This careful renovation updates the lobby and introduces a new amenity floor to a KPF-designed office building completed in 1990, prioritizing wellness, sustainability, and collaboration.
With a material palette that evokes luxury hospitality spaces as well as a new restaurant and café, 225 West Wacker Drive’s renovation activates the street front and transforms the lobby into a social hub where people choose to linger and interact. The project refitted the marble-clad ground floor with informal meeting spaces, seating options, and accessible amenities, blurring the line between office and hospitality programming. New co-working spaces and dining options bring office tenants together in a neutral zone between the quiet office floors and the busy street. The design infuses the building’s social spaces with a new modern aesthetic and balances the elegance of stone with softer materials such as wood and leather. Natural colors artfully complement the grace of the lobby’s white marble while curved stairs, furniture, and details smooth the strong lines of the monumental space.
On the fourth floor, a landscaped roof deck offers access to nature and a sense of connection to the city with dramatic skyline views. The amenity spaces employ a lightened variation of the color palette; lime and peach-toned walls blend smoothly into the sunlit gardens of the terrace. The deck’s outdoor greenery is visible from the floor’s conference rooms, and planters bring the outside into the shared lounge, nurturing the building’s occupants through biophilic design.
The renovation of the 225 West Wacker Drive lobby improves the building’s linkage with the street, connecting both entrances internally and encouraging constant circulation from pedestrians. Increased access to the Chicago River, via oversized glass lites that replace the Wacker Drive façade, ensures the building occupants enjoy a strong connection to the character of downtown Chicago.
