USA

USA

Construction
Transport
Construction
Transport

Samples basket

Spoke apartments

The two (Spoke) towers

Altro Lavencia LVT

With cascading windows gleaming throughout, shooting skyward into the Chicago expanse, Spoke apartments grants its guests grandiose views of the bustling downtown. Built upon the crumbs of the torn-down Gonnella Bakery, the new Spoke construction brings 10,000 square feet of retail space sandwiched between two towers of one-and-two-bedroom luxury apartments, townhouses and penthouse suites.

The towers’ inner amenities include rooms for organizing parties, gaming on a massive TV with surround-sound speakers, working out with state-of-the-art equipment or even just lounging around while watching the game or listening to music.

Gensler’s Chicago branch, working with architecture firm FitzGerald Associates, designed the interior amenities and individual units. Angela Harper, Associate at Gensler, said that they conducted much research on cost, thickness, durability, sound properties and aesthetics from different luxury vinyl tile (LVT) products across the industry before selecting Altro.

A custom 5mm-thick Altro Lavencia LVT in color Hampton Greige was the wood-look flooring of choice for all apartment, townhouse and penthouse living rooms – 350,000 square feet’s worth.

“The ability to custom order the Hampton Greige color on the thicker product without any cost increase helped tremendously in making the choice,” said Angela Harper, Senior Associate at Gensler. “And the effort by Altro to install a large scale mock-up was very helpful to us and the designer in finalizing the decision. [The Altro sales representative] was instrumental in making this happen.”

With apartment complexes, or any construction with multiple stories, sound transmission between floors is paramount. Although Altro Lavencia glue-down LVT is manufactured at 3mm thickness, this project required a thicker floor and we were more than willing to provide both the product and mockup.

Subcontractor and installer Diverzify requested the extra thickness to avoid needing a cork or similar underlayment for extra sound resistance, saving time and cost. Our LVT allowed them to finish the 350,000 square foot installation six weeks before the scheduled completion date.

“Altro proved to be economically the better choice since there was so much quantity, yet also met the quality standards we were looking for,” Harper said.

Download the Spoke apartments PDF