EMC East Tower

700 Walnut Street

Completed: 1997

Brooks Borg Skiles Architecture Engineering

Voted one of the top 50 buildings of the 20th Century in Iowa.

20 stories tall. 17 stories are occupied space. The top three floors (in the slanted roof) are mechanical/electrical spaces. The building has over 430,000 square feet (10 football fields of floor area).

Building exterior cladding is recycled aluminum rainscreen panels (equivalent to 16.8 million pop cans) and granite.

The 1,440 windows in the building each have an R-8 thermal resistance (compared to typical insulated glazing at R-2).

Rain screen technology – Open wall joints, pressure equalized to divert water. No sealant, mortar, etc. to maintain.

HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning) system features night time ice manufacturing and storage for cooling to reduce costs of peak daytime energy use.

The goal of EMC and Brooks Borg Skiles was to produce a building with a 100-year life span.

Canopies at the street provide human scale contrasted with the monumental scale of the columns and full height of the arcades.