Aqua Makes Waves with Design

Aqua, a condominium announced for Chicago, is causing ripples with its distinctive design.

The tower's outdoor balconies and terraces form undulating contours that give the 82-story building the appearance of rippling water.

The structure's design will be highlighted when contrasted against neighboring structures with angular designs.

The architect is Jeanne Gang, chief of Chicago-based Studio Gang Architects, and the project was announced for Lakeshore East, the multibuilding condominium and apartment project in East Chicago.

Aqua will feature studios, convertibles, and one-, two- and three-bedroom residences. Units range from 573 to 1,982 sq. ft. and are priced from $261,000.
In addition, a limited number of penthouses are planned for the top floors.

The tower will have condominiums from the top to the 53rd floor, apartments from the 52nd level to the 19th and hotel rooms below.

The building also will include five stories of parking below Columbus Drive and more than 36,000 sq. ft. of first and second floor retail that will connect to the underground pedway system.

Amenities include an 80,000-sq.-ft. deck with gardens, gazebos, pools and cabanas, hot tubs, running track, fire pit and grills.

Indoors, a 35,000-sq.-ft. amenity floor will provide fitness facilities, indoor lap pool, spa, private party suite with catering kitchen, coffee bar and lounge, wine room, media room, billiards and game area, business center, Internet café, library, skygarden and concierge services.

Aqua is the seventh high-rise at Magellan Development Group's Lakeshore East, projected to bring 4,950 new residences to downtown Chicago's lakefront.

Europe's Tallest Building To Have Chicago Pedigree

Chicago-based Halvorson and Partners is collaborating with London-based Foster and Partners in developing the structural concept for the new 2000-ft.-tall Moscow City Tower.

The 118-story structure is expected to be Europe's tallest structure.

It will incorporate offices, hotel, retail and residential functions, and the total floor area is approximately 5,600,000 sq. ft.

The tower will incorporate a new structural concept termed a "braced spine" building.

"The structure will employ a stiff spine running vertically upwards in the center of the building," said Robert Halvorson, principal of Halvorson and Partners. "This spine is stabilized by sloped columns that form braces to prop the spine against lateral wind forces.

"The structure will be composite in that it employs both steel and concrete-steel for long-span floor framing and concrete for the cores and fan columns. This structural concept allows the highly efficient, distinctive geometry to be achieved very efficiently."
Halvorson and Partners is a 30-person structural engineering design firm headquartered in Chicago with a branch office in Atlanta.

Milwaukee Highway Leg Honored for Engineering

Milwaukee Transportation Partners, a joint effort of CH2M Hill and HNTB Corp., has received an honor for the West Leg of the city's Marquette Interchange reconstruction.

The project received the Grand Award in the 2006 Engineering Excellence Awards competition from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Wisconsin.

The Marquette Interchange is the most complex transportation project undertaken in Wisconsin since the late 1960s. The project will replace a four-level system interchange downtown with a five-level interchange at the junction of Interstate 94, Interstate 43 and Interstate 794.

The project involves the extensive reconstruction of the interchange, which is almost entirely elevated.

Innovative project design methods included using a lane rental program that allots contractors a specific amount of hours for lane or ramp closures and top-down contracted secant pile retaining walls designed to hold back groundwater.

In addition, retaining walls were constructed to minimize the need for temporary walls by using cast in place and precast concrete facing panels to provide a uniform aesthetic appearance despite different types of structural wall systems.

"I ranked this project high due to its size, its complexity, the steel box girders, the firm's ability to keep traffic moving during construction, and how the firm exceeded its DBE goals," said judge Bill Stark of the Federal Highway Administration.

Architecture Integrated with Chihuly Glass Exhibit

Indianapolis-based Ratio Architects led the design efforts during the recent installation of renowned artist Dale Chihuly's Fireworks of Glass at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis.

The installation is comprised of more than 3,200 individually blown glass pieces.

The design team installed a glass display ceiling and the glass tower sculpture in the multi-level center space of the five-story central core ramp.

The project required alteration of the central core ramp area. This allowed for new structural framing, lighting and an interpretive exhibit area at the Lower Level.

The Fireworks of Glass floating ceiling was designed using a cruciform plan configuration supported from the existing ramp structure without columns to the lower level. The ceiling is made of brilliant, colorful glass pieces in a myriad of shapes including exotic-named pieces such as Sea Tubes, Hornballs, Persians and Putti.

Below the colorful ceiling, Ratio and the Children's Museum exhibit designers created a place where children and their families will be able to take part in an innovative hands-on glassblowing exhibit. The permanent interactive exhibit area features learning stations where visitors can create their own sculptures from a wide variety of colorful, molded glass-like shapes called polyvitro.

Family-sized benches, surrounded by computer touch screens, will accommodate families as they blow their own virtual glass art piece. Visitors can also view a 180-degree virtual image of the Hot Shop where Chihuly and his team blow glass.

On-screen boxes will pop up with information about Chihuly, his artwork, the glassblowing process and the design, creation and installation of Fireworks of Glass.

Along with this, Museum visitors can sit on a large, revolving platform below the illuminated ceiling and talk about what they see overhead. Special lighting was installed to highlight individual glass pieces and cast dramatic colors and patterns on the floor.

The Chihuly installation is expected to be seen by more visitors than any other exhibit in the museum.

"An estimated 60 million children and families and up to seven million school children and their teachers over the next 50 years will view Fireworks of Glass, an extraordinary work of art that would not normally be seen in a children's museum," said Jeffrey Patchen, president and CEO of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis.

For more information about the exhibit,
visit www.ChildrensMuseum.org on the Internet.

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