Mixed-Use Tower on the Chicago River

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I g n a s i G u t i 茅 r r e z i F o n t c u b e r t a 路 E T S A B N o v e m b e r 2 0 11 路 G r a d u a t e d w i t h H o n o r s

MIXED-USE TOWER ON THE CHICAGO RIVER 路 Master Thesis (PFC)

ESCOLA TÉCNICA SUPERIOR D’ARQUITECTURA DE BARCELONA MASTER THESIS · NOVEMBER 2011 · GRADUATED WITH HONORS www.ignasigf.com

MARINA CITY. Envisioning the Future Chicago Modern. ARCH 497-10 IIT Spring Semester 2010 prof. David Goodman

INTRODUCTION After World War II Chicago’s downtown, like most American cities, was suffering the economical, social and cultural consequences of the government’s policies to move people to the suburbs. The first ones were being vacated at the same pace the others were rapidly sprawling. The result of this was the configuration of what, still now, seems the ideal American dream life: single house+garden+car. Advanced in his time, Bertrand Goldberg envisioned a different type of city, and spent most of his career trying to rejuvenate the cities with his convincements on density and community.

Marina City, Raymond Hilliard and River City are only some of his numerous works that tried to change the way of understanding the city; in this case, the city of Chicago.

the issue of urbanism. As he said: “The role of the city in society had not really been apparent to me. It wasn’t until some time in the fifties that I met [William] Zeckendorf in New York. I mean, he put his mouth where his money was. Zeckendorf had enormous investments in the city. That was his business. But he also understood what made the city a money machine. He understood what people did in the city that caused them to make money for realtors in the city. I became sort of interested in another aspect of architecture—not interested alone in architecture as a series of individual projects. Somebody would come in and want a house in the country— okay, I’m doing a house in the country. Somebody wants a house in the city—okay, I’m doing a house in the city.

But to see how those various projects began to influence other people’s lives, who weren’t our clients necessarily, became a matter of interest to me, so I really became immersed in this thing called urbanism.”

50 years later his ideas are still alive and up-to-date.

Where are our cities going and how much have we advanced since then?

BERTRAND GOLDBERG Bertrand Goldberg was born in Chicago in 1913. Between 1930 and 1936 he studied architecture in different architecture schools such as Cambridge School of Landscape Architecture (nowadays part of Harvard University), Berlin’s Bauhaus (city where he worked for a while in Mies van der Rohe’s studio) and the Armour Institute of Technology (nowadays the Illinois Institute of Technology) in Chicago.

In 1932 he had to leave Berlin. It was a moment when he felt really architecturally linked to the Bauhaus style.

He considered it a school not only worried to build churches, office buildings or houses for rich people, but a school that was looking for something else. This “something else” was what he tried to explore during his whole career.

Even though Goldberg lived and built from his beginnings in the city of Chicago, it wasn’t until he met William Zeckendorf in New York that he developed an interest for

Bertrand Goldberg presenting Marina City’s complex

However, not only the economic factors made the architect approach projects such as how he did in Marina City; the social aspects of the city were one of his major concerns. He never considered density a problem, instead he thought of it as an opportunity to give solution to the contemporary situation in which the government was prompting people to move to the city suburbs. During World War II Chicago’s density grew considerably, but after that, many people decided to leave the city center and go to the suburbs.

It was under these circumstances that Bertrand Goldberg decided to change the relation between society and city.

HISTORY Chicago after World War II The coming of peace in 1945 brought with it special problems for Chicago. Not only did the end of the conflict bring back memories of the prewar depression with its unemployment and want, but it also conjured up the scenes of readjustment and disorder that had followed World War I. Actually, the postwar years brought prosperity and not depression. For over two decades the nation’s economy expanded. Unemployment, except for briefs periods, was modest, and personal incomes rose continually. Ironically, however, the character of postwar growth magnified the city’s problems. Most of the new metropolitan development took place outside of the old municipal limits; the suburban expansion drew away many of Chicago’s substantial taxpayers and even the commercial and industrial base of the city dwindled as more and more firms located establishments in the surrounding areas.

suburban interests, denied to local officials the power to collect additional monies. Relatively little help was forthcoming from federal government until the mid-sixties.

