Atwater Apartments Building vs Salesforce Tower

Comparing the Atwater Apartments Building and the Salesforce Tower is interesting because they both rise in Chicago, IL, yet they were conceived by two different design teams, Solomon Cordwell Buenz and Pelli Clark & Partners, and were completed at different points in time. They were finished more than a decade apart.

This contrast within the same city allows us to see how different creative minds interpreted the evolving needs of Chicago across time.

Let's take a closer look!

The Salesforce Tower is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 817ft (249m) with 57 floors above ground, while the Atwater Apartments Building reaches 554ft (169m) with 53 floors above ground.

Salesforce Tower also offers more total built-up area, a total fo 1,449,994 sqf (134,709m²), which is about 683,002 sqf (63,453m²) more than what the Atwater Apartments Building offers.

Of course, each project may have faced different briefs or regulatory constraints, which we don't really know about and could also explain the outcome.

Both the Atwater Apartments Building and the Salesforce Tower were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the Contemporary style.

At the time, this style was at the height of its popularity. So both Solomon Cordwell Buenz and Pelli Clark & Partners followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

The Atwater Apartments Building is primarily residential, while the Salesforce Tower is primarily commercial.

The Atwater Apartments Building offers 480 residential units.

The Atwater Apartments Building also provides 401 parking spaces.

Both the Atwater Apartments Building and the Salesforce Tower rely on a Frame structural system.

A frame structure uses a grid of columns and beams to carry the building's loads. This frees the walls from structural duties, allowing for flexible floor plans and larger windows.

They also employ the same type of facade, a Curtain Wall facade.

A curtain wall is a non-load-bearing facade hung from the structural frame. It is anchored to floor slabs and transfers only its own weight and wind loads, allowing for sleek, glassy exteriors.