January 2024 Ι Landscape Architecture Magazine Inside the Cozad-Bates House, a handsome, red brick Italianate building on the east side of Cleveland that’s the last pre-Civil War house in the University Circle neighborhood, is a small exhibit that tells the history of Ohio and Cleveland’s role in the Underground Railroad. A map of Ohio created… Continue reading Star Tracks
Author: zachmortice
The Chicago Architecture Biennial Is Stuck in a Loop
Dec. 9, 2023 Ι Bloomberg CityLab The Chicago Architecture Biennial, the largest architecture exposition in North America, is prone to repeating itself. The fifth and latest iteration of the festival, which opened in November at the ornate Chicago Cultural Center, charts its meta-turn as clearly as it can, starting with the event’s title: “This Is… Continue reading The Chicago Architecture Biennial Is Stuck in a Loop
The Future of the Office Is Cozy
Nov. 26, 2023 Ι Bloomberg CityLab It didn’t take long for Jon Race to diagnose the problem with his new office. Race, the CEO of the London architecture firm MCM, moved his 50-some staffers to a small co-working space in 2020 — his previous office lease ended just as the Covid-19 pandemic wound up. The… Continue reading The Future of the Office Is Cozy
CTA’s largest-ever expansion reaches out to fulfill a transit gap
Architect’s Newspaper Ι Nov. 20, 2023 With a focus on economic development in a part of the city that’s been starved for transit access and investment for much of its history, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) announced in September nearly $2 billion of federal funding for its Red Line Extension. The plan will add four… Continue reading CTA’s largest-ever expansion reaches out to fulfill a transit gap
Listen and Unlearn
May 2023 Ι Landscape Architecture Magazine The trading post in Round Rock, Arizona, near the dead-center of the Navajo Nation Reservation, had been many things over many years. Over its 120-year history, the trading post offered groceries and prepared food, and served as Round Rock’s post office. It sold traditional Navajo crafts, gasoline, and meat… Continue reading Listen and Unlearn
After School Closings, a Renovation Challenge
Bloomberg CityLab Ι Oct. 9. 2023 Dwight Perkins isn’t among the most familiar names associated with Chicago architecture. But unlike Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe, his work left a particularly vivid impression on the childhoods of generations of Chicagoans from all corners of the city, because he designed their schools.
With a Full Opening Still Ahead, the Chicago Architecture Biennial’s Fifth Edition Commences at Select Sites
Oct. 2, 2023 Ι Architectural Record Themed “This is a Rehearsal” and organized by art and design collective Floating Museum, the fifth Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB 5) sees the biennial as a city-wide collaborative and spontaneous cultural happening; a reflection of the simultaneously banal and grand ambitions that create urbanism every day. “For us, the… Continue reading With a Full Opening Still Ahead, the Chicago Architecture Biennial’s Fifth Edition Commences at Select Sites
Preservationists Don’t Put Too Fine a Point On It in Their Maximalist Postmodern Reno
Sept. 2023 Ι Dwell An architect/preservationist and a city planner/1980s-vibe channeler, Jonathan Solomon and Meg Gustafson are fluid aesthetic experts. But when it came time to design a house together after getting married, they weren’t interested in a ground-up project. They wanted “something that already had authenticity,” says Meg. But also “something that we wouldn’t… Continue reading Preservationists Don’t Put Too Fine a Point On It in Their Maximalist Postmodern Reno
Apocalypse-Proof
Sept. 12, 2023 Ι Places Journal When it was completed in Lower Manhattan in 1974, 33 Thomas Street, formerly known as the AT&T Long Lines Building, was intended as the world’s largest facility for connecting long-distance telephone calls. 1 Standing 532 feet — roughly equivalent to a 45-story building — it’s a mugshot for Brutalism,… Continue reading Apocalypse-Proof
Step Down, Splash Down
June 15, 2023 Ι Landscape Architecture Magazine A few years ago, if you wanted to visit the site of Cascade Park in Chicago, designed by Claude Cormier + Associés (now CCxA), you’d find yourself near the shores of Lake Michigan at a 50-foot cliff overlooking a vacant pit bordered by a foreboding service road that… Continue reading Step Down, Splash Down