
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.

#Sears tower series#
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. Skydeck Chicago at Willis Tower (Sears Tower) hours of operation: Open daily. 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. Where known, the CTBUH database breaks out the materials used in aĬomposite building’s core, columns, and floor spanning separately. 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. With the opposite true of concrete/steel.Ī combination of materials (e.g. Steel/concrete indicates a steel structural system located on top of a concrete structural system, steel, concrete, timber), one on top of the other. Note that a building of steel construction with a floor system of concrete planks orĬoncrete slab on top of steel beams is still considered a “steel” structure as the concrete elementsįrom concrete which has been cast in place and utilizes steel reinforcement bars.īoth the main vertical/lateral structural elements and the floor spanning system are constructedįrom steel reinforced concrete which has been precast as individual components and assembled Both the main vertical/lateral structural elements and the floor spanning systems are constructedįrom steel.
