flexiblefullpage
billboard
interstitial1
catfish1
Currently Reading

Chicago's new Sophy Hotel

Hotel Facilities

Chicago's new Sophy Hotel

Completed in 2018, the seven-story, 98-guest room hotel complements the local museums, cultural attractions, and University of Chicago campus.


By Tori Chang, S.E., Consulting Engineer, Connor Bruns, S.E. , Senior Consulting Engineer, and Terry McDonnell, S.E, Principal with Simpson Gumpertz & Heger | March 25, 2020
Sophy Hotel Chicago

Photo: Mark Ballogg

The Sophy Hotel, Chicago Hyde Park’s newest boutique hotel, takes its name from the Greek word sophia, meaning knowledge and science. Completed in 2018, the seven-story, 98-guest room hotel complements the local museums, cultural attractions, and University of Chicago campus. The ground floor features 14-foot ceilings in a column-free lobby, lounge, and restaurant space; Floors two to seven include guest rooms and amenities.  While the project driver during design and construction was using prefabricated, cold-formed metal framing (CFMF) wall panels, structural steel became an integral component of the building construction. This article highlights how steel was used 1) at the second-floor podium to transfer the upper levels 2) embedded within the CFMF system to create unique upper level spaces, and 3) to support exterior appendages and articulated brick veneer. 

 

Sophy Hotel Utilizes Steel Podium Design

The second to seventh floors are guest rooms with stacked CFMF walls at the demising walls. Below the second floor, the program changes to a lobby, restaurant, and back-of-house space requiring a column-free footprint, which creates a vertical framing discontinuity. The discontinuity demands a transfer structure at the second floor.  

Deep structural steel beams offer the strength and stiffness requirements for the long spans to create the open footprint. The framing generally consists of 40 in. deep, wide-flange shapes spanning up to 35 ft between perimeter steel columns and interior concrete masonry unit (CMU) core walls. The podium steel framing aligns with the CFMF wall system above. The podium framing depth is governed by serviceability limits and the ceiling height required below. To minimize global displacement and potential cracking in the gypsum wall board (GWB) sheathing on the CFMF bearing walls, total deflections at the podium level are limited to the smaller of L/1000 or 3/8 in.  After accounting for a 14 ft ceiling at the ground floor and six levels of guest rooms within the 80 ft building height, a 3 ft – 8 in. space was available above the ground floor ceiling. This space is used to accommodate the steel transfer framing, mechanical ductwork, plumbing, electrical conduit, and fire protection services.  

The Sophy Hotel's podium design maximized steel framing depth to accommodate beam web penetrations for the building services with the ceiling framing supported directly to the steel beam bottom flanges. While providing beam web penetrations for building services is common industry practice, in a depth-constrained podium structure, it is important to have early and on-going coordination between design and construction disciplines to avoid the need for field cutting beam web penetrations in the podium framing. 

 

Sophy Hotel steel framingBeam web penetrations in steel podium framing.

 

Upturned Framing

CFMF wall systems are most efficient when the wall panels align from the lowest level of support to the roof.  Aligning wall panels requires a vertically repetitive program. Breaking up the repetitive program for open space amenities may require removing bearing walls and transferring the bearing wall load. One way to transfer the load while maintaining slab depth and without compromising ceiling heights is to provide upturned steel framing.

At the Sophy Hotel, the fitness room and laundry room are located on the second floor, each occupying a space twice the width of the typical guest room. To eliminate bearing walls on the second floor at these locations, steel columns are extended above the podium structure to support upturned, built-up plate girders. The plate girders support the bearing walls between the third floor and roof level while providing space on the second floor for the fitness room and laundry room. Built-up shapes are used to accommodate the architectural program constraints. The plate girders comprise a 6 in. wide top flange to match the width of the CFMF wall and a wider bottom flange to support the floor construction.  

 

Upturned steel built-up plate girder above the fitness room.

 

On a smaller scale, upturned WT5x15s span across the corridor between CFMF wall panels, with the slab construction supported on the flange, and the stem embedded within the concrete slab. This detail maximizes ceiling heights along the corridors and provides a continuous horizontal space for building services.

 

Steel in CFMF Walls

Structural steel framing is integrated within the CFMF wall systems to address atypical support conditions and large openings. At the sixth and seventh floors, two CFMF walls are eliminated to combine two guest rooms into an open space suite. Structural steel frames comprised of wide flange beams and HSS columns are provided in lieu of the CFMF walls to create the open space. The frame columns extend down to the podium and are fabricated into the CFMF wall panels with base plates and cap plates.  In some areas, HSS headers are provided within the CFMF wall panels to span large door openings. Structural steel when required for larger spans, allows for the flexibility the program required. 

