CHICAGO | St. Regis Chicago (Vista) | 1,191 FT | 101 FLOORS

[jbermingham123]

Originally Posted by bcp

Good question - my dad and i were touring it a couple weeks ago..we chatted up the window washers for a bit. They work 7 days a week, weather permitting. The ropes will always be present unless retrieved fully for extended periods of bad weather. It was a shockingly manual system - two guys acting as sway anchors on the ground, and two cleaning windows. Their platform is left sitting on the edge of the street at the end of the day........hard to believe this is the permanent solution?

a while ago in one of the new york forums on here i had a conversation about this.. basically window washers are unionized and in many cases the union(s) are powerful enough to prevent buildings from installing automated window-washing equipment or any equipment at all that reduces the need for window washing jobs, even if the new equipment would be safer (such as systems that would eliminate the need for building owners to pay several humans 50k a year + benefits to act as sway anchors for 8 hours a day for two other guys hanging from cables) Its absolutely fucking ridiculous if you ask me

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by harryc

2 things kill this building for me, and ultimately cause me to give it a thumbs down.

1st is the blow-through floor near the top. I don't even understand the need for these floors. If they are necessary, why don't we see them on all the other supertalls in Chicago and elsewhere? Other than 432 Park in NYC I can't think of any other supertalls that have this, and that tower integrates them much better than Vista does. It also wasn't shown in the renders so feels like a total bait and switch.

2nd is the black strip about halfway up the tower on one side, quoted in the picture above, along with that much smaller black strip about 3/4 of the way up. It's a graceless solution and again, another negative surprise from my expectations.

Overall this building had an opportunity to be great, but instead ended up a sloppy mess that will forever mar Chicago's skyline going forward. I would also argue that the top section gets too thin compared to the other supertalls in the city. It just doesn't fit. Chicago deserved better.

[rivernorthlurker]

Originally Posted by DZH22

2 things kill this building for me, and ultimately cause me to give it a thumbs down.

1st is the blow-through floor near the top. I don't even understand the need for these floors. If they are necessary, why don't we see them on all the other supertalls in Chicago and elsewhere? Other than 432 Park in NYC I can't think of any other supertalls that have this, and that tower integrates them much better than Vista does. It also wasn't shown in the renders so feels like a total bait and switch.

Willis/Hancock/Aon are all steel so stiff enough not to need blow floors I imagine. Trump has a much more aerodynamic cross section (oval vs square) and might be bulkier as well but aerodynamics might be enough.

[Drcastro]

If you don’t understand blow-through floors and the issue of vortex shedding, please go read up on it.

Obviously, skinny towers have higher susceptibility to the wind, and need engineering answers to prevent seasickness-inducing sway. The big failure with Vista is that they didn’t detect that they had under-designed it until it was already under construction. So rather than integrating the blow through floors into the design nicely like 432 Park, they had to (or decided to) make the compromise we are now seeing. At least they didn’t have to secretly go back and strengthen it at night when it was already occupied, like 601 Lexington.

Personally, I think this tower is impressive and will be more well liked over time, despite its quirks.

[west-town-brad]

Originally Posted by Rooted Arborial

I've said it before - I think this blow-through trend is a sign of the times

fav quote ever

[Klippenstein]

Here's an interesting article relevant to this discussion.

Von Klemperer says he has never seen the kinds of floods and elevator outages the Times documented at 432 Park Avenue, but “it’s the kind of thing you’re warned might happen if you don’t get the design right.”

You may think that once you’ve figured out how to keep the building upright and made it stiff enough to live in without a daily Dramamine, getting the elevators and plumbing right would be easy. Unfortunately, that’s also where the wiggle room is. Builders and value engineers are constantly pressing architects to cut down on steel and shave off extras within the limits of the law. The building code covers safety issues, but ensuring that a building will be comfortable, quiet, and durable means meeting optional higher standards.

In construction, speed is both necessary and risky. “A supertall is built on a fast-track schedule, and that process can be tricky to navigate,” says Andrew Cleary, a director at KPF. The foundations get excavated before the design is finished, and the concrete-and-steel superstructure rises even as, on lower floors, workers are busily installing the curtain wall, ductwork, and sprinkler systems. “The choreography is sophisticated, and that’s where things can go wrong.”

https://www.curbed.com/2021/02/skysc...lems-html.html

This is not to say that making these changes during construction is ideal. It definitely can compromise the aesthetic, but I'd rather that than compromising the quality.

