Spontaneous Interventions To Spruce Up Chicago’s Millennium Park This Summer
(Courtesy MAS Studio)
Starting Memorial Day, Chicago’s Millennium Park will host the U.S. debut of a bright array of public design projects, many of which appeared at the 2012 Venice Biennale. Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good will feature 84 works, including more than a dozen for Chicago and several that also appeared in Venice.
Chicago Developer Eyes Endangered Cuneo Hospital for Arts Center
CUNEO MEMORIAL HOSPITAL IN CHICAGO. (ZOL87 / FLICKR)
The vacant Frank Cuneo Memorial Hospital in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood faces demolition to make way for the $220 million “Maryville” residential project, but the developer of Chicago’s Green Exchange has a plan to save the 1957 Edo Belli-designed building. David Baum, of Baum Development, said his plan to turn Cuneo into a neighborhood hub for Uptown’s artistic community would not require any subsidies. The rival plan from JDL Development calls for luxury apartments and $32 million of TIF funding.
But the two may not be mutually exclusive. JDL’s plan calls for development along the west side of Clarendon Avenue, while Cuneo is on the east. Baum’s plan awaits the approval of an architectural engineer who could vet the building’s structural integrity and help solidify plans for redevelopment.
Cuneo made Preservation Chicago’s list of seven most endangered buildings in 2012.
Chicago To Roll Out Alta’s Divvy Bike Share in June
“Divvy,” Chicago’s forthcoming bike share program, features three-speed bicycles painted the same blue as seen as seen in the city’s flag. (Courtesy Divvy / Alta Bicycle Share)
Chicago’s bike share program will kick off in June when the city debuts hundreds of light blue, three-speed bicycles that can be rented for an hourly fee or with a yearly $75 membership.
Managed by Portland, OR–based Alta Bicycle Share, which also runs New York and DC’s bike share, Chicago’s program goes by the name “Divvy.” Alta was supposed to launch the $22 million program last summer, and has since become the subject of controversy. Chicago Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein was formerly a consultant for the company, and competitors have alleged foul play, which Alta and the city have flatly denied.
The first of Divvy’s 75 solar-powered docking stations will be downtown and in River North. Within a year the city’s plan is to roll out 400 stations and about 4,000 bicycles across the city.
Massive Monsanto Expansion in St. Louis Suburbs has Urbanists Asking, “Why not downtown?”
Cannon Design’s life sciences research center for agribusiness giant Monsanto in Chesterfield, Missouri. (Courtesy Cannon Design)
Agribusiness titan Monsanto has pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades to its research facility outside St. Louis, and design details are starting to pop up. Cannon Design will plan, design and engineer a new 400,000 square foot center for life sciences research.
APA Hands Out National Planning Excellence Awards
Philadelphia’s Integrated Planning and Zoning Process won National Planning Excellence Award for a Best Practice, namely its “innovative approach to leveraging the synergy between citizen education, planning, and zoning reform.” (Courtesy APA)
Northwest Indiana’s 2040 masterplan took home top honors for comprehensive planning last week, when the American Planning Association handed out its 2013 National Planning Excellence Awards. The association also saluted 12 projects with the first-ever National Planning Achievement Awards.
Tying into a major theme at this year’s conference, the APA award winners tended toward projects with an ambitious scope, such as Philadelphia’s sweeping planning and zoning rewrite and New York’s Zone Green initiative.
Details Emerge for Bus Rapid Transit on Chicago’s Ashland Avenue
Above: Before & After: Ashland Avenue at Polk. (Courtesy Chicago Transit Authority)
Chicago officials released details Friday about a much-anticipated project to roll out bus rapid transit along Ashland Avenue, a major arterial street that runs north-south a bit more than a mile and half west of downtown. Previous plans from the city included a route on Western Avenue as well, but a statement from the Chicago Transit Authority and the Chicago Department of Transportation revealed only plans for Ashland.
Coming Soon To Vacant Lots in St. Louis: Chess, Farming, Sunflower Rehab
A restaurant made from shipping containers was among the winners. (Courtesy Sustainable Land Lab)
The winners of St. Louis’ first-ever “Sustainable Land Lab” competition, put on by Washington University and city officials, attempted to make the most of a regrettably abundant resource: vacant lots.
Local architects took top honors in a competition that garnered some four dozen submissions. Each winner gets a two-year lease on a North St. Louis vacant lot and $5,000 in seed money to realize their ideas. Five winning projects will share four lots (two finalist teams combined their proposals into one new plan) across the city.
Cincinnati’s Bike Hub Connects the City With Smale Riverfront Park
The bike hub in Cincinnati’s Smale Waterfront Park. (Randy Simes / Urban Cincy)
As one of a slew of successful placemaking initiatives of late, along with the recently reopened Washington Park, Cincinnati’s Phyllis W. Smale Riverfront Park is a key component of the city’s resurgent urban identity. It’s a multi-faceted design, aspiring to filter water for flood control, provide green space and connect two downtown stadiums with a multimodal trail along the Ohio River.
Loyola University Hopes to Close Kenmore Ave for Pedestrian Walkway
Loyola University hopes to permanently close part of Kenmore Avenue in preparation for new dorms on its lakefront campus in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. SmithGroupJJR architects, who also helped revamp Loyola’s lakefront campus along with Solomon Cordwell Buenz, released some renderings of the new pedestrian space, which would replace Kenmore Avenue between West Sheridan Road and Rosemont Avenue.
Massive Post Office Development in Chicago Moves Forward
Phase One Rendering of Old Main Post Office Redevelopment. (Courtesy Chicago Architecture Blog)
International Property Developers (IPD) has renewed plans for massive developments around Chicago’s Old Main Post Office. IPD bought the structure in 2009 for $40 million and has been working with Chicago-based architects Antunovich Associates on a plan to surround the massive building, which has almost as much interior space as Willis Tower, with three new towers.
Kent State Picks Weiss/Manfredi to Design New Architecture School
(Courtesy Weiss Manfredi)
Marking the end of a design competition for the new home of its College of Architecture & Environmental Design, Kent State University has chosen Weiss/Manfredi’s “Design Loft” over submissions from Bialosky & Partners of Cleveland with Architecture Research Office of New York; The Collaborative of Toledo with Miller Hull Partnership of Seattle; and Westlake Reed Leskosky of Cleveland.
The college is moving from three separate buildings including Taylor Hall, where it has been for decades, and which served as a gathering spot for the 1970 Vietnam War protest that would end in four deaths.
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