 

Exterior Wall Support

The building envelope generally consists of articulated brick masonry veneer with large punched windows. The veneer steps around the windows creating three different vertical planes. The planes converge at vertical piers between windows. The floor construction spans from CFMF wall-to-wall without steel framing at the slab edge. To avoid a stepped slab edge and steel relieving angles, the design team balloon-framed the masonry veneer from an independent, architecturally exposed structural steel (AESS) frame at the second floor. Custom bent plate loose lintels are used above the window openings to accommodate the varying planes of masonry.  

The typical AESS frame comprises a MC18x42.7, HSS20x8 and HSS6x4 knee wall spanning between CMU piers. The frame is braced at the ends and mid-span to the podium structure to resist the eccentric brick loads.  

 

AESS structure supporting the balloon-framed brick veneer.

 

Building Appendages

The hotel features a three-story tall marquee extending from the building corner. The sign structural support includes an HSS10x6 post that extends from the second-floor steel podium to the fifth-floor, and HSS outriggers at the sign support locations. The HSS post is detailed with deck support plates and weldable rebar couplers at each floor level to drag the sign forces into the building diaphragm.

The hotel also features an 18 ft entry canopy supported at the second floor with a side-plated W40 beam and by four diagonal tie-rods pinned to HSS10x4 flat outriggers at the third floor. The outriggers are supported on HSS posts fabricated within the CFMF wall panel and extend into the third-floor slab construction with headed studs and hair pin reinforcement to drag the horizontal load into the third-floor diaphragm.

 

Entrance canopy structure and marquee. Photo: Mark Ballogg.

 

Conclusions

The structural steel framing in the construction of the Sophy Hotel is an integral component of the building structure alongside the prefabricated CFMF wall systems. It allows the building structural design to achieve the economy of repetition while creating opportunities for architectural freedom.

Related Stories

Hotel Facilities | Jun 29, 2017

Luxury, plant-covered hotel unveiled for site near the River Seine

Kengo Kuma is designing the hotel, which will feature a large garden and a plant-covered façade. 

Hotel Facilities | Jun 14, 2017

Finalists selected for Radical Innovation award

Original hospitality design concepts lean on enhancing traveler comfort and mobility.  

High-rise Construction | Apr 4, 2017

Fifth tallest tower in the world opens in Seoul with the world’s highest glass-bottomed observation deck

Lotte World Tower’s glass-bottomed observation deck allows visitors to stand 1,640 feet above ground and look straight down.

Market Data | Jan 31, 2017

AIA foresees nonres building spending increasing, but at a slower pace than in 2016

Expects another double-digit growth year for office construction, but a more modest uptick for health-related building.

High-rise Construction | Jan 26, 2017

Paris tower provides office space and three hotel complexes across its three superimposed volumes

Equipped with hanging gardens and a panoramic viewpoint for its top tier, Jardins de l’Arche Tower will rise in Paris’s La défense business district.

Hotel Facilities | Dec 5, 2016

Back to sleep: Can hotels help guarantee the full eight hours?

The bed has been both physically and metaphorically pushed to one side in hotel design, in many cases along with the prerequisites of a good night’s sleep.

Hotel Facilities | Nov 15, 2016

Mountain Forest Hotel looks to restore the natural landscape while offering visitors 250 luxury rooms

The hotel looks to create a symbiosis between man, nature, and architecture.

Hotel Facilities | Sep 19, 2016

The Hotel at Oberlin becomes one of only five hotels to achieve LEED Platinum

The Hotel at Oberlin anchors the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center, the cornerstone of Oberlin’s Green Arts District.

Hotel Facilities | Aug 17, 2016

First of its kind tri-branded Marriott hotel under construction in downtown Nashville

The hotel will combine the AC Hotels, Residence Inn, and SpringHill Suites brands.

Hotel Facilities | Aug 2, 2016

The dot-com generation: How Millennials are influencing hospitality

Millennials’ desire for authentic experiences has been the catalyst for a refresh of most brand standards, writes Gensler's Lisa Kong

boombox1
boombox2
native1

More In Category

3D Printing

3D-printed construction milestones take shape in Tennessee and Texas

Two notable 3D-printed projects mark milestones in the new construction technique of “printing” structures with specialized concrete. In Athens, Tennessee, Walmart hired Alquist 3D to build a 20-foot-high store expansion, one of the largest freestanding 3D-printed commercial concrete structures in the U.S. In Marfa, Texas, the world’s first 3D-printed hotel is under construction at an existing hotel and campground site.




halfpage1

Most Popular Content

  1. 2021 Giants 400 Report
  2. Top 150 Architecture Firms for 2019
  3. 13 projects that represent the future of affordable housing
  4. Sagrada Familia completion date pushed back due to coronavirus
  5. Top 160 Architecture Firms 2021