The Wrigley Global Innovation Center serves as an office and research facility for the confectionery industry. One notable element of the facility is the atrium in the center of the building, which provides meeting areas in a garden setting, featuring 25 plant species from four continents under 540 glass panels. While the rest of the building was only three stories, the four story high atrium reclassified the building, requiring high rise consideration under the Chicago Building Code (CBC).
Rolf Jensen and Associates (RJA), the fire/life safety and building code consultants for the project, worked closely with architects, Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum (HOK) to achieve code compliance and retain the building’s design elegance and functionality. “We recommended using a sprinkler protected glass wall to separate the atrium from the rest of the building,” said
RJA Senior Vice President Dick Evenson. “The sprinkler system would spray water on the glass to keep it cool. Because occupied spaces facing the atrium would not have to be included as part of the atrium volume once the glass sprinklers were installed, we demonstrated that the glass sprinkler concept met the high rise code requirements of the CBC and the City of Chicago.”
“The Wrigley project brought out RJA’s performance based design skills,” Evenson said. “It was another great collaborative effort between the architects and RJA to achieve design excellence and safety.”
