Network Reset: Rethinking the Chicago Emerald Necklace Competition Winners
Network Reset: Rethinking the Chicago Emerald Necklace is an international competition organized by MAS Studio & Chicago Architectural Club that seeks to provide ideas and actions that can reactivate the Boulevard System of Chicago and rethink its potential role in the city.
Read on for winners and more on the competition.
String Theory / Department of Unusual Certainties
Department of Unusual Certainties [DoUC] recently completed a submission to the Network Reset, Rethinking the Chicago Emerald Necklace, competition hosted by Mas Studio and the Chicago Architectural Club. Participants were asked to look at the urban scale and propose a framework for the entire boulevard system as well as provide answers and visualize the interventions at a smaller scale that can directly impact its potential users. Through images, diagrams and drawings the work should express what are the soft or hard, big or small, temporary or permanent interventions that can reactivate and reset the Boulevard System of Chicago. DoUC’s proposal focused on filling Chicago’s Emerald Necklace with a framework of posts, beams, ropes and counterweights - to produce a pick-and-choose- method of program management. Images of their entry and a description can be seen after the jump.
Exhibition: Easton + Combs present CHANGING ROOM
CHANGING ROOM, by Easton + Combs, is a mirage of the intimate in the realm of the public. As the daydream is to daily life, a momentary slippage that can re-qualify the onslaught of a quotidian continuum, so too is the CHANGING ROOM to the urban field.
CHANGING ROOM redefines boundaries and expected conditions of intimacy while transforming into a subtle spectacle of the expectations and boundaries of intimate experience in the public realm. Expressed as a structural and material veil and suspended from above, the lightweight structural skin dilates along the bottom edge creating oblique visual corridors to the interior as well as passages for the body to move through. The skin culminates in an undulating skirt edge suspended above the surface of the gallery floor. Like a closet of two way mirrors, the limit and perception of the interior belies the condition of transparency and spectacle from the exterior.
Situated in the context of the gallery, this installation proposes it’s oscillating redefinitions of the intimate and the public as an experimental architectural expression. The psychological conditions associated with transparency, reflectivity, illumination and lightness intersect with their material expression in a lightweight semitransparent dichroic polycarbonate surface. This surface is the temporary veil that creates the ambient conditions of CHANGING ROOM. At the same time the surface is organized by the textile and tectonic logic of a herringbone weave to perform as a structural skin shell and create faceted surface conditions that allow for maximum visual dichroic and transparent effects.
The exhibition starts April 8, and you can find more information here.
AD Classics: IBM Building / Mies van der Rohe
Completed four years after architect Mies van der Rohe‘s passing, the IBM Building became one of the cities most prestigious addresses. A pure symbol of the architecture of the time, the almost 700 foot tall rectangle sits on a raised plinth that helps it to maintain a uniform height given the unevenness of the site; State Street to the structure’s west inclines steeply.
More on the IBM Building, also known as 330 North Wabash, after the break.
26LAB: A life enrichment program and learning lab
26LAB, NFP is a new not-for-profit founded in the city Chicago, a life enrichment program and sustainable learning lab using architecture, engineering and construction education. While they complete the renovations of the lab, they are hosting a “26LAB iit pilot” program for high school students, in partnership with IIT Idea Shop on the famed campus designed by Mies Van der Rohe, and now with a building by Koolhaas.
Also, 26LAB is hosting a Pre-Opening Fundraiser event on Friday March 11th, at 7pm. More information after the break.
Instituto of Health Sciences Career Academy / JGMA (Moreno Architects)
JGMA won the competition to design the Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy High School (IHSCA) in Chicago, Illinois for the Institutio del Progreso Latio. The program is for a charter school that will serve 600 youth from Chicago communities. It will be the first career academy in the state of Illinois dedicated to health sciences. The new facility will also provide serves to consolidate existing programs under the Instituto.
More on this project after the break.