It was these facts that generated a pervasive pessimism about urban prospects.

Since World War II the Federal government “(…) had invested for every person who lived in the suburbs or who lived outside the cities more than $3,000, in contrast to a figure of about $85 for every person who lived in the city.”

While the suburbs flourished, the city languished; while new shopping centers sprouted up around the municipal boundaries, not a single major building went up downtown. Housing starts rose only modestly in Chicago, but construction could scarcely keep up with the constant demand for new homes in the surrounding communities.

The census told a large part of the story. By 1950 the metropolitan population reached nearly 5,600,000; yet in Chicago’s 3,600,000 represented only a 6.6 percent gain over 1940. By 1960 the figures of 6,800,000 and 3,500,000 indicated a further relative city decline and an absolute drop over the previous count.

After a survey of inner-city housing needs conducted by the Real Estate Research Corporation in 1959 concluded that the demand for apartment space within walking distance of the City’s Loop would swell, Goldberg began his crusade for the reconquest of the city.

Advert promoting life in the suburbs after World War II

Diagram showing the apparition of suburbs during the 1950’s

The flight to the suburbs But if the city’s financial resources were smaller, its responsibilities were larger. As older middle-class residents left for the suburbs, low-income newcomers took their place. These people not only had fewer resources, they also had greater problems. Hence, the city had to do more than before in relation to housing, education, and welfare, but with less money. Moreover, Chicago remained the center of the expanding metropolis and was expected to provide the additional services for and everburgeoning population that lived outside its boundaries but which contributed little to its public revenue.

Chicago, of course, was only facing the same set of problems that afflicted every major metropolis. Central cities, fringed by suburbs, could no longer expand; indeed, the census of 1960 revealed that most of the larger places actually lost population in a period of enormous metropolitan growth. In addition, they all had an aging urban plant that needed renewal, if not replacement. To compound their problems cities were restricted in raising revenue. State legislatures, dominated by rural and

CITY

DENSITY

“Men come together in the city to live; they remain there in order to live the good life.”

“Astronomers recently have found in our heavens the form that stars take as they grow older. They become smaller and as they shrink in size they become denser with enormous increase of energy. I believe this is what is happening to our cities as they grow older.”

Aristotle

What is a city?

The city is that meeting place needed by men where they can freely come and go generating by their movements the material growth and human experience that are the life-support of the city. This sense of movement is inherent in the city and it is in contrast to the settlement to the village.

Men have, in every known culture, built some kind of city or some center of human movement. But, what are the rules of planning for a city today? Are cities artificially man-made, or do they configure themselves as an expression of our way of life?

Why do we need cities?

Employment? For the last 30 years new forms of work oriented around electronics and computers have appeared and do not require the urban concentration of the city. Why persist then in believing in the city as a moral and spiritual value? Goldberg said: “(…) people need to communicate personally with each other. This is a primitive instinct which architecture must understand, even if governments don’t always understand (…) for communication makes community.” Urbanism was for him simply a description of the way people came together; a very natural way for people to came together. “Traditionally and historically people have always come together. Even when they go to the suburbs they ultimately form cities.”

Bertrand Goldberg believed in cities, and density was the answer and not the problem.

Bertrand Goldberg. 1984

A city cannot get a critical mass of energy without social interchange and a regeneration of sociological activity.

And this is not possible until you get enough people.

At the end of World War II, with the flight to the suburbs, Chicago had too few people to support itself, due to either a lack of interaction or to a lack of money.

ronment for new family types. The combination of these political, economic and social points had to be enhanced with the element of concern for life that he called humanism.

The first urban objective (political) is to keep our cities viable. After the flight to the suburbs there was the need to bring back to the city (and keep them happy) a larger group of tax-paying middle-income people. To make that possible the city government had to deliver the economic, social and cultural promises that they had made.

