The steel and glass tower at night, its lit canopy and entrance at the street corner.
Entrance at night — rendering

Inland Steel Building

Chicago, USA · 2008
Practice
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Team
Claes-Henric Appelquist, Senior Designer
Location
Chicago, USA
Year
2008
Type
Renovation of a Chicago Landmark
Status
Design — awarded

SOM designed the Inland Steel Building in the 1950s to give form to a new way of running a company. It is a Chicago Landmark. The renovation asks it to embody progress again, this time for a workforce that changes shape every quarter: an office hotel.

Instead of a permanent fit-out, a tenant takes a workplace that can be deployed at once and left without regret, made of demountable partitions, a furniture collection developed with Unifor and raised floors that carry air and services to the desk. Spaces are rearranged or expanded cleanly, which is a green-leasing model as much as a planning one: nothing is demolished between tenants. Active chilled beams were proposed to reduce fan energy.

Amenities were to be served from a Frank Gehry annex, with a restaurant, a revolving art programme in the lobby and new exterior art tying the building to the plazas around it.

Awards

  • 2011 · MIPIM / Architectural Review · Future Project Award, Commercial
  • 2010 · Chicago Athenaeum · Green Good Design Award
  • 2009 · Chicago Athenaeum · American Architecture Award
  • 2008 · Architect magazine · R+D Award
  • 2008 · Progressive Architecture · P/A Award, Honorable Mention
An empty office floor with a trial ceiling of perforated panels and linear lights.
Ceiling mock-up on an office floor
Night view of the annex beside the tower, with a planted wall and a lit glazed box above.
The annex — rendering
Line drawing of the ground-floor plan of the tower and annex.
Plan, ground floor
A dark stone lobby with a suspended sculpture of crossing lines over a shallow pool.
Lobby, with sculpture — rendering
A lift lobby with black glass walls, an open lift car lit in bronze and a timber wall beyond.
Lift lobby — rendering
Line drawing of a typical office floor with desks, meeting rooms and the service core.
Plan, typical floor
Line drawing of a wall section through the façade, slab and ceiling.
Wall section, building systems
Line drawing of partition sections at ceiling and floor.
Detail, demountable partition
Line drawing of a desk with shelving and a service spine, shown in axonometric.
Axonometric, workstation
A long open office floor with rows of white desks and pale chairs along the glass wall.
Office floor, light palette — rendering
A low timber credenza on slim steel legs against a pale wall.
Credenza, furniture collection with Unifor — rendering
An office with a timber desk, wall shelving and leather lounge chairs under a gridded ceiling.
Office floor, custom furniture — rendering
Brown leather sofas and a glass table in front of a glazed meeting room on an open floor.
Office floor, meeting and lounge — rendering

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill project, shown as part of the earlier experience of Claes-Henric Appelquist. Earlier work