Downtown Calgary has developed as a typical North American city center with a cluster of corporate towers surrounded by a periphery of low-density surburban homes. The Telus Sky Tower creates a lively mixture of living and working at the intersection of lightrail and arterial roads in the heart of the center, creating a more varied and walkable city center for Calgary. It is designed to seamlessly accommodate the transformation from working to living as the tower takes off from the ground to reach the sky. The large floor plates for workplaces recede to achieve the slender dimensions of residential floor depths. The texture of the façade in a similar fashion evolves from a smooth glass façade enclosing the work space to a three-dimensional composition of apartments and balconies. The resultant silhouette expresses the unification of the two programs in a single gesture – in rational straight lines composed to form a feminine figure.