In 1979 Congressman Henry Reuss described in a speech the urban policy goals of the United States. “The role of the city as the great conservator of land, energy and resources can be enhanced by city planning to encourage homes within walking, bicycling or short commuting distances of work places, shopping and recreation… by population shifts to bring… middle class people back to the city in which they work: by zoning reform making for a mix of homes, jobs and shops.”

Even in the 1960’s, American industrial cities maintained separate locations for living, working, recreation, and culture. These separate zones were meant to decrease the density of the residential environment. This led to urban sprawl, transportation problems, and the high cost of distribution for energy and city services.

Contrary to the urban planning tendency, which favored the suburbs and decentralized the city, Bertrand Goldberg believed that urban life would only be improved by increasing the population density. Denser urban communities would allow financing public transportation, developing high-technology companies, offering an intense cultural life, and pushing the economy for the development of energy resources. High-density urban design would also reduce the costs of housing and would therefore lower rent prices.

What was then the new critical mass at which the city again could begin to function? Plato said that 20,000 people were the number that permitted a city to function with spirit and humanism.

It is clear that our concept of necessary population density must change to match our needs. But what do we need? What must our cities provide? Goldberg talked about three urgently needed changes: restore the cities’ middle-income population, reduce the cost of housing in urban centers and provide housing and living envi-

Graphic showing the needed increment of middle income people for city resources

The second objective (economical) is to reduce the cost of shelter directly and indirectly for every family and leave more income available for optional spending, the hope of almost every urban family. The high-density urbanism that Goldberg intended provided direct economies that reduced the rents of urban dwellings, lowered costs of leisure activities by including them in living centers, lowered cost of energy from conservation and concentration of distribution, lowered cost of living necessities from access to mass distribution, lowered cost of working by providing walk-to-work jobs, lowered cost of private automobiles by providing mass transportation, lowered cost of water, sewer, streets, and fire protection from concentration of housing and lowered cost of education, health care and cultural amenities by concentrating all these services.

The third objective (social) is to understand that family characteristics throughout the world have changed drastically in the past years. Already in 1982 more than 50 percent of American households were without children, and only 25 percent of families with children had two parents. Urban housing centers had now to provide more than half of their new housing for new households types with no children, children with only one parent, couples formed by unmarried singles and handicapped persons.

commuting problem, except to get downstairs to work.

There is no service problem. The high population density makes all services available, cheaply and quickly. There is no cultural problem. The community is its own culture: the museum or the concert is the guy next door (…).

There is more leisure and more ways to use it for the man who lives above the store.”

We can understand density as the number of people that creates the human fusion we call communication, which in turn establishes community. The nature of the city is to be densely populated; it is the work of the architect to make it beautiful by making it possible to create community. As Churchill said: “We shape our buildings and our buildings shape us.”

The planned community was not a new idea. There were dozen of models, from the American Greenbelt towns of the 1930’s to the British New Towns and Garden Cities, designed to relieve the congestion of crowded city centers. All of these models, however, needed massive amounts of land and were planned for undeveloped areas outside of existing densely populated urban centers.

Also Le Corbusier’s Ville Radieuse, a plan for the highrise city of apartments surrounded by and expanse of unusable, unwalkable, green grass, belonged to the concepts of organized urban society.

La Ville Radieuse. Le Corbusier

The main differences with Goldberg’s objectives were the lack of density and the separation of program. Goldberg attributed these to the fact that the building codes which created most of the American cities really were a reflection of the nineteenth century concepts developed by Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, which tended to split personalities of people into various components like work, play, love or education.

24/7 MULTIFUNCTIONAL URBAN CENTERS “Spatial urban planning must (…) be multifunctional, and as open, as mobile, as possible. Cities, if they are not to wallow in perpetual budget deficits, must function all day long, spreading their operating costs among commerce, education, housing, leisure activity and high-tech industries.”

