Santa Fe Railway Exchange in Chicago

A beautiful office building by Burnham Architects: Santa Fe Railway Exchange I was involved in the complete shell and core rehab of this building in 1982-83 as senior HVAC designer.

The careful integration of a completely updated HVAC system into the historical structure was a challenge and very satisfying. Working with the contractors who obviously cared about this famous high rise was also exciting, as things came together there was amazing craftsmanship and quality all around.

It was exciting to be HVAC job captain on this shell and core update job. I took over at the 80% stage of design. I also was responsible for about 1/4 the tenant work, particularly the portion occupied by the corporate headquarters of the transportation giant. I got a look at a lot of 1904 technology that we had to remove as we peeled away 80 years of accumulated renovations in this office building.

There was one building wide ventilation systems in particular that had to be take out. It was driven by a 12 foot diameter fan in the basement. It was interesting because it was still in use, but I do not think anyone operating the building understood what it did anymore. We surmised that it was now being used to drive air from a first floor intake up through the floors, possibly fresh air supply. But since so many of the tenants had capped off that path, the fan was doing little more than exhausting a tiny fraction of its original capability from the basement up to the roof.