Leavitt Residence / Miller Hull Partnership
The Leavitt Residence is an extensive renovation of a 1920′s mercantile building in the Chicago neighborhood of Bucktown. The 3-story existing structure consisted of heavy timber framing, with brick cladding at the exterior. An effort was made to respect the existing building while at the same time inserting dramatic new design gestures. The most significant insertion was to add an expansive window wall which extrudes upward and flows over the roof to create a highly transparent penthouse. The window wall provides connection to a private yard, a valuable asset in this dense urban setting.
Project description, images, and drawings after the break.
Architect: Miller Hull Partnership
Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Architect of Record: Studio Dwell Architects
Engineer: Fisher & Partners Structural Engineers
General Contractor: Ranquist Development
Project Area: 8,600 sqf
Project Year: 2007
Photographs: Marty Peters
Structures for Inclusion Conference
Sponsored by Social Economic Environmental Design (SEED) and Design Corps in support with Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the Enterprise Foundation and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the eleventh annual “Structures for Inclusion (SFI 10 + 1)” conference will be held in Chicago on the 25th – 27th of March 2011.
“SFI 10 + 1″ will unite activists, designers, funders and policy makers as change agents to address the most pressing design challenges of the world today, challenging participants to integrate positive change design in their own practices. Going above and beyond the green design movement the “SFI 10 + 1″ will confront design processes to consider the broader social and economic well-being of communities and cities.
Opening the conference on March 25th will be keynote speaker Patrick Tighe of Tighe Architects. The conferences keynotes, panels, and workshops will also include the participation of Tom Fischer Dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota, Andrew Freear Director of Rural Studio, and Sergio Palleroni of BaSiC Initiative, Trung Le of CANNON Design, Christine Gaspar of Center for Urban Pedagogy, Quilian Riano of DSGN AGNC, and Michael Zaretsky Co-author of New Directions in Sustainable Design.
The SEED Design Awards, an international competition highlighting Public Interest Design, will be integrated in the “SFI 10 + 1″ as the winning recipients, featured after the break, will partake as key proponents in the conference experience.
More information about the “SFI 10 + 1″ conference can be found at their official website.
UNO School / STL
STL Architects, which has previously shared with us their UNO Master Plan for the Gage Park community of Chicago, has now submitted a modular school for the same client. Images and a description of the newly designed UNO School after the jump.
Chicago Children’s Museum / Krueck & Sexton Architects
Chicago Children’s Museum’s mission is to create a community where play and learning connect. The museum’s primary audiences are children up through fifth grade including their families, along with school and community groups that support and influence children’s growth and development. In its current location at Navy Pier, the Museum lacks meaningful connections to the outdoors and is challenged with the heavyly commercial environment of what has become Illinois’ most popular tourist attraction.
Follow the break for more drawings of this projected Leed Gold project.
Architects: Krueck & Sexton Architects
Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA
MEP Engineers: Environmental Systems Design
Environmetal Design Consultants: Atelier Ten
Structural Engineers: Thornton Tomasetti
Renderings: Courtesy of Krueck & Sexton Architects
Video: Columbia College Chicago Media Production Center / Studio Gang Architects
The award winning Columbia College Chicago Media Production Center, designed by Studio Gang Architects, uses spatial layering and oblique compositional lines to create depths of field and light within the building. Studio Gang Architects, one of our favorite Chicago firms, are also the designers of the sculptural Aqua Tower.
This skillfully shot video was created by Dave Burk at Hedrich Blessing in collaboration with Thirst.
Street Furniture Competition 2011
Following the success of last year’s competition, Architecture for Humanity Chicago, in collaboration with Archeworks, is proud to announce the Street Furniture Competition 2011. Read over the full competition brief after the break.
Planted Environment / Studio IDE
Architects: Studio IDE
Location: Chicago, USA
Design Team: Vladimir Radutny, Paul Tebben, Joe Signorelli
Construction: Harder Brothers Inc.
Project area: 1,500 sq. ft.
