September 25, 2018 Ι The Atlantic’s CityLab Public safety, the city’s pension load, and public schools were the major issues haunting Rahm Emanuel’s assumed re-election bid earlier this month, all of which were upended by his surprise announcement that he wouldn’t throw his hat into the ring for a third term. Given the power that… Continue reading After Rahm, What Comes Next for the Obama Library?
Category: Articles
Incorporating Drone Imagery into Design Workflows
Architect Magazine Ι August 2018 The use of drones to survey project sites is becoming more common among builders and engineers. For architects, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offer a distinct vantage point from which they can study and document sites for research and marketing opportunities. Below, practitioners and operators discuss strategies for incorporating UAVs into design… Continue reading Incorporating Drone Imagery into Design Workflows
Will the Culture of Good Taste Devour McDonald’s?
Metropolis Magazine Ι August 15, 2018 At a new corporate headquarters in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood, there’s a double-height lobby filled with green walls and massive art installations. Travel to its top floor roof deck and you’ll find a cozy fire pit next to a fitness center and bar (happy hours are on Thursday). Elsewhere, stair-seating… Continue reading Will the Culture of Good Taste Devour McDonald’s?
New Views into an Unheralded Element of Mies
Architectural Record Ι June 25, 2018 A new exhibit at the Elmhurst Art Museum in Illinois explores a little-studied corner of Mies van der Rohe’s career: his brief fascination with pre-fabrication. The show, curated by Columbia University’s Barry Bergdoll, is physically and thematically anchored by Mies’ McCormick House, which was built in 1952 as a prototype… Continue reading New Views into an Unheralded Element of Mies
The Brilliant Artist That Chicago, and the World, Nearly Forgot
The Atlantic’s CityLab Ι June 18, 2018 Edgar Miller was a virtuoso in any medium he chose: painting, sculpture, stained glass, architecture, interior design, printmaking, metalwork, cutlery, graphic design. He put those prodigious skills toward building a creative community on Chicago’s near-north side in the 1920s and beyond. Miller’s handful of architecture projects (a series of… Continue reading The Brilliant Artist That Chicago, and the World, Nearly Forgot
Could Modular Wood Stadium Construction Be a Game Changer?
Redshift Ι June 19, 2018 Imagine a sports stadium that could expand and contract with its fan base and team’s fortunes, one that could pick up and move to greener (and more lucrative) pastures. Given team owners’ history of playing fans against each other, making stadiums more mobile isn’t likely to give pennant-wavers a sense of… Continue reading Could Modular Wood Stadium Construction Be a Game Changer?
Let My Rivers Go
Landscape Architecture Magazine Ι May 2018 On May 31, 1889, the South Fork Dam east of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, gave way after a day of heavy rain. The dam had hemmed in the waters of Lake Conemaugh, a weekend retreat for western Pennsylvania’s Gilded Age industrial barons (the Carnegies, the Mellons, the Fricks). Despite their means, the… Continue reading Let My Rivers Go
At the Venice Biennale, Jeanne Gang Uses Memphis’s Cobblestones to Reflect on Monuments and Messy Civic Histories
Metropolis Magazine Ι May 23, 2018 “How do you make the stones talk?” asks the architect Jeanne Gang. It’s not a philosophical posture, but an earnest question and one at the center of Studio Gang’s soon-to-open 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale installation at the U.S. Pavilion. The stones Gang refers to were plucked out of storage, but… Continue reading At the Venice Biennale, Jeanne Gang Uses Memphis’s Cobblestones to Reflect on Monuments and Messy Civic Histories
Chicago Exhibit Spotlights Charlotte Perriand’s Alpine Ski Resort
Metropolis Magazine Ι May 23, 2018 The most impressive item depicted at Matthew Rachman’s exhibit of Charlotte Perriand–designed furniture is conspicuously absent from his Chicago gallery—it was too big to fit. The object in question, a gleaming red and white prefab bathroom produced for the designer’s Les Arcs ski resort in the French Alps, was an… Continue reading Chicago Exhibit Spotlights Charlotte Perriand’s Alpine Ski Resort
Blue Light Special: The Chicago-Area High School in an Old Kmart
CityLab Ι May 8, 2017 Belvidere Road is an unremarkable stretch of suburbia in Waukegan, Ill., north of Chicago, lined with highway-sign staples: gas stations, car washes, fast-food joints, and a low-rent motel. It was only after a previous deal to move his private high school into a converted office building fell through that Preston Kendall… Continue reading Blue Light Special: The Chicago-Area High School in an Old Kmart