Garden City. Ebenezer Howard

Bertrand Goldberg compared the mixed-use buildings he was proposing to “living above the store” with what many of the critical and difficult problems that were part of downtown Central City life didn’t exist. “There is no

Goldberg envisioned a “City within a City”; a 24-hour complex where different functions reinforced one another, sustained one another and even depended upon one another. A commuting population could not support the services in the complex in order to make them financially feasible; they needed a captive population to support them. As stated by Goldberg: “(…) we cannot burden either business with buildings used thirty-five hours a week or apartment buildings used only at night or on the weekends, with our tax loads. We can no longer subsidize the kind of planning that enjoys only the single-use of our expensive city utilities. In our “cities within cities” we shall turn our streets up into the air and stack the daytime and nighttime use of our land.”

According to Goldberg there was “(…) no type of specialized working unit which by itself can support the high cost of Center City, and there is no housing unit which by itself can support these costs on a part-time basis.”

Adler and Sullivan’s Auditorium Building

Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation

Other mixed-use buildings already existed: Adler and Sullivan’s Auditorium Building, which hosted a theater, hotel, restaurant, offices and commercial space, or Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation, completed in 1952, which included apartments, shops, a hotel, an open-air theater and a rooftop wading pool, all contained in a building surrounded by parkland. Marina City was one of the earliest attempts in the United States to bring a new town to the old downtown, to the heart of the city center on a small-scale. Michel Ragon described the project as “(…) the first mixed us center city complex in the United States to include housing.”

Marina City appeared in order to reduce the cost of urban shelter and to restore a sense of total living within a single structure called an “urban complex”. Marina City was the first modern complex in which the combined tenants provided 24-hour use of the facilities, seven days a week, on an urban site.

Recreation, health care, low cost housing and access to jobs were supplied within the rent for apartments. The density required to support these features was the highest in America: 635 families per acre.

The complex was a reaction against single-use zoning, which Goldberg viewed as wasteful and unsustainable.

Goldberg saw the city as synonymous with civilization, and if civilization was to survive so do its cities.

The building was built, not just as a return on investments for its developers but as an investment in city living. It was successful on both ways. In 1974, only two percent of the towers residents actually worked in the complex but 80% were within a walking distance of downtown.

Goldberg took the most urban form of architecture, the skyscraper, and put people in it.

MARINA CITY

The site was exceptional: by the river edge and really close to the Loop. It wasn’t only at an important intersection of the city, but it was also surrounded by some of the most relevant buildings of Chicago. After studying the situation of his future project, Goldberg realized that it was the place to create a city within a city, a complex that would work 24hours a day and where the different functions and activities would be reinforced between them. He didn’t think that after the war the city could afford to build offices used only 35hours a week and residences where people would only go to sleep. From these premises he dealt with the project.

In the city within a city he tried to transform the streets into vertical communications and to group business with resting and service spaces. The complex was a complete success from the beginning, what made it possible to project other complexes like Raymond Hilliard Center or River City.

“Marina City is the microcosm of the city. It is a total urban center. A total environment. It is a way for people to live and a necessity certainly if Center City is to survive.”

Bertrand Goldberg

The “Building Service Employees International Union” was the first company who believed in Goldberg’s ideas and decided to trust him with a housing project north of Chicago River.

Marina City soon after construction

Once the complex was finished there was a rather instant formation of community. On the contrary, at River City, the community formation devices that Goldberg had anticipated were never fully exploited because in the first instance there were too few people. There are only 450 families in River City compared to the almost 900 families at Marina City. It has twice the population in half the dimension. The difference of density had, in Goldberg’s words, “(…) a very distinct effect on the formation of community.”

Site plan. Marina City was to be built at plot 1

Raymond Hilliard Center

River City

Goldberg affirmed in an interview that two of his previous buildings (Pineda Island Recreation Center and Motel 66) had influenced him at the time of choosing a curvilinear design. In both cases the result of this form gave to the project a better quality and flexibility, while working structurally better. In Marina City the aerodynamic design of the towers worked better against the strong winds that characterized Chicago.

