The Illinois
The Mile-High Illinois, Illinois Sky City, or simply The Illinois is a visionary skyscraper that was proposed to be over 1 mile (1,600 m) high, conceived and described by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in his 1957 book, ‘A Testament’. The design, intended to be built in Chicago, included 528 stories, with a gross area of 1,715,000 sq.m. Wright stated that there would be parking for 15,000 cars and 100 helicopters.
If built, it would top the list of the tallest buildings in the world by far, being more than four times the height of the Empire State Building, almost twice as tall as the world’s current tallest building, the Burj Khalifa and about 730 m taller than the proposed Jeddah Tower – the latter two both designed by Adrian Smith, whose designs for both buildings are said to have been inspired by that of The Illinois.
Wright explained that there would be 76 elevators, each having five-floor-high tandem cabs, serving blocks of five floors simultaneously. The 76 elevators would be divided into five banks or groups, with each elevator group serving a hundred-floor segment of the building. Wright’s floor plan of the 528th floor shows it would be served by only one elevator shaft. The elevators were to be "atomic-powered", capable of mile-per-minute speeds, and running on ratchets instead of suspended by cables.
The 1000m height limitations of the game have forced me to make this asset at 50% scale. The model has been adapted to 1000m with half as many floors (264) to maintain realistic proportions. It would have been great to create it at real world scale but at 1700m the game just wasn’t built for assets that big.
If you want to see the building at full scale check out my SketchFab [sketchfab.com] model.
IMPORTANT
This is a very big asset and as such has a high tri count and large textures.
Its large size causes the LOD (Level of Detail) to appear sooner than on normal scale assets. To counter this and to stop it looking low quality the LOD textures are 2K which is much bigger than I would usually create. In addition, the LOD mesh uses 341 tris for the same reason.
To stop the LOD ‘kicking in’ as quickly I recommend adjusting the LOD distance with the Ultimate Level of Detail mod by boformer.
This asset was commissioned by Lester The Terran.
The Illinois
Footprint
9 x 15 Units (Actually 30 x 30)
Geometry
24.2K tris, 341 tris LOD
Textures
2048 x 2048, LOD 2024 x 2024
I’ve set the game footprint to the largest I can in game but the base of the building uses an area of 30 x 30 game units. You will need to use the Move It mod to readjust the positioning once plopped.
The asset can be found in the ‘Unique Buildings’ tab.
This asset is available in a collection of my ‘Design Classics’. Why not check out the other classics and make your city special?
This is one of a series of architectural ‘Design Classics’. If you have any suggestions for great buildings to add to the build list please leave a comment below. I can’t promise that your suggestion will make the final list but I will consider it. Alternatively you could commission a building by following the link below.
I’ve tried to make this asset as realistic as possible and therefore the geometry tri count is high and the textures large. All of the texture elements have been created specifically for this asset in order for full control over the final look.
Please try this asset out and if there are any problems let me know in the comments below.
If you really, really like my assets please consider clicking below to make a donation. I’m unable to work because of ill health and do this because I love the positive feedback I get.
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Click below if you have any commissions for me to consider.
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