KOO's Visionary Design for Offshore, the World's Largest Rooftop Bar per Guinness, Delivers a Peerless Yacht-like Experience

CHICAGO, July 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- KOO, an award-winning architecture and commercial interior design firm, delivered a seminal design for Offshore, Navy Pier's new 50,000-square-foot rooftop bar and eatery. With a 16-foot-high, barrel-vaulted translucent roof and water views from every sightline, Offshore lets guests experience a luxurious "cruise" for the price of a meal or drink.

KOO's groundbreaking program is intentional and strategic; Offshore is a cornerstone of Navy Pier's Centennial Vision to reimagine and redevelop the 100-year-old destination as a venue that's not just for tourists and kids. Millennials and adventure-seeking adults will relate to the chic vibe KOO has created at Offshore.  

Given the Pier's humble beginnings as a shipping hub built on a wood pile foundation, Offshore's structural design was technically challenging. To meet requirements that earned Offshore the World's Largest Rooftop Bar designation from Guinness Book of World Records, KOO had to think outside the box—literally and figuratively.

To accommodate imaginative features like the structure's soaring, barrel-vaulted roof, epic yet elegant 100-foot-long bar and mutable activity areas, KOO's architects put the gleaming white structural system front and center, making it an eye-catching decorative feature. Its pioneering EFTE roof—layers of superlight inflated polymer—admits diffused light year-round. Coupled with glass window-walls that fold open, Offshore feels like an outside venue year-round.

Given Offshore's size and scale, its interior design was also challenging. "We had to develop a program that would offer guests a wide variety of experiences and allow a wide range of spaces to be flexible to accommodate many types of events, often concurrently," KOO Principal Jackie Koo explains. To give the heroically scaled spaces decorative intrigue, warmth, intimacy and flexibility, Koo employed an updated nautical theme "that makes guests feel like they're at a luxurious yacht party," she adds and that can be seen here. Highlights of the venue include:

• A sleek, airy 20,000-square-foot barrel-vaulted structure that pays homage to Navy Pier's landmarked 1916 design yet incorporates modern, state-of-the-art building technology;
• A translucent, superlight, air-filled ETFE roof that filters light and warmth in year-round and shaves off enough pounds for the structure to sit atop Navy Pier's Shelter Building;
• Operable glass walls that open onto a 30,000-square-foot waterside rooftop deck with seven firepits;
• Two sprawling outdoor lawns for games, events, lounging and dining;
• A 450-square-foot Y-shaped container garden to commemorate the three branches of the Chicago River; and
• Subtle nautical details like boat-stitched banquettes, custom brass whistle-shaped light fixtures, captain's chairs, weathered metal and wood tables and a colorful "propeller wall" at Offshore's entrance.

Despite its record-breaking size, Offshore feels like a posh oceanside yacht club thanks to its shrewd architecture, bespoke interior design and mutable floorplan. While it's quickly gaining ground as "biggest," "best" is sure to follow thanks to its trifecta of significant design, gourmet fare and a matchless location.

About: KOO is a Chicago-based, full-service architecture, interior design and planning firm founded by Jackie Koo. Its projects all have unique identities and embrace the new, temporal and experimental while staying mindful of the technical rigors innovation entails. Besides Offshore, KOO designed many award-winning hospitality, multifamily and public projects, including theWit, a Doubletree hotel at the gateway to Chicago's Loop and Hotel EMC2 in Chicago's Streeterville. Currently, Koo is designing the interiors of a Hyatt that will anchor the prestigious Cook County Hospital redevelopment project.

Media Contact: Denise Spencer
[email protected]
312.371.6239-Mobile
312.373.3777-Office 

SOURCE KOO

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