[rivernorthlurker]

Originally Posted by Klippenstein

Here's an interesting article relevant to this discussion.





https://www.curbed.com/2021/02/skysc...lems-html.html

This is not to say that making these changes during construction is ideal. It definitely can compromise the aesthetic, but I'd rather that than compromising the quality.

Bascially what the forum said...

All skyscrapers face a common foe: wind. Even a bulky office tower planted on a full city block — like, say, the John Hancock Tower in Chicago — can creak and shift on a blustery night. The sort of slender, reedlike condo building designed for the few, the foreign, and the filthy rich has to work that much harder to stand firm, like a ballerina remaining en pointe in a gale. “The standards for tolerance are tighter in a residential building than in an office building,” says von Klemperer. “That’s mainly because of the water in a toilet bowl. If residents see it sloshing around, they freak out.”

[Xing Lin]

If they'd get rid of that dumb looking frame around the blow-through floor so that it's just the structural columns and the core, it would actually look like an impressive architectural feature, levitating the last section above a clear void. With that ugly exterior grid, it just looks like two levels of blasted-out windows.

Surely the empty window grid would make a hell of a racket when high winds blow through? I remember the simple mesh fence around Taipei 101's outdoor observation deck made a continuous whistle sound in the wind.

[The Pimp]

Originally Posted by Rooted Arborial

I hope this will be my last comment about this building.

This building is a lesson to be learned.

After contemplating the peculiarly disappointing features of this building, I wonder if it had been designed as a single prominent tower which

arose out of a base of about 12 stories if it might have been a much more impressive (and solidly not in need of that ghastly blow-through).

If the reinforcing core which weaves the lower towers together had extended up through the tower and the widths of the North/South elevations

were approximately that of the 2d highest section the building might have been a great success.

The removal of the opposing alternating in and out of the adjacent towers would have reduced the feeling that this building is conflicting with itself.

The curving vertical flow might have been much more appealing if it had been one, wider, prominent tower arising from a base.

Of course the floor space would have been much larger in the top floors and that probably would have meant that there would be more people

sharing the elevators and THAT, I suppose, would have not appealed to the the vanity of the rich - which seems to have dictated the design.

All we can do at this point is hope that architects will be less likely in the future to let gimmickry again override good design which incorporates

integrity.

Good grief.... Please stop Monday morning quarterbacking this project. It's been criticized to DEATH! Please move on.

[southoftheloop]

Time to close this thread before it gets buried in uninspired critiques

[r18tdi]

Originally Posted by southoftheloop

Time to close this thread before it gets buried in uninspired critiques

Which reminds me, I should probably go in the One World Trade Center thread and complain about the spire cladding again.

[pilsenarch]

well, this building has become the No 1 example in architectural design and structural classes around the globe as how NOT to design a supertall... so we can brag about that...

[Dasylirion]

Please god, just close this thread already. The horse is long dead and now beaten to a pulp.

[OrdoSeclorum]

A rave review in the WSJ for the Regis in today's paper, calling it the best highrise in Chicago in a generation. The most elegant fashion imaginable.

I understand that there are some mixed feelings about this building and why they exist. But when I'm in Grant Park, driving on LSD or biking on the lake front, I can't take my eyes off it. I'd be shocked if history didn't consider it to be a dramatic success.

[LouisVanDerWright]

If you are asking whether this building would have needed a blowthru if there wasn't a street running through the middle of it, then yes. Honestly this building could have been much simpler if it were integrated completely with a three level multilevel roadway. If only!

[SteelMonkey]

Originally Posted by OrdoSeclorum

A rave review in the WSJ for the Regis in today's paper, calling it the best highrise in Chicago in a generation. The most elegant fashion imaginable.

I understand that there are some mixed feelings about this building and why they exist. But when I'm in Grant Park, driving on LSD or biking on the lake front, I can't take my eyes off it. I'd be shocked if history didn't consider it to be a dramatic success.

Wow that is solid praise and a good read. Thanks for the link

[vexxed82]

[BruceP]

Sorry, but the treatment of the blow-through floor is a major design fail. Ditto for the haphazard treatment of the mechanical floors. Overall, a swing and a miss.

[sentinel]

Nick, how do you consistently outdo yourself???

[PittsburghPA]

Nick fantastic shots as always. I simply do not understand the hate for this building. Even with the mechanical floor scars on the south side its still absolutely beautiful. Nitpicking I'm ok with but overall this building will be a great Chicago addition for generations to come.

Edit: Also I love the blow through floor, being unique in Chicago to this building. I just wish they would light it up at night.