University Tower
This six level professional building was a collaborative effort on the part of TWH Architects and two other professional firms as joint owners. All three companies had outgrown their existing offices and decided to join together, purchase property, and design a new professional building strategically located between downtown Chattanooga and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. As a result, each group would have ownership in the new building, occupy a floor, and assist with development and leasing of the remaining three floors.
The building is located in a predominantly residential area of downtown so the designers used materials and forms that relate to the neighborhood environment. Masonry was used as a dominant element since surrounding buildings were brick veneer. Reflective double pane glass was used, not only to save energy, but to reflect the surrounding buildings in order to reduce the visual mass of the structure. The sloping standing seam roof was chosen since most of the surrounding buildings have sloping roofs.
The tower element houses the elevators and stairs for the building’s vertical movement. It also served as a focal point that could be seen as you travelled from downtown toward the university Several other buildings designed since that time have chosen a similar tower like element to anchor their mass along the 4th Street corridor.
University Tower was one of the most energy efficient office buildings in the area for its time due to the use of a gas fired heating system, reflective glass, size and orientation of the building footprint, and reduced floor to floor heights made possible by the use of a post tensioned concrete slabstructure.