In the same interview he says: “In retrospect, the tube, which is simply a cylinder lying on its side, was an introduction to me of a new structural form. I had lost my sense of derision of Corbusier and his various sculptural forms, and I had become interested in forms other than the box and forms other than the rectangle because of their superior structural properties. Now, I have no idea whether I simply stood the tube up in the air or whether I was thinking of other things, but the economies of

a tube—the beauty of the monolithic quality of stress distribution as compared with stress concentration in a vertical box—was quite appealing to me. In the beginning I was afraid of the circle. Don’t misunderstand me—it was not in the vocabulary of the Bauhaus. It was not in the vocabulary of Mies. The so-called classical perfection of Mies’s rectilinear line and his rectilinear cubist design life was a very impressive thing. Certainly I was under that influence, and I desired ultimately to achieve that kind of platonic perfection that one can very easily attribute to a Miesian building. But nevertheless, I was sort of flirting, if you will, with other forms.”

centers. Wits this Bertrand Goldberg showed his new way of thinking the residential buildings.

One of the elements that characterize the complex and that gave it its name is the marina that allows accessing the towers from the river.

Besides the marina, five other buildings were proposed: a two stories commercial building, a sixteen stories office building, a theater and two sixty stories towers, each of them with 450 apartments and 450 parking spaces.

ger in the same level, but in different ones.

All the activities can be found in different levels and the section is the one in charge of structuring the complex as a whole. The users do not access from the lowest point, they have a free level that lets them go up or down depending on their needs.

The plan that traditionally has been determined by the lowest floor and that, until now, has been the point of union between the street and the building, has now been rotated 90º and changes from an horizontal plan to an organized section.

The relations between the parts are established from this section that unifies the different elements. In the section we can perceive the common services area, which is used as a separation between the parking area and the apartments. In the office building there are established connections between the roof and the lower plans where the concrete columns cross the commercial zone and arrive to the ground level.

Bertrand Goldberg’s design gives to the complex a feeling of spaciousness to the little and packed complex in which each space seems defying gravity and wanting to elevate. The plaza, for example, flows over the water and dematerializes thanks to the restaurant’s façade.

The marina is in the lower level and just over it we can find the commercial services for residents and visitors, a restaurant, gym and the access to the towers. The architect planned this base as a street for the new community.

Initial proposal

Initially the project consisted of two prismatic and compact towers of 40 stories each and a base with the common services. The architect realized that the squared plans would work worse against the horizontal forces and that the resultant volume would be excessive and would change the river’s image too much. He then decided to change the towers’ plan to a circular one. Bertrand Goldberg knew with whom he was dealing with and, even having varied the initial shape, he decided not to show the circular towers before the project was approved. That same image appeared in the papers and it was not until a year later, with everything assured that the architect showed the new formalization of the complex.

Marina City was one of the most innovative complexes of the time. Other buildings with variety of uses had already appeared, but those were usually found outside the city

Marina City. Main section

From Bertrand Goldberg’s project we must emphasize the importance that the section has in order for the complex to work. There is a vertical segregation model in which the exchange between city and building is no lon-

Marina City during construction

The tower’s cylindrical concrete cores were used during the construction process as the structural supports for the residential floors. The apartments were designed in projection from these cores, where the elevators, stairs and mechanical systems were situated. When the towers were finished, the core still supported 50% of the vertical forces and 70% of the horizontal ones, letting the rest to the perimeter columns.

The architect’s intention was for the residents to be able to work near their residences. From the beginning one of the premises was to build a complex that would work 24hours a day, so it needed working spaces. He situated the office building at the north of the site. Nowadays it holds a hotel and a restaurant.

natural exterior light.

Because of the shape and the dimensions of the balconies, these are prepared to extend the livable area of the residences. Also the fact that the residential area starts at the twentieth floor helps giving the residents a feeling of flying over the city of Chicago.

Marina City’s apartments were the main element and the nexus of the entire built complex. It was where the residents lived, from where they went to work, to buy, to use the common services or to enjoy the theater or the ice-skating ring. That was the piece in which the architect had to study more in depth, and the key to the complex success.

45th Floor Balcony. Marina City

In the early sixties, in a city like Chicago, it wasn’t common too see these types of apartments. The studios, nowadays so usual, weren’t considered appropriate to fit the traditional American family model. The architect had to convince those who questioned the functionality of an apartment different to the traditional one.

Marina City’s Complex Plan with the Office Building, the Theater, the Plaza and the Apartment Towers.

