On August 15th 2019, nearly 650 people from throughout the A/E/C industry gathered at 4th and Union to celebrate a huge milestone in the construction industry. Rainier Square, Seattle’s second tallest building and the first in the world to use a game-changing structural system, topped out at over 850 feet.
The building’s impressive height and striking curtain wall isn’t the only thing that drew the dramatic crowd. Rainier Square features a revolutionary steel core, known as a “concrete-filled composite plate shear wall,” consisting of prefabricated steel modules that fit together like blocks, are welded together and are then filled with a high-strength concrete. As a result, Rainier Square’s structure was erected in just 10 months, eight months faster than a traditional method. This innovative design is changing the way towers are built.
It also means we topped out the tower on a beautiful August day, not a rainy winter day in Seattle! Check out the video above for a 360-degree view of Seattle history as teams place the final beam more than 58 stories above Seattle.
The 850-foot building is the product of:
- 16,126 tons of steel
- 524 core panels
- More than 500,000 worker-hours
- 380,000 square feet of curtain wall
For more information about Rainier Square Tower’s revolutionary construction concept, check out the first installment of our three-part blog series.