This wooden high-rise is an artistic adaptation of a buttressing system, which holds lateral loads. The thickening of the buttress beams allows for an elimination of beams and openings in the floor plates. Since CLT cores are weak in lateral load, the design uses a modern buttressing strategy in which all the structural elements stem from the core.
Form-finding was a large part of determining where the core ended and began, a process that involved vertical voids and the placement, size, and thickness of the buttressing with the columns. The curved glulam buttresses help carry the load path from the highest horizontal elements into the vertical elements below. Columns peel away as buttressing beams reach higher in the building. The core becomes figural, an icon in the city of downtown, featuring layered transparencies with the interior façade of the core as well as the outside façade.
