The river corridor is really starting to approach Midtown Manhattan levels of "cram em in" skyscraper density. The difference being our suprerior public planning leaving more views because of things like the river, Columbus, LSE Park, and Boule Mich. Once LSE, Spire Site, and the old Mandrin site are built out, The area between Randolph and Kinzie from Wolf Point East is going to be quite a sight to behold.

May 10





May 12

Beautiful glass!

Not much progress on the glass in the last month

5/23
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...30aa01e3_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...f421bb6a_b.jpg

May 27





More pics - and a bunch of words at Urbanize Chicago

nice pictures!

speaking of blocking C&C, apparently the London House rooftop bar was voted the 2nd best nationwide (https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/loca...nwide/2520526/) though the blocking of the C&C from the cupola probably brings it down a slight notch.

^ Prepandemic I visited that rooftop bar. It really is insanely nice up there

I went there on some CAC tour of hotels which was pretty awesome

May 17

Bonus shot from One Chicago



More pics - and a bunch of words at Urbanize Chicago

if they're sticking with the mundane top 90% of this tower, I almost wish they'd run out of money and just stop it here. We really don't need another blue box, particularly one that blocks iconic views.

In a perfect world I'd transfer the height over to Salesforce :)

From today
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...6c3a4a22_b.jpg

https://twitter.com/BuildingChi/stat...572214275?s=19

Looks like the crane jumped

Yesterday 6/7

https://i.imgur.com/sg7ROIa.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/AgCIgmJ.jpg

Very nice!

Are those W truss beams painted, or is that some kind of cladding already?

June 3



June 7

6/3
 

Sorry for flooding the forum. Shot a lot of sharable stuff recently!

https://nickulivieriphotography.zenf...15651519-6.jpg


https://nickulivieriphotography.zenf...15649939-6.jpg


https://nickulivieriphotography.zenf...15649912-6.jpg

You are strongly encouraged to flood the forum with your magic whenever you like.

- Mgmt

The Essex Hotel 2?

That base looks a little similar.

Tenants prefer a strong corner presence? :shrug:

One can only imagine if they owned 1 more property to the north what this could have been. They still had room to shift this a little more that way though.

I assume they are balancing "respect for C&C" with the desire to capture river canyon views above Motor Club and Hilton Garden Inn. If they pushed the tower too far north, the river views would get blocked by Executive House (Royal Sonesta now).

Personally I would have oriented the tower on an N-S axis and pushed it to the west part of the site - that gives a big terrace overlooking Michigan Avenue for amenity deck or a posh rooftop bar, aligns more units toward the western view over the river canyon, and reduced energy consumption (largest energy losses come from south-facing facades). Basically like Joffrey Tower. But the building would make less of a "bold statement" from the street.

June 17

I love that Chicago landscaping. It really makes the city stand out against others. :cheers::cheers::cheers:

this will wind up being just two feet shorter than Mather Tower to left, so should plug a little gap in this section of the skyline

I would say there were several factors that landed the tower where it is. Aside from views from the south corner units, if the tower was closer than 20' from the north property line it wouldn't have been able to be nearly as glassy by code for the required fire ratings. Then constructing the tower right in the middle of it's podium probably didn't yield a very efficient layout of very effective outdoor space either.

July 1

^ ^^ ^^^ It's caught a lot of flak for its Carbide and Carbon cover-up, but partial obstruction of the dreadful, soul-eating Park Millennium condo tower from the west is definitely one to add to the pro's column for 300 NMA's view corridor impact.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...c06c1f36_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d6f0aef5_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...a8a384b9_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...6a28d7ed_b.jpg

Photos by me from yesterday morning

From Sunday the 18th
https://i.imgur.com/DaXCYIH.jpg

July 19

For all the griping about blocking views of the C&C Building, 300N Michigan Ave seems to have mostly left the view corridors intact. The crown of C&C remains visible from the River and Pioneer Court.

But not down Michigan Avenue--a very significant "view corridor" IMHO

Sunday 7/25
 

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7Zj6XwW...pg&name=medium

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7Zj6XqW...pg&name=medium

I created these full-height, constructed perspective shots by stitching together 6 separate frames. It was the only way to fit the full structure in the frame AND then correct the perspective for nice and parallel vertical lines with breathing room on the bottom & sides.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E7Zk3NdX...pg&name=medium

In the top middle frame, the full building is fully in frame, but my lens was at max shift and I *still* had to pan my camera up a few degrees to get the top of the structure and enough sky. Had I perspective controlled that one frame, it would have been extremely narrow. Adding the other frames allowed me ample overage to increase the field of view of the composite image.

Thanks for the behind the scenes details on how you made this. More than meets the eye and a lot more than just 'point and shoot.' Sounds complicated and time consuming and thank you for sharing. Always a good day when you post on the forum!

You're welcome. Yeah, sometimes too much work/thought goes into some of my shots, but the technical stuff is fun to experiment with when it means better images. Either way I'm learning something But this specific technique is great for shooting tall buildings in tight quarters. Architecture photography is a lot easier when you can get farther away from a building and/or it's shorter.

^^^ Thank you Nick for the method behind the art.

July 29













r

Aug 2



r

Mich Ave between the river and Randolph St is really coming onto its own with all of these new towers and rehabs.

The gray is kind of overdone and cold though, especially for a building with pseudo classical references. I'm ready to get back to more warm neutrals, that don't necessarily have to be RN beige or salmon.

^I don't know what the best color is but I know this is a 1000% improvement from what was there before. That building used to irritate me to no end. Now its completely forgettable and I'm fine with that.

exactly.

i don't care if cool gray is overdone or not, whatever helps that particular trainwreck slink further into anonymity is a step in the right direction IMO.

^As bad of a building that is I can't seem to stop looking at it. . . it's an odd duck for sure, but I'm kind of glad it's there - it makes extreme use of the buildings footprint which I think anyone would find interesting even if the architectural style is abysmal. . .

. . .

^^^ Yeah, IMO this one falls into the "kitsch POMO" category which is what POMO is supposed to be about. Plus that penthouse has to be dope. Didn't mind the pink that much myself, but then again I'm all for splashes of color on the cityscape.

Agree. It is flush against its neighbors and the lot borders going straight up utilizing all available vertical space.

300 would have been better if it had held to this concept. Still the horizontal bands are working well imo and its going to look fine.

Captured this shot of 300 N Michigan under construction from the brown line this morning.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...41f16826_b.jpg

Fantastic shot!

Looking at the renderings on https://bklarchitecture.com/projects/300-n-michigan/, the white bands do not continue past the common space at ~ the 15th floor - at least on the east face. They do on the south and north faces according to the rendering. It looks like the balconies on the north and south faces are the 'break point' for strips/no strips. I can't find any renderings of the west face (the most visible). If it it mirrors the east face it's just gonna be glass with no strips :/ But maybe it wraps on three sides and just not the entrance side of the building. We'll find out soon enough.

Can’t wait to see site I poking from this view

Wouldn't it be completely obscured by St. Regis?