sections of perforated metal sheets, which help hide the necessary ventilation. On the top 9 floors, dedicated mainly to office space, the curtain wall goes uninterrupted.
At night the building is illuminated in green, as it is the Huntington Bank's brand color.
