One Hundred Tower is a residential skyscraper with angled facades that Studio Gang completed last year. The building facing Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri, takes its name from its location: 100 Kingshighway Boulevard.

The 380-foot (116-meter-high) tower features four-story levels, each stacked on top of each other, to give the building height. The skyscraper that was conceived “from the inside out” -as stated by Juliane Wolf, design director of Studio Gang to the website Archpaper- occupies an area of 520,000 square feet (about 48,310 square meters) and offers 316 residential units ranging from studio units to three-bedroom apartments.

Although it has been open for less than a year, this architectural gem, located in one of the most exclusive areas of the city (Central West End), is already presented as the new landmark of the city of St. Louis. The reason? We’ll explain below.

A privileged view

This skyscraper has striking sections of glazing that, in the form of a fan, stand out and reflect the park they face. “The building reflects the changing light and weather in Forest Park, providing a dynamic backdrop for foliage and snow alike,” said Studio Gang on its website about the building.

Certainly, its creators earned all the points by choosing the location of the building. The skyscraper is located at an intersection of a main road (100 North Kingshighway), which offers some of the best views of St. Louis.

The west face of the tower overlooks the undulating green space of Forest Park, while to the east, the building sits almost directly on the axis with the mythical Gateway Arch and downtown St. Louis.

A particularly beautiful milestone

The most striking feature of this skyscraper is its distinctive shape that resembles an oak leaf. One Hundred is thus a building that rises in a series of levels of four, each of which extends upwards in a pattern of oblique angles. But this isn’t random.

The website Architecturalrecord explains that this beautiful building is the latest in a trio of initial projects that the architecture Studio Gang has completed for the developer Mac Properties. In each of its works, the studio has used complex exterior coatings that take advantage of natural light conditions to generate solar heat gain.

The architects of Studio Gang told the website Architecturalrecord that among the client’s requests for this project was that a quarter of the units had outdoor spaces. To accommodate such request, they came up with the idea of pushing out the “roof” of each level, allowing them to offer a terrace to the first floor of the upper level. This means that the units at the top of each level have more enclosed spaces, while the units at the bottom are smaller but have private terraces.

The Gateway Arch as inspiration

The inclination of the curtain wall is also something that attracts a lot of attention in this skyscraper. This detail improves thermal performance by reducing the impact of temperature during the summer, when the angles of the sun are more pronounced, and allows to take advantage of the natural heat in the winter.

Another attractive feature of One Hundred is the fact that the building seems to be different from virtually every angle due to the subtle rotation of the units. Its creators explain that the material used on the outer skin plays a fundamental role in this regard. The façade alternates between regions of transparent curtain wall glazing and curtain panels that are corrugated anodized aluminum rain.

So, this interesting skyscraper not only stands in the middle of a privileged location of St. Louis, with the elegance of its modern look but also makes a nod to the emblematic Gateway Arch, sharing with it the beautiful flashes of Missouri sunsets that are reflected in its structure.