Chicago's Marina City Celebrates 45 Years

Marina City, the landmark structure located along the Chicago River in downtown Chicago, will celebrate its 45th birthday in 2009. Marina City is a mixed-use building complex highlighted by twin, corncob-shaped residential towers constructed of exposed reinforced concrete. When completed in 1964, the twin towers were both the tallest residential buildings and the tallest reinforced concrete structures in the world. The modern design of the towers is as unique today as when they opened. The concrete structure has proven the test of time and represents a durable sustainable design even by today’s standards.

Architect Bertrand Goldberg, a student of Mies van der Rohe, designed the Marina City complex in 1959 . The construction cost was $36 million and financed primarily by unions. The unions feared the flow of people from the city to the suburbs in the 1960s would lead to a decrease of jobs. The concept of a residential “city within a city” would offer an alternative to moving to the surrounding small towns. Considering the current trend for downtown residential towers because of people moving from the suburb and sprawl back into the city, Marina City was ahead of its time. Living and working downtown eliminates the need for daily commuting by car, an original marketing slogan for the tower.

Marina City is credited with being the first urban, post-war, high-rise residential complex in the U.S. and is generally credited with starting the residential renaissance of the inner cities. Marina City’s mixed-use format of residential / office / retail with a parking base is still the model used today for downtown developments. The ability of concrete to easily form the petal shapes of the apartments is one of the many reasons the engineer and architect selected reinforced concrete. More on Marina City.

Play a movie about the construction of Marina City produced by PCA in 1965.

DVD Provides Easy Way to Earn PDHs

Refresh your knowledge on the analysis and design of reinforced concrete and earn up to 13 Professional Development Hours without leaving your desk.

Reinforced Concrete Design - Distance Learning Modules, a DVD developed by the Portland Cement Association, contains five narrated presentations covering analysis and design of reinforced concrete. Each module ends with a Web-based quiz covering the topics discussed. Upon successful completion of each quiz the engineer will receive a PCA Certificate of Completion and will be awarded 2.0 or 3.0 Professional Development Hours. Topics covered include: reinforced concrete fundamentals; beams and one-way slabs; two-way slabs; columns; walls; foundations.

PCA/ACI ACI 318-08 Code Seminars
These one-day seminars are intended to assist engineers, architects, specifiers, building officials, and other code users in understanding the background of the latest code changes. Each seminar participant receives a copy of the PCA Notes, ACI 318-08 Building Code, and seminar lecture notes.
More on the seminars.

NRMCA Offers Concrete Parking Lot Design Seminars
The National Ready-Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) offers seminars on Design of Concrete Parking Lots. The seminars provide attendees with the latest techniques and methodologies for designing, specifying and building concrete parking lots. More information and registration.

New Devon Headquarters to Tower Over Oklahoma City
Devon Energy Corp., will build a new world headquarters in downtown Oklahoma City that includes a 54-story, 925-ft tall skyscraper. The structure will be the tallest building in Oklahoma and cost upward of $750 million. The 1.9 million sq-ft building includes a 10-story garage, meeting space, and first-floor retail. Adjacent to the tower will be a glass rotunda that will serve as its entrance. More on Devon Headquarters.

Correctional Facility Relies on Precast Concrete Modules
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will use precast concrete modular construction for a new medium- and maximum-security correctional facility. More.

ICFA Design Winners Announced

The Insulating Concrete Form Association hosted the ICFA Awards Luncheon on September 29, 2008, in conjunction with ICFA's Annual Conference and Expo. The awards recognize the best ICF projects throughout North America. A record number of applications were submitted for commercial buildings and homes. Each entry was judged on its success in meeting the requirements set forth in each category as described in the guidelines. View the 2008 winners.

More resources on Sustainable Design

Concrete Tanks

Conventionally reinforced (non-prestressed) concrete tanks have been used extensively in municipal and industrial facilities for several decades. The design of these structures requires that attention be given not only to strength requirements, but to serviceability requirements as well. A properly designed tank must be able to withstand the applied loads without cracks that could cause leakage. The goal of designing and constructing a structurally sound tank that will not leak is achieved by providing the proper amount and distribution of reinforcement; the proper spacing and detailing of construction joints; and the use of properly placed, quality concrete. More on concrete tanks.

EWEEK Expo at IIT-Rice Campus

Chicago-land, Du Page Area Engineer’s Week Committee has scheduled an Open House for Saturday, February 21, 2009, [11:00 A.M. – 3:30 P.M.] at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Campus at 201 East Loop Road, Wheaton. This program includes activities that are free and open to the public. Students and adults are invited to explore engineering with members of the Chicagoland structural engineering community. This event promises to be very special as this year marks the 25th anniversary of the program. More on EWEEK.

For more information, please visit www.dupageeweek.iit.edu or call the IIT-Rice Campus Office at (630) 682-6040.

Wall Supports in pcaSlab

Slabs are often supported on concrete or masonry walls in one-way and two-way floor systems. Equivalent Frame Method, used by pcaSlab for two-way systems, does not directly account for this support condition. Consequently, columns elongated in the transverse direction are commonly used to model wall supports. pcaSlab users usually suppress punching shear check as the shear condition at the wall typically reduces to one-way shear only.

pcaSlab v2.0 is widely used for the analysis, design and investigation of a variety of concrete floor systems. To download the software and evaluate its features and capabilities click here.

More about StructurePoint’s suite of reinforced concrete analysis and design software.

•University of Minnesota Annual Concrete Conference
December 4, 2008, Minneapolis, Minn.

•SEAOI Trade Show
January 16, 2009, Chicago, Ill.

• World of Concrete
February 3-6, 2009, Las Vegas, Nev.
Click here for free registration and a discount on seminars.

• ACI Spring Convention
March 15-19, 2009, San Antonio, Texas