Category: Articles

Line/Shape/Space Ι Sept, 1, 2015 Buildings simply aren’t made like anything else—that goes for sunglasses, furniture, appliances, and fighter jets. No other production process brings massive amounts of material to one place, constructs one item, and then hauls away the garbage. The inefficiencies are monumental. Modular construction has promised a great deal of potential to reduce… Continue reading 4 Ways a Robot or Drone 3D Printer Will Change Architecture and Construction

AIA This Week Ι Aug. 7, 2015 Ι The winner of the Chicago Architecture Biennial’s Lakefront Kiosk Competition reinvents Mies for the Midwest’s metropole For the thousands of visitors to this fall’s Chicago Architecture Biennial (sponsored in part by the AIA), and for residents themselves, Chicago is still Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s city. The German émigré’s stern-faced, steel-beamed skyscrapers… Continue reading Tectonics of the Ideal Kiosk

Line/Shape/Space Ι Aug. 4, 2015 At first glance, there isn’t a lot separating the sustainable soap gurus of Method from previous generations of bleeding-edge ambitious capitalists that came to the Chicago neighborhood of Pullman to fulfill their dreams. Like railcar manufacturer magnate George Pullman in 1880, Method’s founders Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry came to the… Continue reading Method Soap Factory Scrubs Manufacturing Clean

INT Journal Ι July 22, 2015 Before its release in 1965, French New Wave director Jean-Luc Goddard wanted to call Alphaville, his ultra-pulpy sci-fi noir Tarzan vs. IBM. It’s the story of a thuggish and volatile secret agent sent to destabilize a totalitarian regime run by a hyper-rational computer that’s sanded down any display of… Continue reading Alphaville is 50: After Modernism Lost it Meaning, it Still had its Looks

Architect Magazine  Ι June 15, 2015 Ι The New York firm of Alex Mustonen and Daniel Arsham injects humor (and removes color) from its products and projects. The well-trodden intersection of art and architecture is where Snarkitecturepractices, but the New York–based studio’s uncanny spaces exist in a place “adjacent to real life.” Firm founders Alex Mustonen, who studied architecture at… Continue reading Next Progressives: Snarkitecture

Line/Shape/Space Ι July 9, 2015  Commissioned in the depths of the Great Recession, Federal Center South, the Army Corp of Engineers’ regional headquarters in Seattle, was funded by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But stimulus money came with big strings attached—namely strenuous requirements that it had to be built very, very quickly and very, very… Continue reading Sustainable Building Projects and BIM: 200,000 Sq. Ft. Government Office One of Best in Nation

Metropolis Ι June 2015 Ι Chicago’s Design with Company fashions an architectural garden party for the third annual Ragdale Ring Pavilion. Tucked away on the sleepy Gilded Age campus of the Ragdale Foundation in Chicago’s northern suburbs, the third annual Ragdale Ring Pavilion beams with youthful allure. The temporary timber structure strikes a Pac-Man–like profile, framing a stage for summer performances… Continue reading Postmodern Proscenium

Architectural Record Ι June 3, 2015  Chicago’s 606, the nation’s second elevated rails-to-trails park, will open June 6, and its designers and client have taken pains to ensure that it’s a unique expression of the Second City, not just to be compared to New York’s High Line. In form, function, and funding, the 606’s evolution has taken a… Continue reading Chicago’s 606 Elevated Park Set for Weekend Opening

Landscape Architecture Magazine Ι April 2015 For a relatively new landscape typology, elevated rail parks suffer from no shortage of claims about what they can do for cities. Namely, they can renovate decaying infrastructure, add green space to dense urban areas, improve public health by offering more opportunities for exercise, and honor, rather than demolish, historic industrial… Continue reading The Express Lane

Contract Design Magazine Ι June 24, 2015 INNOCAD co-founder Martin Lesjak, Contract magazine’s 2015 Designer of the Year, develops new products for every interior project, and his Volksbank South Tyrol bank headquarters is no different. The custom Berg & Tal furniture system—designed in collaboration with the firm bergundtal—defines the 86,000-square-foot space in the Northern Italy town of… Continue reading Volksbank