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  #921  
Old Posted Nov 20, 2006, 5:00 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by honte
I think the R-Value of the exterior wall would have a lot more to do with heating costs than 12" in ceiling height, no?
of course the R-value of the exterior wall is more important, but the lower ceiling height isn't completely negligible in terms of energy savings. i don't doubt that cost was a big consideration in determining the floor-to-floor heights in this tower, but i think the small advantage you gain in energy efficiency by lowering the ceiling height is kinda like a an added bonus. and as latoso pointed out above, there very well could have been aethetic considerations too.

my main point in bringing up the whole energy efficiency thing was to point out that there are other ways to look at the celing height situation than just "cheapo lowenburg cheaped out again and is giving our city a cheap-ass building".

and plus, i fail to see what's so mortifying about an 8'-8" ceiling. unless you're freakishly tall that's plenty of height for comfort.
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Nov 20, 2006 at 5:32 AM.
     
     
  #922  
Old Posted Nov 20, 2006, 5:03 AM
hi123 hi123 is offline
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This project should start this month , correct?
     
     
  #923  
Old Posted Nov 20, 2006, 2:52 PM
SamInTheLoop SamInTheLoop is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
of course the R-value of the exterior wall is more important, but the lower ceiling height isn't completely negligible in terms of energy savings. i don't doubt that cost was a big consideration in determining the floor-to-floor heights in this tower, but i think the small advantage you gain in energy efficiency by lowering the ceiling height is kinda like a an added bonus. and as latoso pointed out above, there very well could have been aethetic considerations too.

my main point in bringing up the whole energy efficiency thing was to point out that there are other ways to look at the celing height situation than just "cheapo lowenburg cheaped out again and is giving our city a cheap-ass building".

and plus, i fail to see what's so mortifying about an 8'-8" ceiling. unless you're freakishly tall that's plenty of height for comfort.
Well, I'm 7'9" so I like the extra clearance.

Also, get your point about the energy usage. As long as it's not Jimbo Loewenberg, champion of sustainable design! Not so much.
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  #924  
Old Posted Nov 20, 2006, 3:58 PM
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Aqua Construction Complicated, Says McHugh
By Robert Carr Email this story | Printer-friendly | Reprints

Aqua(To read more on the multifamily market, click here.)
CHICAGO-James McHugh Construction Co., the company that built the ground-breaking Marina City corncob-style condominiums 40 years ago, is now set to take more design chances with the 82-story Aqua building. The company was named the general contractor of the tower, which will feature condominiums, apartments, an 18-floor hotel, retail and office space.

Like Marina City, seen as one of Chicago’s most successful landmarks, the Aqua project will include a few unusual design challenges, says McHugh senior vice president Dave Alexander. The project includes a wavy concrete exterior, and will be occupied by commercial and residential tenants as the upper floors are completed.

“The perimeter of the building is different on every single floor,” Alexander tells GlobeSt.com. “The framing of each floor will be difficult, as the balconies will be cantilevered off of the column line, and cannot hold support for upper floors.” The company will use a high-flying form system that attaches to the column and core wall to complete each floor, Alexander says.
The 2.2-million-sf project will also have multiple tenant uses coming online at the same time, bringing the requirements of residential, commercial and office tenants while the construction crews are still building the upper floors, Alexander says. “This rarely happens, but I think with the taller buildings it will become more common, you’ll see it at the Trump International Tower in Chicago before our project,” Alexander says. “Moving construction crews around tenants is challenging, we have to handle noise, dust, and even separating vertical transportation, they can’t use the same elevators. Safety is also a huge concern, as is keeping water out of the building, basically the top of the building is open during construction.”

The tower, expected to be compete by 2009, is a development of Lakeshore East LLC, an affiliate of Magellan Development Group LLC. To support the building, the team will drill more than 300 caissons into the site, while working around more than 1,100 linear feet of Chicago’s famed underground fright tunnels.

The Aqua building is a mixed-use residential building in Magellan’s 28-acre Lakeshore East development across North Columbus Drive and adjacent to the Strategic Hotels’ Fairmont Chicago property.

