The Shelter

In Chicago, The Shelter is a forty-five-storey mixed-use tower that draws its scale from its fractures rather than its height. The volume starts as a regular block, then deep notches break it: these fractures split the prism and give the mass its measure. The tower stacks its uses, a retail centre at street level, offices, a hotel, a gym and a spa, a restaurant. The envelope is fully glazed; the composition is carried by the fractured body, not by the façade, which stays uniform.