High in the Sky, Where the Money Stacks Up

Aerial view of First National Bank building in Chicago, Illinois, circa 1969.

August 31, 2023 Ι Architects’ Newspaper In the 1960s, the same Chicago city agency conjured some of the worst and the best in American residential high-rises, and in rapid succession. The Chicago Housing Authority’s (CHA) Robert Taylor Homes were the nation’s largest public housing project when they opened in 1963: the buildings locked in a… Continue reading High in the Sky, Where the Money Stacks Up

An Ouster at the Institute

New York Review of Architecture Ι September-October 2022 In May of last year, president of AIA Middle East Ali Lari thought he had done a rather difficult thing: diffused a sensitive political situation without compromising the AIA’s stated commitments to equity and human rights. The topic at hand was the occupation of Palestine by Israel.… Continue reading An Ouster at the Institute

Climate change is teaching designers to expand their horizons—or at least it should

Oct. 26, 2021 Ι Architect’s Newspaper  A lot can happen in the space between a book’s title and subtitle, as A Blueprint for Coastal Adaptation: Uniting Design, Economics, and Policy (Island Press, 2021) demonstrates. Here, in a reversal from the norm, the subtitle assumes the more evocative bent by elevating design to the same status… Continue reading Climate change is teaching designers to expand their horizons—or at least it should

(Re)Building Culture at AIA’s 2021 Conference on Architecture

August 3, 2021 Ι Architect Magazine  After the social, emotional, political, and economic fissures of a year-plus of pandemic, AIA’s 2021 Conference on Architecture is happening in the same place as last year—namely, on your computer. In these fractious times, the virtual conference has a special focus on how to weave continuity and perseverance through… Continue reading (Re)Building Culture at AIA’s 2021 Conference on Architecture

Is this library politics?

April 28, 2021 Ι The Chicago Reader  Drive south on the Bishop Ford Expressway to Altgeld Gardens and you’ll pass plenty of reminders you’re in a landscape not meant for inquisitive visitors. There are looming grain silos next to a parked shipping freighter, a village-scaled water reclamation plant, and plenty of anonymous warehouses. But once you… Continue reading Is this library politics?

Why Architecture is Important

ACSA Ι Jan. 14, 2019 If you ever wondered why architecture is important—look up and around. You are likely surrounded by it right now. Architecture’s grasp—that is, buildings and the designed environment—ends only in extreme conditions (the bottom of the ocean, the atmosphere, and a few dwindling spots on terrestrial earth.) Unique among creative and… Continue reading Why Architecture is Important