Aqua’s hotel is being developed by Strategic as well, and will include 200 hotel suites and 30,000 feet of meeting and event space, and will connect to the Fairmont. The hotel portion of Aqua will consist of approximately 200 luxury suites averaging 650 sf each, a 20,000-sf glazed ballroom with outdoor terrace space overlooking Lakeshore East Park, boardrooms and other general hotel support facilities.

Studio/Gang/Architects is the design architect, headed by Jeanne Gang, with Loewenberg Architects serving as architect of record. McHugh has built eight high-rise structures for Magellan.

http://www.globest.com/news/786_786/.../150811-1.html
     
     
  #925  
Old Posted Nov 20, 2006, 5:50 PM
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^Interesting, staged move-ins are planned to occur here as well. What is this talk about office space in this tower? Is this support space for the hotel or has some leasable office space found its way into the tower. If so, this building really is going to be a marvel of a mixed-use skyscraper: Condos, apartments, hotel, office, retail +pedway, parking, and a rooftop park all contained into a little more than an acre of land. This project would consume a whole sqaure mile of land, if all the space and usages were built in typical sprawling suburbia.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
of course the R-value of the exterior wall is more important, but the lower ceiling height isn't completely negligible in terms of energy savings. i don't doubt that cost was a big consideration in determining the floor-to-floor heights in this tower, but i think the small advantage you gain in energy efficiency by lowering the ceiling height is kinda like a an added bonus. and as latoso pointed out above, there very well could have been aethetic considerations too.

my main point in bringing up the whole energy efficiency thing was to point out that there are other ways to look at the celing height situation than just "cheapo lowenburg cheaped out again and is giving our city a cheap-ass building".

and plus, i fail to see what's so mortifying about an 8'-8" ceiling. unless you're freakishly tall that's plenty of height for comfort.
Plus, lowering the ceiling heights reduces the amount of material used in the structure overall. This reduces manufactoring need and assocated embodied energy for additional concrete and rebar, as well as transport of those materials to the site, thus improving sustainability durring the construction phase of the project.
     
     
  #926  
Old Posted Nov 20, 2006, 7:50 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicago Shawn
^Interesting, staged move-ins are planned to occur here as well. What is this talk about office space in this tower? Is this support space for the hotel or has some leasable office space found its way into the tower. If so, this building really is going to be a marvel of a mixed-use skyscraper: Condos, apartments, hotel, office, retail +pedway, parking, and a rooftop park all contained into a little more than an acre of land. This project would consume a whole sqaure mile of land, if all the space and usages were built in typical sprawling suburbia.




Plus, lowering the ceiling heights reduces the amount of material used in the structure overall. This reduces manufactoring need and assocated embodied energy for additional concrete and rebar, as well as transport of those materials to the site, thus improving sustainability durring the construction phase of the project.
As for the office space, it's either purely support space for the other uses in
the tower, or "office" space, as in the Heritage's reported "office" space - in that case 2nd or was it 2nd and 3rd floor retail that never really drew retail tenants, so more suitable users were deemed to be doctor, dentist offices, or other very small 'office-type' tenants - there isn't any Class A office space here, per se...
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  #927  
Old Posted Nov 20, 2006, 8:23 PM
SamInTheLoop SamInTheLoop is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Chicago Shawn
^Interesting, staged move-ins are planned to occur here as well. What is this talk about office space in this tower? Is this support space for the hotel or has some leasable office space found its way into the tower. If so, this building really is going to be a marvel of a mixed-use skyscraper: Condos, apartments, hotel, office, retail +pedway, parking, and a rooftop park all contained into a little more than an acre of land. This project would consume a whole sqaure mile of land, if all the space and usages were built in typical sprawling suburbia.




