Record-setting concrete:

Concrete giant rises

on Chicago skyline
311 South Wacker Drive claims new height record

BY M. K. HURD

or the sixth time in the an- ground level—changes as it rises. perimeter framing dampen the

F nals of concrete history,

Chicago is the site of the
world’s tallest all-concrete-
frame building. Scheduled for com-
pletion early in 1990, 311 South
There are small setbacks at Levels 14
and 47, and the plan changes to a
smaller octagon above the 51st
floor, thus providing a number of
extra corner offices for tenants. The
movement. The core walls decrease
in thickness as they rise in the build-
ing and applied loads are less. At
Level 51 the core is reduced to two
C-shaped walls.
Wacker Drive is 70 stories, 967 feet east face of the building rises in a The girders have 39-inch-deep
high. The 65-story office tower is continuous plane from street level haunches at the columns. Spandrels
topped by five glass enclosed sto- to the 65th floor. are 36 inches deep. Spans between
ries, variously described as a core and perimeter range from 40 to
“lantern,” “penthouse,” or “Gothic Structural system 48 feet, but spacing between
addition to the Chicago skyline.” The building core rest on an 8- perimeter columns is fairly short,
Coincidentally, 311 South Wacker is foot-thick concrete mat that is sup- varying from 14 to 32 feet. Column
just across the street from the Sears ported by 92-foot-long caissons, 72 loads range from 12,000 kips to
Tower, which holds the world’s and 84 inches in diameter, socketed 30,000 kips.
height record for steel-frame build- into bedrock. The caisson bearing The original floor system design
ings. p re s s u re design is about 200 tons called for 16-inch-deep pan-formed
per square foot in the mat area. The voids beneath a 4-inch-thick slab. At
Architectural design tower columns are supported by 36 the contractor’s suggestion, floors
Flame-finished rose granite faces similar caissons, and other caissons were redesigned to an unbonded
311 South Wacker Drive below the provide support for the Wintergar- post-tensioned system to reduce
Gothic-styled glass section at the den’s frame. the amount of reinforcement need-
top, with polished banding weaving The building has a shear wall and ed. The proposed new system, with
through the tower’s strong ve rt i c a l interactive frame structural system a 4 1⁄2-inch slab and 10-inch pan
planes. At street level the focal point to resist lateral loads. Because of the depth, also reduced the depth re-
of the tower’s main entrance is the importance of the structure, it was quired for the floor system, thereby
86-foot-tall Wintergarden, a green- designed for 100-year winds instead decreasing building height appre-
house-like glassed-roofed public of the 50-year wind required by lo- ciably. As it turned out, post-ten-
gathering area. Lined with retail cal codes. sioning was actually used on only
shops and restaurants, the Winter- On a typical floor the core con- the second and third levels because
garden will be the hub of a pedes- sists of two C-shaped and two I- it would add a day to the construc-
trian walkway linking nearby com- shaped shear walls (see drawing) as tion cycle which had to be held to a
muter railroad stations. Ultimately much as 36 inches thick at Level 1. planned 5 days to complete the
it will be part of a connector to two The core walls interact with perime- building on schedule. Further re-
other office buildings planned for ter columns and spandrel beams design incorporating Grade 75 steel
the 130,000-square-foot site. through girders that span from the instead of Grade 60 made it possible
As shown by the drawing, the core to the perimeter. As the core re- to maintain the revised floor depth
building’s floor plan—six-sided at acts to bending loads, the floor and without post-tensioning.
Building’s floor plan changes as it rises. Up to the 14th floor the building is nearly a trapezoid in plan, with parallel sides of
70 and 225 feet, spaced 135 feet apart. The Wintergarden at ground level extends 155 feet to the west, providing an 86-
foot-high entry space enclosed in glass. At the 15th floor and the 47th floor the building steps back, providing additional
corner offices. At the 52nd floor the tower assumes octagonal shape and core walls are substantially reduced.