Views of the Marina, the Ice-Skating Ring, the Offices, the Bowling and the Theater.

Initial proposal

Between the two towers we can find the theater, nowadays the House of Blues. It is a small building with an unusual and innovative design and a mixed structure of metallic frames and concrete curved beams. Goldberg was looking for a contrast with the towers and to show the human scale of the project, for what he situated in the plaza access point.

Once Goldberg made-up his mind, and projected the circular plan, he had to determine the number of subdivisions. He used the Japanese Lotus scheme of 16 divisions. Each of the apartment stories is divided in studios of one unit and apartments of one or two bedrooms.

75% of the apartments are studios of one unit, which correspond to one of the flower’s petals. 15% have one bedroom and correspond to a petal and a half, while the 10% left have two bedrooms and occupy two petals and a half.

The petal’s form, which opens to the exterior while it distances from the central core, configures a space with an access through a narrow and dark area that opens to the

Marina City wasn’t being questioned only for its spatial conception but also for the kind of families who were supposed to use its apartments. Goldberg had designed the residences for an unconventional family unit. Society had evolved and architecture had to evolve with it. There were different kinds of families and it was necessary to offer different possibilities.

With this project Bertrand Goldberg wanted to promote the use of the minimum housing unit. The intent of the author was to create spaces that were within the code compliance and, at the same time, would be of high quality. He did it.

CONCLUSIONS Cities have long been an essential part of our life.

Even 50 years later, there is still a need to question where we, architects, are pointing. Furthermore, up to what point we are really willing to support our cities.

Bertrand Goldberg set-up a milestone: he was able to envision and build a whole new concept of the city inside the existing and, at the time, diminished, downtown of Chicago. Marina City was a turning point on residential architecture, a mixed-use complex in the center of the city that proclaimed a more modern life style. It was considered a change in the way of understanding the “way of life”. At the least, Goldberg achieved to raise a question about the need to rejuvenate the cities and bring people back in from the suburbs. It may be that his ideas created certain controversy, but he gave the concept of the city a whole new perspective.

The improvements to life style were uncountable. He took advantage of new technologies that would benefit the building and users as a whole. With the use of reinforced concrete, he built the highest residential building made entirely of concrete. Thanks to the flexibility of the concrete, he was able to configure a building that stood in better position against the strong winds. The mechanical and electrical systems

BIBLIOGRAPHY Interview.

“Oral History of Bertrand Goldberg”

by Betty J. Blum Books.

“Goldberg, Dans La Ville” Michel Ragon “The Chicago School of Architecture” Carl Condit “The Biography of Chicago’s Marina City” Steven Dahlman www.marinacityonline.com “AIA Guide to Chicago” Wim de Wit

could be controlled from individual units. The balconies maximized the entrance of sunlight and created spaces that were useful at the same time that they protected the glass windows from strong winds. This is especially important considering the location, not only the city of Chicago, but also the edge of the water. The apartment units were based on the minimum necessities, also taking a step towards what modern family units are more alike now days. At that precise moment it seemed that cities weren’t a place to live, but a place to work. There weren’t enough residential buildings, and offices occupied almost all the city centers for what there was an important lack of services in them. Goldberg showed that it didn’t need to be this way by building a complex that would incorporate the needs and services required to live in it.

In other words, the architect carefully considered and analyzed the needs not only of the city as a physical place, but also of the residents that configure and live and use daily the cities. After all, cities are the symbols of humanism and our civilization.

Today, concepts seem to flow back and forth, While more and more buildings are being built that have a similar concept behind, the American suburbs still configure a great portion of the city’s extensions. Today, we are still amazed, when mixed-use buildings appear in our cities. However, we still drive our cars, live outside, and work downtown…

“Masterpieces of Chicago Architecture” John Zukowsky

“Bertrand Goldberg and the Legacy of 1945” Lori Hanna Boyer

Speeches and Writings.

