Metropolis Magazine Ι July 15, 2019 Architecture is an attractive medium for the trendsetter-turned-multidisciplinary designer and artist Virgil Abloh. Because buildings are often the face of the establishment, they are ripe targets for subversion—Abloh’s calling card. So it’s no surprise that bits of buildings are strewn throughout Figures of Speech, Abloh’s first solo museum exhibition now… Continue reading Virgil Abloh’s MCA Exhibition Reveals the Power—and Limits—of Design Disruption
Author: zachmortice
Can This Chicago Apartment Factory Make New Homes Affordable?
The Atlantic’s CityLab Ι July 8, 2019 Skender, an established, family-owned builder in Chicago, is making a serious play in a sector associated with young startups: modular construction. The company is building steel-structured three-flats, a quintessential Chicago housing type that consists of three apartments stacked on top of each other in the footprint of a large house.… Continue reading Can This Chicago Apartment Factory Make New Homes Affordable?
New Composite Building Materials Are Redefining Modernism at Exhibit Columbus
Redshift Ι July 2, 2018 Since the advent of modernism, architects have dreamed of the perfect material to unify structure and surface. Steel beams and glass windows were the 20th century’s solution, combining the elements holding up buildings and the elements covering buildings into one tidy duo. This century, academic researchers are throwing out this… Continue reading New Composite Building Materials Are Redefining Modernism at Exhibit Columbus
In Detroit, Empty Lots Become Parks, Helping to Rebuild Lost Social Equity
Metropolis Magazine Ι June 24, 2019 Stephanie Harbin has lived in the Detroit neighborhood of Fitzgerald since 1969, and is president of the San Juan Drive block club. When she was a child, she remembers, there were 75 houses packed onto an extraordinarily long block of San Juan. And in a story that’s been repeated across… Continue reading In Detroit, Empty Lots Become Parks, Helping to Rebuild Lost Social Equity
Think Grids Are Straightforward? This New Textile Collection Will Make You Think Again
Architectural Digest Ι June 13, 2019 Aliki van der Kruijs developed her new line of furniture textiles for Wolf-Gordon, which just launched at NeoCon, through a series of totemic objects, each loaded with metaphoric meanings, textures, and patterns that recall her impressions of a faraway place. During a porcelain residency in Arita, Japan, the Dutch designer… Continue reading Think Grids Are Straightforward? This New Textile Collection Will Make You Think Again
Closing the architecture leadership gender gap
AIArchitect Ι June 18, 2019 One-and-a-half years into a new job at a medium-sized architecture firm in New England, Yanel de Angel, AIA, told her boss she was pregnant. She got a swift congratulations, but then something much worse. She was told that for the sake of continuity and service to clients, she’d be removed from… Continue reading Closing the architecture leadership gender gap
A One-Stop Shop for Affordable Backyard Homes Advances in L.A.
The Atlantic’s CityLab Ι May 1, 2019 Looking at the pressing shortages of low-income housing in each and every state in the country, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that NIMBY homeowners are winning the fight against new housing, and especially against affordable housing. But there’s one potential foe that reactionary homeowners are ill-equipped… Continue reading A One-Stop Shop for Affordable Backyard Homes Advances in L.A.
Proposals for New Building at UIC Contend with Walter Netsch’s Brutalist Campus
Architectural Record Ι April 8, 2019 Last week, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) unveiled three short-listed proposals for a performing arts center. Two of the finalist designs, by OMA and Johnston Marklee, take strong cues from Walter Netsch’s arch-Brutalist UIC campus—one of Chicago’s least understood bits of architectural history. The third, by Thom Mayne’s Morphosis,… Continue reading Proposals for New Building at UIC Contend with Walter Netsch’s Brutalist Campus
Sunlight and Landscape Views Shape Studio Gang’s Latest Chicago Tower
Metropolis Magazine Ι April 16, 2019 Solstice on the Park, the new Studio Gang–designed rental apartment tower in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, doesn’t want for inspiration. The building is within spitting distance of Lake Michigan and Frederick Law Olmsted’s Jackson Park, where the Obama Presidential Center may soon rise (pending the outcome of a lawsuit). The… Continue reading Sunlight and Landscape Views Shape Studio Gang’s Latest Chicago Tower
Obama Presidential Center Lawsuit Will Proceed, Slowing Progress of Construction
Architectural Record Ι February 20, 2019 A federal judge’s decision yesterday to allow a lawsuit against the City of Chicago and the Chicago Parks District to proceed will delay the progress of the Obama Presidential Center (OPC), which has been designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburg Associates. Controversially sited… Continue reading Obama Presidential Center Lawsuit Will Proceed, Slowing Progress of Construction