why wouldn't the core go vertical that is what is happening at block 37 and it doesn't look like they have excavated at all

BVic, you're saying that they're basically stopping work on building up the core until the surrounding excavation is done?

I'm not sure Bvic is trying to say that. He doesn't know exactly how they are going to build it, but he can probably give a pretty good guess as to what they will do. I bet the core will continue to rise, but not as fast as it is now.

If you look at how fast they have been building that core, if the sides move anywhere as quickly, they will catch up with the core quite quickly.

I believe that they might build the core up to upper Wacker, but not beyond until the excavation work and building up of lower levels is complete.

don't know. I believe it's because the Block 37 building will be steel. Remember when they were working on MoMo in the early stages? The cores got pretty far beyond the rest of the structure, until the structure switched from steel framing to concrete. Now the cores are like 2 floors higher than the rest of the structure.

That would make sense, look at Comcast Center in Philly, the exact same thing, the core is way ahead of the steel.

So even if Waterview doesn't break street level until they get the rest of the foundation underway, we are still going to have an interesting few weeks because, if what Bvic said ends up being the case, then they should be getting pretty close to starting to excavate the rest of the site.

were did you get these pic's from, could you post the link ?

:previous: He might have taken them. He lives in Chicago according to his location.

He took the photos himself. Thee majority of the pictures that you'll see in the Chicago threads were taken by individual who work, live or play downtown. You'll hardly get any third party images here...

December 7, 2006

http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/6889/p1010158xs4.jpg

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/7628/p1010160pt9.jpg

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/9733/p1010164ui2.jpg

http://img368.imageshack.us/img368/9743/p1010170ru4.jpg

I dunno Bvic, once they pour the concrete on the rebar they have up already, the core will be pretty close to level with Wacker. All they need is one more level and Waterview will be pretty clearly above the street level. Maybe they'll keep working on the core as they continue excavating the sides, I don't see why they wouldn't do that.

Based on what I saw today, the core will clearly be higher than Wacker. I'm 6' 2'' and the top of the rebar is above my eye level.

WOW! That's crazy! They are sure moving right along on this thing, are you guys sure that the core won't catch up with Trump at some point?

-So they've changed plans from having four to two floors below street level?

I talked to one of the workers at the site last week, and he said 4 levels below street level...although he also mentioned that there would be below-ground parking as well, and that was news to me.

-Sorry, I didn't look at the construction photos closely enough. They have in fact already poured three levels of the core, one more to upper Wacker and that's four...

Layman's question:

In a building like Waterview Tower, about what % of the buildings load is supported by the core?

And do buildings typically have just 1 core? Or might one with a bigger footprint have more?

^^ those are Very good questions

^ The fewer cores, the more rentable / saleable space, so even with a big footprint / taller building there will be a bigger core but not multiple cores. A rare example of multiple cores is MoMo, but that's structurally two buildings (that fuse higher up) anyway.

Of course if by 'bigger footprint' you mean the Merchandise Mart, then yes, of course there will be multiple cores, but then we're not talking highrises anymore.

I believe that the reason we are seeing fewer multiple cores, actually, is that each core must have two stairwells. In the old days--I don't know when this regulation came into effect--you'd have two or three cores in apartment buildings to give you more apartments with E-W or N-S views. Most "commieblocks" have multiple cores because of the shape of the building, too...

They have done this intentionally at Block 37 because they are pressed for time in trying to keep their anchor office tenant. They will be building up and building down at the same time. It's unorthodox, a bit risky, and not done very often.