“Marina City 24/7: The New New Town” Jeanne Lambin

“Marina City Lecture I” Edmonton, September 27th of 1959 Bertrand Goldberg “Marina City Lecture II” Aspen, June 28th of 1962 Bertrand Goldberg “The Critical Mass of Urbanism” Bertrand Goldberg “Rich Is Right” Bertrand Goldberg Articles.

“Architects on Architecture. New Directions in America” Paul Heyer

“Goldberg: On the City” Michel Ragon

“Chicago: Growth of a Metropolis” Harold M. Mayer

“Bertrand Goldberg: A Personal View of Architecture” Geoff Goldberg

“Conveyors Handle Concrete at Marina City” J. Foster Oury “El futuro del rascacielos. Marina City” Fuensanta Nieto y Enrique Sobejano Websites. www.bertrandgoldberg.org www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/research/specialcollections/goldberg www.jetsetmodern.com/marinacity.htm www.chicagocarless.com/2006/02/07/marina-city-a-love-hate-relationship lynnbecker.com/repeat/hobpaint/hobpaint.htm www.marinacityonline.com

Prof. Jordi Ros, Isabel Bachs

E T S A B N o v e m b e r 2 0 11

MIXED-USE TOWER ON THE CHICAGO RIVER

“Astronomers recently have found in our heavens the form that stars take as they grow older. They become smaller and as they shrink in size they become denser with enormous increase of energy. I believe this is what is happening to our cities as they grow older.”

Bertrand Golfberg. Chicago 1984

PROGRAMA, CIUDAD Y DENSIDAD En la situación actual de crisis económica no parece adecuado diseñar un edificio de oficinas que vaya a funcionar 40 horas a la

RESPUESTAS, PLANTA Y SECCIÓN De la misma manera en que el proyecto intenta dar respuesta a las necesidades programáticas del lugar, éste también procura res-

semana o un edificio de viviendas que se use simplemente por la noche y los fines

ponder a su entorno y situación, procurando adecuarse al contexto urbano y al clima

de semana. Este proyecto nace con la voluntad de crear un nuevo punto de densi-

de Chicago para conseguir el máximo comfort de sus usuarios. Después de varios

dad en la ciudad de Chicago que funcione 24 horas al día y en el que sus distintas

estudios de radiación solar, viento y vistas se prosigue con una planta cuadrada

funciones se refuercen, se sostengan e incluso dependan las unas de las otras.

girada 45º respeto el Norte para obtener orientaciones mixtas y evitar obstáculos

Cogiendo como referencia el concepto “A City Within A City” que Bertrand Goldberg

visuales en cada una de las fachadas.

creó en Marina City, el proyecto no solo trata de dar servicio a los inquilinos del

Con el propósito de conseguir iluminación y ventilación natural en cualquier punto

rascacielos sino que pretende crear un nuevo foco de atracción para el resto de la

de la torre, ésta incluye un atrio central en el que habitan las comunicaciones verti-

ciudad.

cales y por donde se distribuye la luz y el aire que entra por las plantas técnicas y

Con el fin de que el programa de la torre responda a su entorno se procede a hacer

las terrazas comunitarias.

un exhaustivo análisis urbanístico y programático de la zona en la que se ubicaría

La planta tipo está formada por 7 anillos concéntricos.

-el paseo fluvial de Chicago, a pocos bloques de la desembocadura en el lago Mi-

De interior a exterior: 1 muro estructural de hormigón armado 2 pasillo distribuidor 3

chigan- que destaca por la gran cantidad de oficinas, apartamentos de lujo y uni-

cerramiento practicable 4 instalaciones 5 pilares estructurales de hormigón armado

versidades que agrupa, pero también por la inexistencia de servicios y viviendas

6 primera piel exterior: cerramiento replegable 7 segunda piel exterior: lamas estan-

sociales.

cas orientables.