Plus, lowering the ceiling heights reduces the amount of material used in the structure overall. This reduces manufactoring need and assocated embodied energy for additional concrete and rebar, as well as transport of those materials to the site, thus improving sustainability durring the construction phase of the project.
All of these environmental efficiencies are of course to some extent very real. However, let's not get too carried away with what the motivations are here for the shorter-than-market ceiling heights. I think it's relatively safe to assume this is much more Loewenberg-driven value-engineering as opposed to Gang-driven environmental sustainability...
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  #928  
Old Posted Nov 20, 2006, 9:27 PM
Nowhereman1280 Nowhereman1280 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SamInTheLoop
All of these environmental efficiencies are of course to some extent very real. However, let's not get too carried away with what the motivations are here for the shorter-than-market ceiling heights. I think it's relatively safe to assume this is much more Loewenberg-driven value-engineering as opposed to Gang-driven environmental sustainability...
I have a feeling Gang may have had quite a bit to do with it actually, not necessarily for environmental reasons, but as Latoso said before, for the aesthetics of the building. Remember, even if it is just Loewenberg driven value engineering, what is cheeper to build is often more economical and efficiant and therefore environmentally friendly, tall ceilings are a luxary and more luxary (think BMW vs. Honda, or Ferrai Vs. Toyota) generally means more waste! Hell cars in general are a luxary item, no one in Chicago needs a car, we could all just walk or take mass transit, but ton's of people want a car and we all can see the problems these luxaries are causing/going to cause all of us.
     
     
  #929  
Old Posted Nov 21, 2006, 5:56 PM
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From Crain's:

Asian hotel eyes Chicago site; Plaza Club near dissolving
Upscale Asian hotel eyes Chicago site Another high-end Asian hotel brand is eyeing Chicago. Reps of Raffles Hotels are in talks with Strategic Hotels about running a 200-suite Raffles in the Aqua tower planned at Columbus and Lake. Chicago-based Strategic, which has agreed to buy 15 floors in the Aqua building, also is talking with other chains, including Starwood Hotels.
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  #930  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2006, 3:14 AM
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There is a drilling rig on the AQUA site. Sorry I did not have camera.
A little help identifying this please.
     
     
  #931  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2006, 5:53 AM
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Was it actually doing something though?
     
     
  #932  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2006, 6:28 AM
Nowhereman1280 Nowhereman1280 is offline
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Its been there since at least a week before thanksgiving, maybe two.

We suspect that it is there to drill into an old freight tunnel beneath the site and grout it/fill it up so it doesn't collapse when they dig/build this building.
     
     
  #933  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2006, 7:36 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280
We suspect that it is there to drill into an old freight tunnel beneath the site and grout it/fill it up so it doesn't collapse when they dig/build this building.
Is the old freight tunnel you mention associated with the rail yards that used to be in the Millenium Park area?

Or were the tunnels used for deliveries, etc?
     
     
  #934  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2006, 9:24 AM
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^ Chicago Tunnel Company Railroad Map

http://users.ameritech.net/scalemodel/tunnel6.html

I don't want to take this any further off-topic, but I am still mad at the city for not having a better plan to use this resource other than "fill them in." What a waste of a unique system.
     
     
  #935  
Old Posted Nov 30, 2006, 8:13 AM
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^

I totally agree that the city is wasting this infrastructure. I was reading back a few months ago how 300 North LaSalle is going to use cold river water for its air conditioning chillers, instead of conventional refrigeration units to cool the building during the summer and then return the water to the river. This is a great idea and will result in enormous savings of energy for the new building. Now couldn't the freight tunnel system be used in a similar role, delivering cold water pumped from the river to land locked properties like a giant radiator and then returning it back to the South branch? I believe this idea would result in substantial energy saving for the area, and we already have the network of tunnels covering this densely developed area that would most greatly benefit from this kind of large scale environmental planning.
     
     
  #936  
Old Posted Nov 30, 2006, 10:04 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Neuman
^

I totally agree that the city is wasting this infrastructure. I was reading back a few months ago how 300 North LaSalle is going to use cold river water for its air conditioning chillers, instead of conventional refrigeration units to cool the building during the summer and then return the water to the river. This is a great idea and will result in enormous savings of energy for the new building. Now couldn't the freight tunnel system be used in a similar role, delivering cold water pumped from the river to land locked properties like a giant radiator and then returning it back to the South branch? I believe this idea would result in substantial energy saving for the area, and we already have the network of tunnels covering this densely developed area that would most greatly benefit from this kind of large scale environmental planning.

