Chicago’s South Loop skyline may be getting a new bobble in the form of a boxy rental residential tower across from the Roosevelt University vertical campus. Designed by Lothan Van Hook DeStefano Architecture, the black boxes cantilever over the edge of the one below, creating a cubic counterpoint to Roosevelt’s zig zag. Many of these stacked box schemes—including a project in Jersey City by OMA and the dead Museum Plaza by REX in Louisville—have never made it off the drawing board, so it will be interesting to see if the locals can pull it off.
Unveiled> Geenland Tower in Suzhou by SOM Chicago
SOM's Geenland Tower is proposed for a new city in China. (Courtesy SOM)
SOM Chicago has won a competition to design a mixed-use tower in the new Chinese city of Suzhou. Located along a lake front, the tower includes a distinctive void carved out the upper portion of the tower, splitting the floorplates in half to better serve hotel uses. Offices will fill the lower, larger floorplates. “We’ve been doing these kinds of mixed-use towers since Hancock,” said Ross Wimer, a partner at SOM Chicago. “Instead of tapering the tower, we’ve carved away a slot to bring fresh air and light into the building.”
Architects are aware of the fluctuations in the cost of materials due to global demand. The Times takes a look at one link of that global chain that is having a big impact on Midwestern cities: scrappers. The short documentary video “Dismantling Detroit” captures that city’s former manufacturing glory, which now being pulled down and sold for scrap to feed China’s productivity. It’s a brief, sobering look at a complex problem with vast implications for the Midwest’s built environment.
Yesterday, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel officially reopened the Grand/State L station, and pledged to build a new Green Line stop at Cermak and a new Washington/Wabash stop in the Loop. Construction on the two new stops is expected to begin in about a year, and will create approximately 4000 jobs. Curbed Chicago has a good round-up of the news and event.
Prominent Shortlist for Park City’s Kimball Art Center
A stacked-timber design by BIG / Bjarke Ingels Group. (All images courtesy Kimball Art Center)
Five noted teams have been shortlisted from a pool of 18 to renovate and expand the Kimball Art Center (KAC) in Park City, Utah. The firms include BIG/Bjarke Ingels Group; Brooks + Scarpa Architects; Sparano + Mooney Architecture; Will Bruder + Parnets; and Todd Williams Billie Tsien Architects. The center offers exhibitions as well as art classes, workshops, and other educational programs. Plans call for renovating the interior of the existing KAC and constructing a new modern building next door. Each of the proposals will be displayed using augmented reality, photography, and video during the Sundance Film Festival from January 19 through the 29 and a jury will select a winner in February once the public has had a chance to weigh in on their favorites. Construction could begin as soon as mid-2013 with the new wing opening in 2015.
AN has heard on good authority that three high level architects from AECOM have left that firm to open a Los Angeles office of SOM. SOM’s major west coast presence has long been in its San Francisco office. This story has been updated, please click here to read the full story.
The Gehry Residence in Santa Monica, CA has been granted the AIA’s coveted Twenty-five Year Award. In 1978, Gehry transformed the modest frame bungalow with angled forms of plywood, corrugated metal and chain-link mesh, radical interventions within its leafy, residential surroundings. The house was a precursor of Deconstructivist architecture that came to the forefront in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as a the architect’s own exuberant formal inventions at the Bilbao Guggenheim and elsewhere.
New Projects: Chicago’s Newest Architecture Gallery
Located three blocks south of Crown Hall at IIT, New Projects, a new architecture research and exhibition space, aims to provide a venue for urban and artistic dialogue about the future of cities. Located in the 1920′s Overton Building, the 3400 square foot storefront space is to play host to lectures, workshops, and exhibitions “focusing specifically on urbanism,” according to co-organizer Marshall Brown. Read More
St. Louis to I-70, Put A Lid On It
St. Louis will soon build a "lid" over I-70 to better connect the Arch with downtown.
The grounds surrounding the St. Louis Arch have long been cut off from downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods. One of the chief goals of the City+River+Arch competition was to improve connectivity. St. Louis recently received $20 million in federal TIGER III grants to build a lid over 1-70, one of the most important pieces of the Michael Van Valkenburgh-led redesign of the Arch grounds. The overall cost of the redesign is estimated at $578 million, so the grant is just a fraction of the overall funding needed. Still, it’s an important, early sign that this ambitious project is moving ahead.
Transit Stalls and Starts in the Midwest
On Wednesday, federal transportation secretary Ray LaHood effectively killed Detroit’s planned light rail line, citing doubt about the city’s ability to build and maintain the project, given its dire finances and collapsing levels of density. He instead pushed for bus rapid transit along the Woodward Avenue corridor. Elsewhere, however, transit seems to be gaining traction. Read More
Postmodernists Are Now Classicists, Driehaus Confirms
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts addition designed by Michael Graves (all photos courtesy Driehaus Prize)
The small world of classicist architecture in America–where many former Postmodernists found refuge after the dial of taste turned away from jokey historical references and pasted-on pediments–is working overtime to rehabilitate the 70s and 80s stylistic counter reformation. First was the recent conference, “Reconsidering Postmodernism,” organized by the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art, which brought out many of the movement’s old stars for presentations, chats, and a lot of hand wringing. Today, the Chicago-based Richard H. Driehaus Foundation announced that Michael Graves was this year’s winner of the $200,000 Driehaus Prize.
Unveiled> David Hovey’s Streeterville Tower in Chicago
(courtesy Optima)
The architect/developer David Hovey has designed buildings in the Chicago suburbs as well as city neighborhoods outside of downtown. With the Optima Center Chicago, he is making a 42 story debut just north of the Loop. The luxury rental tower will have 325 units. Hovey is bullish on the building’s potential. “All our market research shows a lot of demand for rentals in that area,” he said of Streeterville. The units will sit on top of nine floors of parking as well as 20,000 square feet of commercial space. Hovey thinks the building’s location–walkable to the Loop, the Lake, and the Magnificent Mile–will make it appealing to upper-end renters. Amenities will include 10th floor recreation center and a sky deck on the 42nd floor concealed behind an ultra-smooth glass curtain wall.
Advertise on The Architect's Newspaper.
Archives
Categories
Architecture
Design
East Coast
Midwest
National
Planning
Shft+Alt+Del
Sustainability
Transportation
West Coast
