HOK Designs LEED-Platinum Chicago Office for Itself; Goettsch Designing Tall Hyatt to be Built in Dalian, China

Also, CSI offers on-demand on-line professional education, and ISO introduces new standard about building to withstand high winds

HOK Designs its own New LEED Platinum-Certified Office

HOK has designed and moved into new office space on the 14th floor of the CNA building in Chicago.

The 27,000-sq-ft office was recently awarded Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) for Commercial Interiors (CI) Platinum Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). The facility is only the fourth in Chicago to achieve LEED® CI Platinum certification, the highest level offered by the USGBC.

Bold use of color sets the tone in one of the six conference rooms in HOK’s new self-designed offices on the 14th floor of the CNA building in Chicago. The facility earned platinum certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Commercial Interiors rating system—the highest level achievable.

The move to new space was spurred by growth at the architecture firm, which has doubled in size since 2006.

The office’s sustainable features include extensive use of salvaged and recycled products, furnishings crafted from locally-sourced materials including fallen trees from the Chicago Park District, open planning that maximizes natural daylighting, and sophisticated lighting and mechanical systems that use sensors to reduce energy consumption.

Tom Polucci led the team of designers, whose vision for the new space focused on the concepts of “collaborate,” “connect,” and “contrast.” To reference collaboration, the team incorporated furnishings and finishes from more than 25 different vendors, many of which have partnered with HOK in the past. The “collaborate” theme also runs through a variety of meeting spaces. Six conference rooms and seven huddle rooms are named after Chicago parks, and three informal “living room” spaces provide soft seating and ample “pin-up” space for team and design review meetings.

The second concept, “connect,” is reflected by the office’s 98% open floor plan and HOKafé, a colorful dining and recreational area equipped with a full kitchen, breakfast bar, cafeteria-style seating, and a large LCD screen used for internal communication.

“Contrast” is represented by the use of bold, brand-related colors, such as red, purple, orange, green and yellow throughout the office. Distinctly different materials, such as reclaimed teak paneling and aluminum flooring, were used side by side to provide contrast in texture.

Goettsch Designs Grand Hyatt Hotel to be Built in Dalian, China

Goettsch Partners (GP), Chicago, has been commissioned by Hong Kong-based developer China Resources Land Ltd. to design a new 1,075,300-sq-ft tower in China’s northeastern coastal city of Dalian.

The project features a 377-key Grand Hyatt hotel, 84 serviced apartments, three restaurants, including a rooftop venue, multiple ballrooms and meeting facilities, a spa and fitness center, and parking for 225 cars.

Fronting the Yellow Sea and adjacent to the large public park of Xinghai Square, the mixed-use building stands 620-ft-tall. Clad primarily in high-performance glazing that features horizontal sunshades along all southern exposures, the tower’s triangular plan is designed to ensure that all rooms receive southern light as well as views of the sea and nearby mountain ranges.

The triangular form also helps to minimize the structural impact of uniquely high wind forces found on the Dalian coastline.The tower’s rounded corners accelerate the wind speeds at these locations to drive the building’s nearly 300 linear meters (984 ft) of wind rotors that are expected to produce electricity year-round. Vertical-axis turbines were chosen for their low-maintenance, bird-safe, quiet and vibration-free operation.

Wind will have little impact on the Hyatt building but will drive electricity-producing rotors mounted on it.	The 610-ft-tall, 1.08-millionsq-ft building will hold hotel rooms, apartments, meeting facilities, ballrooms, and restaurants.

The hotel floors are stacked below the serviced apartment levels, enabling the core to telescope and creating the architectural “portal” along the north façade. Internal circulation is exposed on this face to provide corridors with natural daylight and views of the skyline, as well as to assure a consistent lighting profile at night. The tower’s top two levels house the signature restaurant, offering clear views in all directions.

The tower sits atop a four-level podium that houses large banquet, meeting, dining, fitness and spa facilities. The main dining facility connects the building physically to its beachfront location while other functions, including the entry plaza and lobby, are elevated to capture commanding views of the bay and adjacent park. The fitness center and spa open out to a series of south-facing terraces, which provide both afternoon sun and a visceral connection to the sea. The project is currently in the design development phase and is scheduled for completion in 2011.

CSI Introduces On-Demand Professional Development Webinars

The Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) has added new webinars to its on-line educational offerings. The webcast sessions provide convenient, learning for design and construction professionals 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at an affordable price.

CSI On-Demand Webinars allow participants to see the course materials and hear an instructor online. Courses qualify for CSI continuing education units (CEUs) and AIA learning units (LUs).

CSI’s current list of on-demand webinars includes: Climate Change + Energy Initiatives Series; Writing Effective LEED Specifications; Integrating Specifications and BIM; Fundamentals of Construction Specifications.

For more information or to register, visit www.csinet.org/ondemandwebinars

ISO Standard Designed to Ensure Structures Withstand Strong Winds

A new International Standard, ISO 4354, Wind actions on structures, will help ensure the reliability of structures in areas exposed to strong winds and cyclones.

The standard describes the actions of wind on structures, and specifies methods for calculating characteristic values of wind loads.

“Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of ISO 4354 is that it allows you to bridge the gaps of all wind loading codes around the world,” says Prof. William Melbourne, who convened the working group that developed the standard.

“The standard provides methodology for calculating wind loads on structures, some of which have never been available in this form before. It cancels and replaces the first edition of the standard, originally published in 1997, with a full technical revision,” he says.

The standard covers design methodologies for three main storm types: synoptic (large-scale) winds, thunderstorms and tropical cyclones (hurricanes, typhoons). It provides the basic methods for determining wind loading analytically for simple structures and guidance for the design of more complex structures.

ISO 4354 will be useful for structural engineers involved in the design of buildings, towers, chimneys, bridges and other structures, and their components and appendages. The standard will be of particular interest for countries without an adequate wind-loading standard.

Because wind is just one element considered when designing structures, in addition to, for example, the structure’s weight, load of occupants and seismic actions, ISO 4354 is also intended as a bridge between existing ISO International Standards for the subject.

This standard can therefore be used with ISO 2394, General Principles On Reliability for Structures and other ISO international standards on design of structures.

ISO 4354, Wind Actions on Structures is available from ISO national member institutes, or may be purchased directly from the ISO Central Secretariat. For more information, visit http://www.iso.org.