Sears Tower in silver? The idea isn't exactly as good as gold
by Blair Kamin
February 25, 2009
Might Sears Tower, the brooding black mountain of the Chicago skyline, turn a shiny silver? Don't count on it, even if such an outlandish move might cut energy costs at the nation's tallest building.
Following this morning's Chicago Sun-Times story that the skyscrapers' owners are looking at re-covering the tower in silver, a Sears Tower spokesman confirms that the owners want to improve the energy performance of the 110-story office building, but adds that "any details at this point would be speculative."
It's been known for months that the owners have asked Chicago architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill to devise ways to drop the tower's energy consumption. Among the ideas floated: Putting wind turbines and solar panels on the roof. Now comes the Sun-Times with a fanciful illustration (above) that imagines the tower with a new skin of silvery mirror glass instead of its current cladding of black anodyzed aluminum and bronze-tinted windows.
Experts in energy-saving architecture say such a plan could cut two ways. "Changing the facade color of the Sears Tower from black to a lighter color that absorbed less heat would reduce its air-conditioning costs," said Doug Farr, a Chicago architect who has made green design a hallmark of his practice.
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