What Facebook Can Learn From Company Towns

CityLab Ι July 19, 2017  In the early 20th century, hundreds of company towns dotted America—quasi-public municipalities where the corporation you worked for built your house, taught your kids, maintained your roads and sewers, and even sold you groceries. Such towns once contained 3 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Economist. As the… Continue reading What Facebook Can Learn From Company Towns

Here Comes Chicago’s Architecture Bonanza

CityLab Ι June 29, 2017 In 2015, Chicago launched the largest contemporary architecture event in North America—the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Staged at multiple sites around the city (including the lakefront) and drawing more than half a million visitors over three months, it was a wide shotgun blast in terms of content, with techno-psychedelic body-horror sketches, demonstrations… Continue reading Here Comes Chicago’s Architecture Bonanza

A Lot You Got to Holler EP 15: The Night Chicago Died

EP 15: The Night Chicago Died  A Lot You Got to Holler is dead! For our last episode, we look ahead to Chicago architecture and urbanism to come: The Obama Library! 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial! Neoliberalism! Ben lets us in on how Uber but for architecture will work in the utopian future. (It’s actually not… Continue reading A Lot You Got to Holler EP 15: The Night Chicago Died

A Lot You Got to Holler EP 14: When Does the Present Become the Past? Talking Preservation with Landmarks Illinois

EP 14: When Does the Present Become the Past? Talking Preservation with Landmarks Illinois It’s a pretty wild time to be a historic preservationist, what with burgeoning preservation movements centered on building styles that few folks are sure they really like. (We’re talking PoMo here.) As such, Lisa DiChiera takes us on a tour of all… Continue reading A Lot You Got to Holler EP 14: When Does the Present Become the Past? Talking Preservation with Landmarks Illinois

Morningstar

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Contract Magazine Ι May 31, 2017 Morningstar’s new floor for its Chicago-based digital product developers places a premium on movement—the movement of its 190 team members as they get up from their desks for frequent standing meetings, the movement of mobile sit-stand desks that allow employees to take their workstations with them, and the movement of… Continue reading Morningstar

Perpetual Neglect: The Preservation Crisis of African-American Cemeteries

Places Journal Ι May 30, 2017 In late February, Raphael Morris pulled his car onto the gravel path just off St. Louis Avenue in northern St. Louis County, and saw something he’d hoped was a thing of the past: a large pile of garbage dumped in Greenwood Cemetery, near where he grew up and where several… Continue reading Perpetual Neglect: The Preservation Crisis of African-American Cemeteries

Augmented Reality in Construction Lets You See Through Walls

Redshift Ι May 5, 2017  Imagine you’re part of a crew constructing a new office building: Midway through the process, you’re on-site, inspecting the installation of HVAC systems. You put on a funny-looking construction helmet and step out of the service elevator. As you look up, there’s a drop ceiling being installed, but you want to… Continue reading Augmented Reality in Construction Lets You See Through Walls

Making the case for wooden buildings

Doggerel Ι April 21, 2017 Walk into the cavernous atrium of the National Building Museum a few blocks north of DC’s National Mall, and you’ll find a piece of wood whose scale rivals the 75-foot-tall, 8-foot-diameter masonry columns it sits next to. This 64-foot-tall plank, which the curators of the current exhibit Timber City have dubbed… Continue reading Making the case for wooden buildings

How One Design Plan Could Relieve Food-Security Problems and Revive Post Offices

Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the epicenter of the nation’s largest semipermanent homeless population, and—predictably—a startlingly high rate of food insecurity. The neighborhood is also home to many restaurants and businesses that haul away tons of food waste. According to San Bernardino County Sun, L.A. County generates 4,000 to 6,000 tons of food waste every day (most… Continue reading How One Design Plan Could Relieve Food-Security Problems and Revive Post Offices