In order to consolidate current staff and accommodate anticipated growth, the company hired a specialist firm to design a three-million-square-foot office tower. In 1969 Sears, Roebuck and Company was the world’s largest retailer, employing approximately 350,000 people. It All Began With the Sears Tower in 1973 It also provides more than 4.3 million square feet of floor space for offices and other activities. Built for Sears, Roebuck and Company, the structure reaches 110 floors and a height of 1,450 feet excluding broadcast antennas and their supports. The Sears Tower, located at 233 South Wacker Drive, first opened to tenants in 1973 though construction was not actually completed until 1974. Up next, we offer a short review of its history. The city’s diverse museums are likewise an entertaining landmark worth visiting, but it seems that, given the choice, most who’ve had the fortune of visiting both would likely opt for the former. Not only one of the most iconic buildings in the city of Chicago but also across the entire nation, the Willis Tower is visited by thousands of people each year. Although the Willis Tower was built in an age before sustainable design matured, the building’s owners have recently implemented several sustainable elements, including low-flow fixtures that conserve more than 38 million liters of water annually, and high-efficiency lighting systems that help curb electrical loads.This brief historical recap on the Willis Tower, previously the Sears Tower, is presented by the Chicago sex abuse victim attorneys of Laffey, Bucci & Kent. Meanwhile, a 2009 addition to the observation deck affords visitors with vertigo-inducing views of Chicago via “The Ledge,” a series of boxes with transparent floors that extrude from the top of the building. An undulating Alexander Calder sculpture greets office workers in the west lobby. It has proven to be a remarkably influential design typology, and has been used in most supertall buildings built since the Willis Tower, including the Burj Khalifa.Īn assortment of features has kept the tower active, inviting, and efficient over its operational life. This innovative design was not only structurally efficient, but it also managed to be economical as well. These requirements resulted in a bundled tube structure, the first of its kind. The designers were required to develop a building that incorporated not only very large office floors, which were necessary to Sears’ operation, but also a variety of smaller floors which would be more suitable for tenants requiring less floor area. The step-back design of the structure was designed by the architects as a direct result of Sears’ space requirements. With approximately 424,000 square meters of gross floor area, the building is comparatively large for its height, with its foundation and the first 50 floors taking up an entire city block before the building begins to narrow. Completed in 1974, Willis Tower set the standard for supertall skyscrapers around the globe, both in its innovative design and graceful styling. The Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) in Chicago, with its signature black aluminum and bronze-tinted glare-reducing glass, was the tallest building in the world for nearly 25 years. Within a composite building’s primary structural elements. Where known, the CTBUH database breaks out the materials used Examples include buildings which utilize: steel columns with a floor system of reinforcedĬoncrete beams a steel frame system with a concrete core concrete-encased steel columns Ĭoncrete-filled steel tubes etc. steel, concrete, timber) are used together in the main structuralĮlements. ForĮxample, a Steel Over Concrete indicates an all-steel structural system located on top of anĪll-concrete structural system, with the opposite true of Concrete Over Steel.Ī combination of materials (e.g. all-steel, all-concrete, all-timber), one on top of the other. Or concrete slab on top of timber beams is still considered an “all-timber” structure as theĬoncrete elements are not acting as the primary structure. Note that a building of timber construction with a floor system of concrete planks An all-timber structure may include the use of localized non-timber connections between Reinforced concrete which has been precast as individual components and assembled togetherįrom timber. Note that a building of steel construction with a floor system of concrete planks orĬoncrete slab on top of steel beams is still considered an “all-steel” structure as the concreteĮlements are not acting as the primary structure.įrom concrete which has been cast in place and utilizes steel reinforcement bars and/or steel Both the main vertical/lateral structural elements and the floor spanning systems are constructedįrom steel.
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