Finalmente, el edificio se diseña con una base y tres sectores que incluyen servicios

La fachada de la torre –y de la base– se construye con un módulo de 2x3.5m y 2 va-

públicos, hotel y vivienda.

riaciones (1x3,5m y 2x3,5m). Dependiendo del programa y la ubicación cambian los

· La base del edificio incluye servicios abiertos tanto a los residentes y los clientes

componentes de cada módulo (vidrio fijo, vidrio practicable, lamas simples, lamas

del hotel, como a los potenciales usuarios del barrio o visitantes. Ésta no solo da

estancas, lamas con fotovoltaicas integradas,…). Con el fin de adaptarse al extremo

servicio a la torre y a la ciudad con su programa sino que además ayuda a regular

clima de Chicago (30º en verano y -10º en invierno) la fachada consiste en una do-

las distintas entradas para los distintos tipos de usuarios a través de sus dos plantas

ble piel de vidrio con múltiples posibles funciones y posiciones que, dependiendo

principales, que la conectan con la calle principal, la calle de servicio y el paseo

de la época del año o de la hora del día, pueden abrirse o cerrarse para acumular o

fluvial.

disipar calor, ventilar y relacionarse, en mayor o menor medida, con el exterior.

· El primer sector de la torre constituye el hotel e incluye servicios auxiliares propios

Las unidades tipo, en los 3 sectores de la torre, están modulados de tal forma que

como terrazas privadas, salas de reuniones, zonas de lectura, etc.

permiten infinidad de variaciones adaptables a cada uno de sus usuarios, depen-

· El segundo corresponde a pequeños estudios para estudiantes y jóvenes profesio-

diendo de sus necesidades y/o preferencias.

nales con terrazas comunitarias y servicios auxiliares propios como salas de audiovisuales, lavandería, sala de fiestas, sala informática, zonas de trabajo, talleres, etc. · El tercero y último consta de apartamentos destinados a familias y a gente mayor, incluyendo también terrazas comunitarias y servicios auxiliares propios como una sala de proyecciones, zona de lectura, ludoteca, guardería, etc.

S E C T O R 3 . A PA R TA M E N T S Famílies + 3a Edat Habitatges de 2/3 mòduls T E R R A S S A C O M U N I TÀ R I A SERVEIS AUXILIARS Sala de projeccions Sala de lectura Ludoteca Guarderia

SECTOR 2. ESTUDIS Estudiants + Joves Professionals Habitatges d’1 mòdul Pisos compartits de 2 mòduls T E R R A S S A C O M U N I TÀ R I A SERVEIS AUXILIARS Sala d’audiovisuals Sala de treball Sala de festes Bugaderia

SECTOR 1. HOTEL Boutique hotel Habitacions d’1 mòdul Suites de 2 mòduls T E R R A S S A P R I VA D A SERVEIS AUXILIARS Sala d’audiovisuals Sala de reunions Sala d’esmorzars privats

SÒCOL DE SERVEIS P6. Aules i tallers

Sala polivalent P5.

Recepció gimnàs

Oficina gimnàs

Lounge/Zona descans Perruqueria

Fisioteràpia i nutrició P4. Gimnàs Ve s t u a r i s Piscines Solàrium P3.

Oficines residencials

Ve s t u a r i s p e r s o n a l Bugaderia

Instal·lacions piscines P2. Restaurant

Cuina Restaurant Te r r a s s a / B a r

Oficines hotel P1.

Lobby hotel Consigna

Zona exposicions

Lounge/Bar hotel

Lobby residencial Correus

Botiga 24H P0. Supermercat Cafeteria

P. B i c i c l e t e s

Zona càrrega i descàrrega P-1. Pàrquing P-2. Pàrquing

SECTOR 1. HOTEL Boutique hotel

SECTOR 2. ESTUDIS Estudiants + Joves Professionals

S E C T O R 3 . A PA R TA M E N T S FamĂ­lies + 3a Edat

SECTOR 1. HOTEL Boutique hotel

SECTOR 2. ESTUDIS Estudiants + Joves Professionals

S E C T O R 3 . A PA R TA M E N T S FamĂ­lies + 3a Edat

SECTOR 2. ESTUDIS Estudiants + Joves Professionals

S E C T O R 3 . A PA R TA M E N T S FamĂ­lies + 3a Edat

Ignasi GutiĂŠrrez i Fontcuberta MASTE R THESIS. NOV2011 ignasi.gf@gmail.com www.ignasigf.com