There are enough impressive facts about the When you get back to your school, we hope Willis Tower to make even the most worldly your students will send us photos or write or among us say, “Wow!” So many things at the create artwork about their experiences and Willis Tower can be described by a share them with us (via email or the mailing superlative: biggest, fastest, and longest. But address at the end of this guide). there is more to the building than all these “wows”: 1,450 sky-scraping, cloud-bumping One photo will be selected as the “Photo of feet of glass and steel, 43,000 miles of the Day” and displayed on our Skydeck telephone cable, 25,000 miles of plumbing, monitors for all to see. Artwork and writing 4.56 million square feet of floor space and a will posted on bulletin boards in the view of four states. lunchroom area. We would also love to have you and your students post you Skydeck Behind the “wows” are lots of “hows” and Chicago photos to the Skydeck Chicago pages “whats” for you and your students to on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. explore. In this guide you will be introduced to the building—its beginnings as the Sears As you get ready for your trip, please call us Tower and its design, construction and place with any questions at (312) 875-9447. We aim in the pantheon of skyscrapers. Its name to make your visit your best school trip ever. was recently changed to the Willis Tower, proudly reflecting the name of the global insurance broker who makes the Tower its Chicago home. You will also learn about the Skydeck view of Chicago, a view unlike any other anywhere. Included are other sections geared to the interests of your students and the needs of your curriculum, such as art, environmental efforts and our “city within a city.” At the end are “Try This” activities and discussion questions that relate to each section. We have used several of them to create “Come Rain or Come Shine” field trip plans to adapt for all ages. Please choose among the activities to fit your students. —Bruce Graham, lead architect, Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower) 2 THE HOWS, WHATS, AND WOWS OF THE WILLIS TOWER www.theskydeck.com A SKYSCRAPER AMONG SKYSCRAPERS ACTIVITIES AND QUESTIONS FOR STUDENTS The Skyscraper That Almost Wasn’t . 4 . Find: Spot the Willis Tower on Your Way into Chicago . 21 The First “Sears Tower" . .5 . Solve: What Problems Must You Solve Where Does the Willis Tower Rank among to Build a Tower This High? . 21 the World's Tallest Buildings? . 5. Calculate: How Many “Yous” Would Have to be Stacked Skyline of the World’s Tallest Buildings . 6 . Head to Toe to Equal the Height of the Willis Tower? . .21 Discuss: What Do the Shapes Mean? . 21 DESIGNING AND CONSTRUCTING THE WORLD’S Design: Make Your Own “Universe” . 21 TALLEST BUILDING Consider: What Businesses Would You Include A Thumbnail History of the Skyscraper . .7 . in the Willis Tower? . 22 Meeting the Design Challenges . 8 . Challenge: Walk Out on The Ledge . 22 The Tower Takes Shape . .9 . Document: Try to Create a Panoramic View . 22 . From the Ground up . 10 . Discuss: What Would It Be Like to “Fly Blind?” . 22 Sears Tower to Willis Tower: A Timeline . 11 . Create: Make Your Own Souvenir . 22 Calculate: How Long Is Your Elevator Ride? . 23 ART AND ARTISTRY AT THE WILLIS TOWER Challenge: Help the Environment at Your School . 23 . Our Front Door . 12 . Our Indoor “Universe” by Alexander Calder . .12 . PROBLEM SOLVING BY SUBJECT AREA Physics . 24 OUR CITY WITHIN A CITY Middle School Science . 25 The Vertical Village . 13. Social Studies . 25 Down Under . .13 . YOU AND THE VIEW ACTIVITY SHEETS THE WORLD FROM THE TOP Landmarks to Locate during the Daytime. 26 Everything Is at Your Feet . .14 . Landmarks to Locate during the Nighttime. 27 How Many Different Languages Do You Hear? . .15 . I Spy from the Sky . 28. Walking on Air: The Ledge . 15. Indoor Scavenger Hunt: Look, Listen, and Interact! . .29 HOW IT ALL WORKS: SAFETY, SYSTEMS AND “COME RAIN OR SHINE” FIELD TRIP PLANS MAINTENANCE Start Every Trip This Way . 30 The Command Center . .16 . Sunny Day Trip . .30 Safety at the Willis Tower . 16. Clear Evening Trip . 31 People and Places . 16 . Rainy Day/Rainy Evening Trip . 32 Electricity, Plumbing and Phone Service . 17 . All the Ups and Downs . 17 . FOR MORE INFORMATION: AN ANNOTATED Keeping Cool and Staying Warm . .18 . BIBLIOGRAPHY Washing the Outside . .18 . Books . .33 Educational DVDs . 34 ENVIRONMENTAL EFFORTS AT THE WILLIS TOWER Online Resources . 35 Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling . 19 . Software . 36 The Shrinking Carbon Footprint . 19 . How the Willis Tower Reduces Waste . 20 . MORE ABOUT YOUR TRIP What’s Recycled at the Willis Tower . .20 . Getting Here . .37 What’s Thrown Away at the Willis Tower . .20 . Local Map for Bus and Automobile Parking . 37 . A New Kind of Heat Exchange . 20 . Entering Skydeck Chicago . 37 Our Fine Feathered Hunters . .20 . Accessibility . .37 Meals and Snacks . 37 Numbers to Know . 