peel

    The original Chicago Spire, designed by Santiago Calatrava, was to become the tallest skyscraper upon completion in the city of Chicago. Nevertheless, the project was canceled and only the foundation was excavated. For this project, we re-imagined as a group a new Chicago Spire that could be standing in the heart of the city in present day. We named our project after the elegant peeling motion we initially envisioned. Peel is a mixed used super tall building that combines residential, hotel, retail space and public amenities. The whole design heavily focuses on the initial rotating motion that Calatrava had used for the Chicago Spire. For instance, the site is designed to show a swirling motion that absorbs visitors into the winter garden at the other side of the bridge. In addition to this, the spiral motion is also shown in the secondary facade of the double skin layer through the mullions. 
    The project is composed of various structural systems. For instance, we used a circular core with the number of elevators calculated by the density of people which elevates up to 2000 feet.  The core is reinforced with perimeter columns of the floors. The secondary facade is connected to the core after the last hotel floor and a arch system is used for bridge and wintergarden. 
    Our main focus was to popularize this part of the city . Thus, we decided on making this pace a destination for the community by creating retail space and a winter garden that would be open for the public.