Heritage Plaza vs Williams Tower

Comparing the Heritage Plaza and the Williams Tower is interesting because they both stand in Houston, TX, and were completed within 4 years of each other, but they were designed by different architects.

This offers a unique glimpse at how rival designers approached projects in the same city during the same era.

The Williams Tower is clearly the larger tower of the two, both in terms of height and number of floors. It rises to 902ft (275m) with 64 floors above ground, while the Heritage Plaza reaches 761ft (232m) with 53 floors above ground.

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 Heritage Plaza and the Williams Tower were designed in line with the aesthetic conventions of the Postmodernism style.

At the time, this style was at the height of its popularity. So both M. Nasr & Partners and Johnson/Burgee Architects followed what was in many ways expected of them, producing designs that fit comfortably within contemporary architectural norms, rather than breaking with convention.

Both the Heritage Plaza and the Williams Tower were designed to serve as commercial towers, and that has remained their main use since their completion, serving similar roles in the urban fabric.

Both towers provide significant parking capacity, with Heritage Plaza offering 808 spaces and the Williams Tower offering 3280.

The two towers rely on different structural systems, reflecting distinct engineering strategies.

The Heritage Plaza uses a Trussed Frame structural system, which uses diagonal bracing in addition to beams and columns for stability, while the Williams Tower uses a Frame system, that relies on a regular grid of columns and beams to sustain its weight.

Yet, when it comes to their facade, they both employed the same solution, 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.