April 26, 2022 Ι Architectural Record From its permaculture food gardens to neighborhood brick-making workshops, to robot-traced empty lot block party takeovers, the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB)— under the direction of artistic director David Brown—was very much at home far from the downtown space that hosted previous biennials. But this spring, the Biennial is… Continue reading Chicago Biennial Returns to Michigan Avenue Cultural Center with New Exhibition Space
Author: zachmortice
In the Tank
April 2022 Ι Landscape Architecture Magazine Smoke stacks of deserted steel plants keep the skyline of Big Marsh Park in Chicago spare. an Wetlands dominate the soggy ground between Lake Michigan and Lake Calumet, Chicago’s other Great Lake, so endlessly dredged and filled that it’s become a hammer-headed series of slips and canals. This part of… Continue reading In the Tank
A Radical Way of Teaching Architecture
April 5, 2022 Ι Bloomberg CityLab At the new architecture program at Bard College, now in its fourth semester, there’s lots of “troubling” and “unsettling” (used as verbs) to be done. Here, architecture is a method of critique, not a profession dedicated to making shelter. And instead of world-striding creative visionaries, its practitioners are presented… Continue reading A Radical Way of Teaching Architecture
The North Lawndale Employment Network Sees Through Employment Barriers for the Formerly Incarcerated
February 17, 2022 Ι Metropolis Magazine Even from outside the new North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN) building on Chicago’s West Side, where approximately half of residents live in poverty and the neighborhood’s many architectural treasures suffer from brutal disinvestment, passersby can see through two layers of glass into the heart of the building, where formerly… Continue reading The North Lawndale Employment Network Sees Through Employment Barriers for the Formerly Incarcerated
Edward Lyons Pryce, the Black Landscape Architect that Preserved the Tuskegee Institute
February 2, 2022 Ι Metropolis Magazine Not long before he died in 2007, Edward Lyons Pryce asked his daughter Marilyn Pryce Hoytt for an important favor. “Patty,” he said, using her nickname, “don’t let the world forget about me.” It’s a common sentiment for the end of anyone’s life, but an it’s especially daunting task… Continue reading Edward Lyons Pryce, the Black Landscape Architect that Preserved the Tuskegee Institute
Chicago’s Bungalows Are Where the City Comes Together
February 9, 2022 Ι Bloomberg CityLab In Chicago, there are plenty of reasons for South Side residents to keep Northsiders at arm’s length. This includes the North Side’s nonsensical lack of numbered streets, opposed baseball fandoms, and the outsized power of the city’s wealthier half — an imbalance that has created one of the most… Continue reading Chicago’s Bungalows Are Where the City Comes Together
New Exhibition Shines a Light on George Fred Keck’s Solar Home of 1933
February 8, 2022 Ι Architectural Record Chicago architect George Fred Keck (1895-1980) unlike many of his Modernist contemporaries, was a technocrat and tinkerer first and foremost. Long before the advent of solar panels, his solar homes sought to use new technology and materials to make architecture congruent with climate. His 12-sided House of Tomorrow, built in… Continue reading New Exhibition Shines a Light on George Fred Keck’s Solar Home of 1933
Northern Star
February 15, 2022 Ι Landscape Architecture Magazine The Eda U. Gerstacker Grove on the University of Michigan’s North Campus is the modern anti-quad. The North Campus is cloistered and suburban, separated from the main Central Campus by a mile-plus and the Huron River. It’s home to the school’s College of Engineering, architecture school, performing arts… Continue reading Northern Star
Climbing the Ladder
Dec. 22, 2021 Ι Landscape Architecture Magazine Samantha Solano, ASLA, and TJ Marston have peeked under the hood of gender equity in landscape architecture once again. After their groundbreaking (and 2021 ASLA Professional Award of Excellence–winning) research initiative the VELA (Visualizing Equity in Landscape Architecture) Project, in which the team aggregated 17,000 data points on… Continue reading Climbing the Ladder
Julia Morgan Posthumously Awarded the 2014 AIA Gold Medal
Dec. 13, 2013 Ι AIArchitect The American Institute of Architects Board of Directors on Dec. 12 posthumously awarded the AIA Gold Medal to Julia Morgan, AIA, the early 20th-century architect whose copious output of quality work secured her position as the first great female American architect. The AIA Gold Medal is the highest honor the… Continue reading Julia Morgan Posthumously Awarded the 2014 AIA Gold Medal