Mixed use · Lakeshore East
Aqua Tower
225 N Columbus Drive, Chicago2009
Studio Gang / Loewenberg Architects · Contemporary
Light study
Noon
12:00
Flat light. Good for comparing materials, less kind to depth.
The balcony edges catch a thin line of sun even when the glass behind them is in shade. East light in the morning draws the waves; a low western sun turns each slab into a bright contour.
The study applies a color treatment to the photograph. It is a way of looking, not a measured solar model.
Photo: Kidfly182 · CC BY 4.0 license · source file
Jeanne Gang’s hillside of balconies — a residential and hotel tower whose floor plates ripple to catch views and diffuse wind.
Aqua, at 225 North Columbus Drive, is the building that made Studio Gang a skyline name. Design architect Studio Gang worked with architect of record Loewenberg Architects. The tower opened in 2009, eighty-two stories, its concrete balconies extending and receding so the facade reads as topography rather than a grid.
Those waves are not decoration alone. They vary the outlook from floor to floor, give outdoor space a different depth on each side, and break up the wind that a flat glass wall would otherwise shed onto the street. From Columbus Drive the tower looks almost soft; from a distance it is a dark, wavering cliff.
Aqua is mixed use — residences, a hotel, and street-level space — inside Lakeshore East. Residences the studio can introduce are in the book, with a guide beside each one.
- Opened
- 2009
- Height
- 859 ft · 82 stories
- Use
- Mixed use
- Design
- Studio Gang
- Architect of record
- Loewenberg Architects
- Neighborhood
- Lakeshore East
Neighborhood
Lakeshore East
Aqua sits a block inland from the lake and a short walk from the river, in the same planned district as the St. Regis. Its balconies are the neighborhood’s most recognizable surface — a hillside drawn in concrete.
- Lake Shore East ParkAdjacent green, a minute away
- Chicago RiverSouth toward Wacker
- Millennium ParkA longer walk southwest
Near north · lake to the east
- One Bennett Park
- The St. Regis Chicago
- Aqua Tower
- 860–880 Lake Shore Drive
- 875 North Michigan Avenue
- Marina City
Lake Michigan
Aqua Tower · Lakeshore East. Open the building from its pin.
The pin map above is ours. A street map of Aqua Tower loads from OpenStreetMap only if you ask for it.
Sources
In the book
Also in the collection
