St. Louis’ latest high-rise building, the 36-story 100 Above The Park, brings a new flavor of architecture to the Gateway City (Figure 1). Eight tiers of stacked and undercut floor plans, each four stories high and shaped like the leaves of a tree, create a form at once organic yet modern. Magnusson Klemencic Associates (MKA) teamed with Studio Gang Architects (SGA) to make this unconventional form a reality by using novel framing solutions following this leaf-like building form. The result embraces Forest Park immediately to the west and provides a direct line-of-sight to the Gateway Arch to the east.

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Rising along the Chicago River, Vista Tower poses a never-before-seen structural challenge: how to design a 1,200-foot-tall building constrained by a plan width of 80 feet and vertical support elements that offset at every level. After years of planning and design, construction is underway on Chicago’s third tallest tower, using an aggressively unique building geometry and lateral bracing system arrangement. …