The St. Regis Chicago: 2020 Winner

The SKYDB Awards recognize high-rise buildings that unite architectural quality with practical performance, and The St. Regis Chicago was selected as the 2020 SKYDB Awards Winner.

The 101-story hotel and residential tower is composed of three connected volumes of increasing height. Each volume is built from stacked frustums, with alternating slopes that produce a gently changing profile across the facade. Six shades of blue-green glass reinforce the shift from one volume to the next and relate the building to the nearby river and lake.

Column transfers allow the structural grid to change between hotel and residential floors, while open mechanical levels reduce wind pressure near the top. At ground level, new pedestrian routes connect Lakeshore East to the Chicago Riverwalk. The award recognizes a supertall tower whose repeated structural unit works from individual rooms up to the skyline while helping form new public routes at its base.

Architect: Studio Gang, with bKL Architecture