Metropolis Magazine Ι July 15, 2019 Architecture is an attractive medium for the trendsetter-turned-multidisciplinary designer and artist Virgil Abloh. Because buildings are often the face of the establishment, they are ripe targets for subversion—Abloh’s calling card. So it’s no surprise that bits of buildings are strewn throughout Figures of Speech, Abloh’s first solo museum exhibition now… Continue reading Virgil Abloh’s MCA Exhibition Reveals the Power—and Limits—of Design Disruption
Tag: Chicago
Can This Chicago Apartment Factory Make New Homes Affordable?
The Atlantic’s CityLab Ι July 8, 2019 Skender, an established, family-owned builder in Chicago, is making a serious play in a sector associated with young startups: modular construction. The company is building steel-structured three-flats, a quintessential Chicago housing type that consists of three apartments stacked on top of each other in the footprint of a large house.… Continue reading Can This Chicago Apartment Factory Make New Homes Affordable?
Think Grids Are Straightforward? This New Textile Collection Will Make You Think Again
Architectural Digest Ι June 13, 2019 Aliki van der Kruijs developed her new line of furniture textiles for Wolf-Gordon, which just launched at NeoCon, through a series of totemic objects, each loaded with metaphoric meanings, textures, and patterns that recall her impressions of a faraway place. During a porcelain residency in Arita, Japan, the Dutch designer… Continue reading Think Grids Are Straightforward? This New Textile Collection Will Make You Think Again
Closing the architecture leadership gender gap
AIArchitect Ι June 18, 2019 One-and-a-half years into a new job at a medium-sized architecture firm in New England, Yanel de Angel, AIA, told her boss she was pregnant. She got a swift congratulations, but then something much worse. She was told that for the sake of continuity and service to clients, she’d be removed from… Continue reading Closing the architecture leadership gender gap
Proposals for New Building at UIC Contend with Walter Netsch’s Brutalist Campus
Architectural Record Ι April 8, 2019 Last week, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) unveiled three short-listed proposals for a performing arts center. Two of the finalist designs, by OMA and Johnston Marklee, take strong cues from Walter Netsch’s arch-Brutalist UIC campus—one of Chicago’s least understood bits of architectural history. The third, by Thom Mayne’s Morphosis,… Continue reading Proposals for New Building at UIC Contend with Walter Netsch’s Brutalist Campus
Sunlight and Landscape Views Shape Studio Gang’s Latest Chicago Tower
Metropolis Magazine Ι April 16, 2019 Solstice on the Park, the new Studio Gang–designed rental apartment tower in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, doesn’t want for inspiration. The building is within spitting distance of Lake Michigan and Frederick Law Olmsted’s Jackson Park, where the Obama Presidential Center may soon rise (pending the outcome of a lawsuit). The… Continue reading Sunlight and Landscape Views Shape Studio Gang’s Latest Chicago Tower
Obama Presidential Center Lawsuit Will Proceed, Slowing Progress of Construction
Architectural Record Ι February 20, 2019 A federal judge’s decision yesterday to allow a lawsuit against the City of Chicago and the Chicago Parks District to proceed will delay the progress of the Obama Presidential Center (OPC), which has been designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburg Associates. Controversially sited… Continue reading Obama Presidential Center Lawsuit Will Proceed, Slowing Progress of Construction
Can Artist Theaster Gates Help Bridge a Town-Gown Divide?
The Atlantic’s CityLab Ι April 5, 2019 The newly renovated Keller Center, home to the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy on Chicago’s South Side, is crafted from a 1963 building designed by the architect of New York’s Radio City Music Hall and D.C.’s Kennedy Center, Edward Durell Stone. On the outside is a… Continue reading Can Artist Theaster Gates Help Bridge a Town-Gown Divide?
‘Dimensions of Citizenship’ Dreams of Belonging Best at the Smallest and Largest Scales
Architectural Record Ι March 19, 2019 The opening of “Dimensions of Citizenship,” shipped from the U.S. Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale to Chicago, was delayed by the government shutdown in January, caused by President Trump’s insistence on funding for a border wall. Which was an unanticipated irony: it’s a show whose politics are also our… Continue reading ‘Dimensions of Citizenship’ Dreams of Belonging Best at the Smallest and Largest Scales
To Fix Its Aging Infrastructure, the US Could Learn a Thing or Two From Chicago
Autodesk’s Redshift Ι May 16, 2019 In its latest report card, released in 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave US infrastructure a D+. Two years on, this rating still stands—and in the seven times the association has assessed the nation’s infrastructure since the 1980s, scores have steadily declined. By infrastructure type, the best… Continue reading To Fix Its Aging Infrastructure, the US Could Learn a Thing or Two From Chicago