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
Author: zachmortice
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
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
Weaponizing Architecture
Aug. 14, 2008 Ι AIArchitect Blog [This was a blog post, no longer online, I wrote for AIArchitect’s blog back in 2008. It was for a theme issue on fantasy and speculative architecture. But today I learned there’s a company out there, aided and abetted by the Trump Administration, that wants to make it real;… Continue reading Weaponizing Architecture
A Lot You Got to Holler EP 13: Designing Urban Policy with Katherine Darnstadt
EP 13: Designing Urban Policy with Katherine Darnstadt Katherine Darnstadt’s architecture firm Latent Design creates objects and urban systems, but it’s biggest victories have come from pulling the upstream policy levers that set the context for what architecture can achieve. In her chat with Ben and Zach, Katherine comes out in favor of “extreme vetting” for architects,… Continue reading A Lot You Got to Holler EP 13: Designing Urban Policy with Katherine Darnstadt
A Lot You Got to Holler EP 12: Who was Chicago’s Edgar Miller?
EP 12: Who was Chicago’s Edgar Miller? Edgar Miller is perhaps the most overlooked artist in the Chicago canon. Art was everywhere and everything to Miller, who used the city as his canvas through painting, woodworking, stained glass, sculpture, printmaking, iron working, industrial design and whatever materials fell his way. His expressionist, bespoke approach to design,… Continue reading A Lot You Got to Holler EP 12: Who was Chicago’s Edgar Miller?