Fast-track construction continuous pour of the mat founda- ranging up to 12,000 psi. Superplas-
supported by advanced tion. With a pump that could push ticizing admixtures were used
technology concrete more than 1,000 feet ve rt i- throughout the structure to improve
J. A. Jones began its preconstruc- cally, there was no need to pump in workability and placeability, since
tion effort on this fast-track project stages. The pump could deliver 120 the high-strength concrete tends to
in the spring of 1987. Pe rf o rming an cubic yards per hour at the lower be sticky.
intensive cost and constructibility floors and about 50 cubic yards per Compressive strength of concrete
analysis of the design, Jones decided hour on the higher floors. With a in the core walls was 12,000, 10,000,
to use top-down construction placement boom over 100 feet long and 8000 psi. Strength of concrete in
which allowed work on the tower to it was possible to pump directly to columns ranged from 12,000 at the
begin at the same time that con- most areas of the building. base of the structure to 6000 psi
struction was going on for the three To determine proper time to per- near the top of the tower. For the
below-grade parking levels of 30,000 mit form stripping, maturity meters mechanical floors and for other spe-
square feet each (described in the were placed inside the concrete cial features of the tower, 10,000-psi
following article). This allowed tow- members. Strength development concrete was supplied. Slabs in the
er construction to start about 4 was estimated from the time and parking areas and up through Level
months earlier than if the more typ- temperature records maintained by 13 were 9000-psi concrete. Remain-
ical methods had been used. the meters. Because high-strength ing slabs higher in the building were
The contractor relied on other concrete typically has higher curing 7500 psi. By using high-strength
state-of-the-art technology to main- t e m p e ra t u res than conventional concrete in the slabs the contractor
tain good construction progress, al- mixes, curing blankets and heated avoided the laborious puddling of
though the schedule has extended enclosures had to be maintained in stronger concrete around each col-
somewhat beyond the originally cold weather to forestall cracking umn—as required by code when
projected 32 months. Mi c ro s i l i c a , caused by thermal shock that might column concrete is more than 1.4
superplasticizers, and other admix- otherwise occur at form stripping. times the strength of slab concrete.
tures contributed to maintaining Microsilica was used to achieve
progress on the job, as did the flying
High-strength concrete design strength in all the 12,000-psi
form system described in the fol- To complete 311 South Wacker concrete. There were two different
lowing article. Epoxy coated rein- Drive, the ready mix supplier deliv- 10,000-psi mixes, one using mi-
forcing steel was used in all the ered 110,000 cubic yards of con- crosilica and one using fly ash. Fly
parking areas and exposed plazas. c re t e, enough to build more than 9 ash was used in all the other high-
All the tower concrete was miles of two-lane highway. As many strength concretes on the job. A
pumped, although conveyors de- as 10 different concrete mixes were controlling factor in most of the slab
posited the mix for the 8,000-yard used, most of them high strength, concrete was the requirement that
 The concrete advantage
RECORD-SETTING ALL-CONCRETE BUILDINGS Availability of high-strength con-
crete was one key to the feasibility of
Looking back into construction history, we find these structures, each
building this new record setter. The
claiming a world’s height record for buildings with all-concrete frames.
choice of reinforced concrete over
Some kept their titles for many years while others were quickly eclipsed by
steel for the frame saved several mil-
newcomers.
lion dollars on a project now esti-
BUILDING LOCATION HEIGHT DATE mated to cost $125 million. Much of
311 South Wacker Chicago 967 feet 1990 this saving was in the foundation,
but some savings ran the full build-
Water Tower Place Chicago 859 feet 1975
ing height. For example, the build-
One Shell Plaza Houston 714 feet 1969 ing was 87 feet shorter than it would
Lake Point Tower Chicago 645 feet 1967 have been if the same usable space
1000 Lake Shore Drive Chicago 640 feet 1965 were created in steel. This permitted
Place Victoria Montreal 624 feet 1964 savings on facing materials, piping,
Marina City Chicago 588 feet 1962 and elevators. Concrete also mini-
mized noise levels for the tenants
Bank of Georgia Atlanta 391 feet 1960
and permitted the developer to
Executive House Chicago 371 feet 1959 avoid dropped ceilings.
Medical Arts Building Dallas 230 feet 1922
Ingalls Building Cincinnati 210 feet 1902 Credits
Owner: Wacker Limited Partnership;
According to a leading authority on tall buildings, a building’s height managing partner, Lincoln Property
should be measured from street level at the main entrance, but when a Company
building is on a sloping site data takers may differ as to where to mea- Architects: Kohn Pederson Fox Asso-
sure. This may account for some of the variations in reported heights of ciates, New York, and Harwood K.
major structures. For example, some reports say 311 South Wacker, which Smith & Partners, Dallas
fronts streets on two elevations, is 959 feet high, not 967 as shown here. Structural engineers:
The tabulation (except for 311 South Wacker) is based on information Brockette/Davis/Drake, Inc., Dallas,
and Chris P. Stephanos Associates,
published by the Portland Cement Association in Concrete Technology
Chicago
Today, June 1987.
General contractors: J. A. Jones Con-
struction Company, Charlotte, North
Carolina, and Harbour Contractors,
2800 psi be reached in 24 hours—to and over 90 employees were in- Chicago
maintain planned form stripping volved to maintain a continuous Formwork: The Ceco Corporation,
schedules. movement of concrete of at least 24 Oak Brook, Illinois
yards every 4 minutes. The culmina- Ready mixed concrete: Prairie Material
Record pour tion of weeks of planning to antici- Sales, Inc., Chicago
The 8,000-cubic-yard mat pour pate all possible weather, traffic,
was the largest high-strength con- and site conditions, the continuous PUBLICATION#C900005
crete placement in Chicago’s histo- placement required more than 20 Copyright © 1990, The Aberdeen Group
ry. More than 60 ready mix trucks hours to complete. All rights reserved