Author: zachmortice

Architectural Record Ι Sept. 13, 2016  To make way for the University of Chicago Campus North Residential Commons, the school demolished Harry Weese’s 1960 Pierce Tower, who’s stacked bays and neo-mansard crown showcased some of the University of Chicago’s least confident mid-century architecture on the famously Collegiate Gothic campus. Something of an inscrutable fortress, it thought little… Continue reading Sparkling New Dorm by Jeanne Gang Opens at the University of Chicago

Sept. 2, 2016 Ι Doggerel On a hot, sunny August morning on Chicago’s West Side, Matt Snoap, an architect with the firm bKL, is putting more than a dozen high school and early college students in place for a groundbreaking photo op on one of the city’s many abandoned freight rail lines. But unlike a traditional groundbreaking… Continue reading Design-build for high schoolers

Line/Shape/Space Ι Aug. 31, 2016  According to urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg, people need three types of places to live fulfilled, connected lives: Their “first place” (home) for private respite; their “second place” (work) for economic engagement; and their “third place,” a more amorphous arena used for reaffirming social bonds and community identities. This third place can be a… Continue reading Live, Work, Play: WeLive’s Live-Work Spaces Reveal a “Third Place”

Aug. 17, 2016 Ι Line/Shape/Space  AllTransit may be the most comprehensive transit database in the nation, but it won’t help you find the fastest route when you’re late for a dinner date. No, it’s much bigger than that. Instead, it peels back the layers of how transit intersects key quality-of-life statistics, using information from 543,000 stops across 800… Continue reading AllTransit Reads Between the (Bus) Lines to Advocate for Urban Life

Aug. 2, 2016 Ι Line/Shape/Space  In response to a conservative and sometimes fragmented building industry, some architects believe that improving and automating the construction process calls for a two-front war: first, using experimental materials and components; and second, assembling them in experimental ways. Extra-innovative examples include self-directed insect-like robots that huddle together to form the shape of a… Continue reading Wolf Prix on Robotic Construction and the Safe Side of Adventurous Architecture

July 2016 Ι Architect Magazine Just five years old, Seattle-based Best Practice Architecture and Design has amassed a broad portfolio of residential, commercial, office, and restaurant projects. What distinguishes the firm is its ability to deliver an extra level of craft to clients by collaborating with photographers, metal sculptors, and neon artists on the city’s… Continue reading Next Progressives: Best Practice Architecture and Design

July 11, 2016 Ι Line Shape Space  Biomimicry is the imitation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems; biomimicry in architecture and manufacturing is the practice of designing buildings and products that simulate or co-opt processes that occur in nature. There are ultrastrong synthetic spider silks, adhesives modeled after gecko feet,… Continue reading Nature Does It Better: Biomimicry in Architecture and Engineering

Doggerel Ι July 1, 2016  Uber, Airbnb, WeWork: every day, entrepreneurs find new ways to diffuse the ownership of expensive infrastructure in order to drive down prices. But while today’s sharing economy tends to focus on individual consumers, the concept could find creative new applications in the public sector. For example, urban schools contain many different… Continue reading The sharing economy comes to urban public schools