37 Hours . .37 3 THE HOWS, WHATS, AND WOWS OF THE WILLIS TOWER www.theskydeck.com Look at any photograph of Chicago and there THE SKYSCRAPER THAT ALMOST WASN’T it is: the Willis Tower. This building, formerly Planning for new office space for the Sears, known as the Sears Tower, says Chicago in the Roebuck Co. began in the late 1960s, when same way the Eiffel Tower says Paris and the Sears was generating 1 percent of the annual Empire State Building says New York. value of all the goods and services produced in the nation, according to The Sears Tower by The tallest building in the Midwest, the Craig and Katherine Doherty. A huge company Willis Tower stands out from the rest of the needed a huge headquarters. The company city’s skyline, even though Chicago includes figured it would need enough room for more some of the most spectacular architecture than 13,000 Chicago-area employees to meet anywhere. As architecture critic Paul its projected growth through the end of the Goldberger put it a few years ago, “What century. brownstone has ever been the symbol of New York that the Empire State Building is, what After interviewing many architects, Sears hired lakefront park the icon that the Sears Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architecture Tower has become?” firm that recently had completed Chicago’s John Hancock Center. The team included Yet if the Sears, Roebuck Co. had followed Bruce Graham as lead architect and Fazlur through on its initial thoughts for a new Khan as structural engineer, a man later office building, the Willis Tower would called the “Einstein of Structural have been less of, well, a tower. And the Engineering.” city would have lost its most recognizable landmark. Photo credit: © Choose Chicago Photo credit: © Choose Chicago 4 THE HOWS, WHATS, AND WOWS OF THE WILLIS TOWER www.theskydeck.com Sears envisioned a building with enormous floors, some of which would be rented out to THE FIRST “SEARS TOWER” other businesses before Sears needed them for its own employees. Indeed, the first plan When business partners Richard Sears and would have made the Sears “tower” 40 stories Alvah Roebuck decided to build the first of 110,000 square feet each. This would have national headquarters for the Sears, been just fine for Sears, but not for the other, Roebuck Co. in 1905, they looked to the much smaller businesses Sears had hoped skies. would rent space. The first “Sears tower” stood 12 stories Each new plan called for an increasingly vertical high, overlooking the neighborhood around design, offering more floors with less space. Homan and Arthington Roads in northwest When the building design finally called for 104 Chicago. Originally designed as a water stories, someone suggested that only six more tower, the 250-foot-high structure in 1924 would create the world’s tallest building at 110 became a broadcasting studio for a Sears- stories. Thus, a skyscraper among owned radio station, WLS, whose call skyscrapers—and the icon of Chicago—was letters stood for “World’s Largest Store.” A conceived. year later, the company opened its first retail store in the brick complex adjacent to the tower. Sears Holdings, one of the nation’s WHERE DOES THE WILLIS TOWER largest retailers, continues to bear the RANK AMONG THE WORLD’S TALLEST famous name. BUILDINGS? The Willis Tower is the second tallest building in both North America and the Western Hemisphere and #8 in the world. According to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a building’s height can be measured in several different ways. The Willis Tower qualifies as the tallest building in the nation in: Height to highest occupied floor (1,431 ft.) Height to the top of the roof (1,450 ft.) While the Willis Tower is no longer the tallest building in the world, it does have the one of the world’s longest elevator rides. You are whisked up 1,353 feet to the highest building observation deck in North America. Unless, of course, you want to quibble over that point with Toronto’s CN (Canadian National) Tower, which is not exactly a “building” but a 1,815-foot high “self-supporting structure.” Its observation deck is 1,465 feet off the ground. —Frank Sinatra 5 THE HOWS, WHATS, AND WOWS OF THE WILLIS TOWER www.theskydeck.com Burj Khalifa | Dubai, United Arab Emirates Completed 2009 | 2,682 feet (818 meters) tall 6 Willis Tower | Chicago, United States Completed 1973 | 1,730 feet (527.3 meters) tall www.theskydeck.com Taipei 101 | Taipei, Taiwan Completed 2004 | 1,671 feet (509.2 meters) tall Shanghai World Financial Center | Shanghai, China Completed 2008 | 1,614 feet (492 meters) tall Petronas Towers | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Completed 1998 | 11,483 feet (451.9 meters) tall Jin Mao Tower | Shanghai, China Completed 1998 | 11,380 feet (420.5 meters) tall 2 International Finance Center | Hong Kong TOWER Completed 2003 | 11,364 feet (415.8 meters) tall WILLIS WILLIS THE THE CITIC Plaza | Guangzhou, China OF Completed 1997 | 11,282 feet (391.1 meters) tall WOWS WOWS AND AND Shun Hing Square | Shenzhen, China , Completed 1996 | 11,260 feet (384 meters) tall WHATS HOWS, HOWS, THE THE Empire State Building | New York, United Completed 1931 | 11,472 feet (448.7 meters) tall States A THUMBNAIL HISTORY OF THE SKYSCRAPER The first skyscrapers were built about a century ago.