Project year: 2009 – 2010
Photographs: Nathan Kirkman Photography and Studio IDE
2011 Burnham Prize Competition: McCormick Place REDUX
The Chicago Architectural Club is pleased to announce the 2011 Burnham Prize Competition. This year’s competition is co-sponsored by the American Institute of Architects Chicago and Landmarks Illinois. The competition is intended to examine the controversial legacy and questionable future of the McCormick Place East Building, the 1971 modernist convention hall designed by Gene Summers of C.F. Murphy Associates which is sited on the lakefront in Burnham Park. Registration for the 2011 Burnham Prize Competition has been open since 1 February 2011. Submissions are due 4 April 2011. More competition information after the break.
The Crown Fountain / Krueck & Sexton Architects
The Crown Fountain in Millennium Park is a gift to the people of Chicago by the Crown family. Located at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street, this interactive piece is a poetic meditation on the elemental and sensual qualities of water and light. The world renowned Spanish artist Jaume Plensa was commissioned to create the work.
Architects: Krueck & Sexton Architects
Location: Millennium Park Chicago, Illinois, USA
Owner’s Representative: U.S. Equities Development
MEP Engineers: Environmental Systems Design
Structural Engineers: Halvorson + Kaye
Water Feature Consultants: Crystal Fountains
Video Art: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Photographs: Cesar Russ, William Zbaren, Hedrich Blessing, Courtesy of Krueck + Sexton Architects, Courtesy of Millennium Park
Network Reset: Rethinking the Chicago Emerald Necklace Competition
MAS Studio and the Chicago Architectural Club are sponsoring a competition to redesign the Chicago Boulevard System in a more effective and livable manner.
The international competition, NETWORK RESET, seeks to reactivate the entire boulevard system. The competition will focus on the urban scale and a larger framework for the system as well as smaller scale user impacts. NETWORK RESET aims to reactivate the entire Boulevard System of Chicago and to develop a quality transportation corridor.
For complete information go to the competition’s official website.
UNO Master Plan / STL
STL Architects shared with us their UNO Master Plan in the Gage Park community on the southwest side of Chicago, Illinois. This Master Plan not only offers an opportunity to revitalize the existing neighborhood and make it more vibrant and pedestrian oriented, but it also acts as a catalyst by attracting new business and investments such as educational facilities, a civic center and open green space. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Architecture City Guide: Chicago
We are headed to the windy city of Chicago for this weeks Architecture City Guide series. Jam packed with architecture from Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, here are our 12 recommendations if you are visiting Chicago. Head to the comment section and share your recommendations for additional buildings to include on our list!
The Architecture City Guide: Chicago list and corresponding map after the break!
Network Reset: Rethinking the Chicago Emerald Necklace Competition
MAS Studio and the Chicago Architectural Club are pleased to announce the competition: NETWORK RESET, a single-stage international competition that seeks to provide ideas and actions that can reactivate the Boulevard System of Chicago and rethink its potential role in the city.
Participants are asked to look at the urban scale and propose a framework for the entire boulevard system as well as provide answers and visualize the interventions at a smaller scale that can directly impact its potential users. Through images, diagrams and drawings we want to know what are those soft or hard, big or small, temporary or permanent interventions that can reactivate and reset the Boulevard System of Chicago.
For more information, please visit the competition’s official website.
1.99 Real Housing: Communities + Designers
Reflecting the current state of architecture, urbanism and landscape discourse, Architecture for Humanity – Chicago, School of the Art Institute Chicago and the Village of Igarai are proud to announce, 1.99 REAL HOUSING: Communities + Designers, a call for ideas.
In an effort to advance the territory between top-down and bottom-up planning, for all types of interim, emergency, public and affordable housing design, 1.99 REAL HOUSING seeks to create a design platform that utilizes advanced sustainable architectural design solutions, together with local knowledge of materials, methods and systems to produce a new form of cooperative culture.
Submissions are due on January 25th. For more information, visit www.afh-chicago.org.
Wood House In Chicago / Miller Hull Partnership
Architects: Osterhaus McCarthy
Design architects: Miller Hull Partnership
Location: Chicago, USA
Interior design: Kara Mann
Project area: 5,200 sqm
Project area: 2010
Photographs: Becky Midden, Marty Peters