Or the lake. What is the variation in tempurature between the lake and the river?



Another thing I was wondering is if enough buildings did this would the warming of the river change the population levels of any organisms by any significant amount?
     
     
  #937  
Old Posted Dec 1, 2006, 8:12 AM
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It would be very impractical to do that from the river, the kind of volume of water needed to cool every office building in downtown would signifigantly affect the temperature of the river water.

The lake would be wayyyyy better, especially durring the summer. If they built an intake or two at 100 ft below the surface of the lake, they would have access to a nearly limitless supply of water that never gets much higher than 54 degrees, and that number is the hottest Lake Michigan gets at just a few ft below the surface in the middle of summer. River water, since it is relatively shallow and stretches out, just like a radiator, across the surface of the earth can get much warmer than that, I wouldn't be surprised if the Chicago river in downtown gets 65ish degrees durring the middle of august when there hasn't been rain for a while.

With the amount of heat generated and absorbed by offices downtown, returning the newly warmed cooling water to the river would definately signifigantly heat it up. That probably wouldn't matter much though since the Chicago river near the lake doesn't really support much life anyhow because of pollution and the general lack of vegitation or any other type of macroscopic habitat.

I imagine that the real problem with this plan would be that flooding the tunnels would fill them with water pressure they aren't designed to handle. They would have to coat the cement on the inside with something impermiable to make it in compilation with all sorts of environmental rules. In additon to that this would require perhaps a hundred million plus dollars to get off the ground and people just aren't willing to spend that much, even if it means cooling bills that would only be about equivelent to their water bill. Think about that, they wouldn't even have to treat this water if they built it right and kept the water from being contaminated, so it would be far less expensive per gallon to pump than both sewage and tap water. I just wonder how much water would need to be pumped per day in the heat of August to run a system like that.
     
     
  #938  
Old Posted Dec 1, 2006, 8:33 AM
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^ Would be interesting if something like that could work. FYI I believe no part of Lake Michigan is anywhere near 100ft deep in the Chicago area; it's more like 30ft (surprisingly) for the first few miles off shore.
     
     
  #939  
Old Posted Dec 1, 2006, 8:57 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by denizen467
^ Would be interesting if something like that could work. FYI I believe no part of Lake Michigan is anywhere near 100ft deep in the Chicago area; it's more like 30ft (surprisingly) for the first few miles off shore.
Most of Lake Michigan is like that, the deep part doesn't start for at least mile just about everywhere. That doesn't matter, I only used 100ft as an example, everthing below the first 5-10 feet is generally about the same temperature in the Lake, its just the top feet get baked by the sun and fluxuate in temperature. I would like to see a study done on the feasability of something like this, think of what it would do for Chicago's reputation if we started a public cooling system that cools all of our downtown at little cost and virtually no environmental impact.
     
     
  #940  
Old Posted Dec 1, 2006, 9:00 AM
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I would think that diverting water from the lake or the river in this manner to cool building in LSE or the loop would have little impact on the overall water temp. I believe on average, some 5,000 gallons per second pass through the lock on the main branch, that’s a lot of water to warm. Not sure what the flow through the North branch lock is.

But even if it were the case that environmentalist were concerned higher water temperatures would boost the level of bacteria in the river; we could always pump the used warmer water back to the lake where it would have much less impact. Hell you could pump the cold water from the current fresh water lake cribs out in the lake now! I believe only 1 or 2 of them are currently used for drinking water with the others sitting unused... We would just have to retrofit the existing freight tunnels with pipes to transport the water.

Imagine the energy savings this would create for an area the size of downtown Chicago. Those buildings use an enormous amount of power for A/C in the summer, which is why many of them kill its use after 6 or 7 in the evening.

P.S. Whats been the deal with the website not working the last 24 hours?

Last edited by Neuman; Dec 1, 2006 at 9:31 AM.
     
     
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