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

The Invasive Species Exhibit Wriggles Into the Art World Using Augmented Reality

Redshift Ι April 12, 2018 Site-specific and speculating on a possible future, surreally biomorphic and also digital, artist Felice Grodin’s Terrafish installation is proudly in-betwixt and in-between. This digital model, part of the Invasive Species exhibit at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), doesn’t exist in real space: It uses augmented reality (AR) as a new… Continue reading The Invasive Species Exhibit Wriggles Into the Art World Using Augmented Reality

Meet the 61,000 Transit Nerds of Facebook’s ‘New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens’

Chicago Magazine Ι March 29, 2018  When a member of the Facebook group “New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens” (NUMTOT), posted an article about Paris officials considering making the city’s buses and trains free, people were excited. One commenter:  “Yo, I deadass just got a little horny.”  But what followed further down the comment thread was… Continue reading Meet the 61,000 Transit Nerds of Facebook’s ‘New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens’

San Francisco’s Ambitious India Basin Development Project Is Wild at the Edges

Redshift Ι March 20, 2018 India Basin, on the southeast edge of San Francisco, was historically a neighborhood tied to the shipbuilding industry. An unassuming nub poking out into the San Francisco Bay, the 17-acre parcel at 700 Innes Avenue is something of a unicorn: It’s a rare example of undeveloped land (along the waterfront, no… Continue reading San Francisco’s Ambitious India Basin Development Project Is Wild at the Edges

Interview with Yesomi Umolu

Yesomi Umolu, Logan Exhibitions Curator, March 5, 2018. (Photo by Jean Lachat)

Architectural Record Ι March 19, 2018 Yesomi Umolu is interested in applying her multi-disciplinary expertise (with stops in architecture school, practice, and the elite contemporary art curatorial class) and globe-trotting personal and professional background to a biennial that speaks to an equally wide range of public audiences. “The biennial is for and of the city of… Continue reading Interview with Yesomi Umolu

The Gateway Arch, a Global Icon, Reconnects to St. Louis

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CityLab Ι March 12, 2018 Until recently, the grounds of St. Louis’ Gateway Arch were as hemmed in and isolated as the shimmering catenary curve that defines the city is grand and imperious. Walled off by a 1,200-car parking garage on one side and a freeway gulch on the other, the arch was a car-choked… Continue reading The Gateway Arch, a Global Icon, Reconnects to St. Louis

Carol Ross Barney is Chicago’s New Daniel Burnham

Metropolis Magazine Ι January 2018 As a lifelong Chicagoan, Carol Ross Barney has seen the Chicago River transition from an effluent-filled cargo highway to a vibrant recreational spot, one where her grandsons go fishing. “They can throw their line in and pull out two- to three-inch fish immediately,” she says. It has even become a habitat… Continue reading Carol Ross Barney is Chicago’s New Daniel Burnham

Mott MacDonald Has Tunnel Vision for the Chesapeake Bay Thimble Shoal Project

Redshift Ι Jan. 4, 2018 In early 2019, a tunnel-boring machine the length of a football field will begin chewing through the earth below the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. At a rate of 60 feet per day, according to the Virginian-Pilot, it will carve a 42-foot-wide, mile-long path 105 feet below sea level at its deepest.… Continue reading Mott MacDonald Has Tunnel Vision for the Chesapeake Bay Thimble Shoal Project

The Story of the Great Lakes in 8 Maps

December 11, 2017 Ι CityLab  Stretching across eight states and two Canadian provinces, the Great Lakes region contains the world’s largest freshwater system and is likely the greatest single surface aggregation of rare resources on the planet. If it was a standalone country, its economy would be the fourth largest in the world. Yet its natural… Continue reading The Story of the Great Lakes in 8 Maps

Does Apple’s New Chicago Store Have Something to Say About the Future of Cities?

Nov. 17, 2017 Ι Metropolis  The steel and carbon fiber roof of Chicago’s new Apple store is a few feet thick at its center, tapering down to inches at its edge. Starship metallic gray and rectangular, it resembles a closed MacBook laptop, which you can buy inside. The glass corners of the building, splendidly curved, call… Continue reading Does Apple’s New Chicago Store Have Something to Say About the Future of Cities?