Chicago-based developer Riverside Investment & Development celebrated the debut of the 150 North Riverside office tower, which opened for business in February, with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony today. Comprising 1.25 million rentable square feet, the building is located in Chicago’s West Loop on one of the most prominent sites in the city, bounded by Randolph and Lake streets at the confluence of the north, south and main branches of the Chicago River. Designed by architecture firm Goettsch Partners (GP), the tower features a very narrow structure at its base in order to fit between seven active Amtrak rail lines to the west and the river to the east. The building’s compact footprint opens up to highly efficient, column-free office floors above and allows for the majority of the two-acre site (more than 75%) to be developed as a landscaped public park, riverside amphitheater and riverwalk.
A Chicago developer tasked us to create a new office atmosphere within an existing single story masonry shell. Our strategy was to place emphasis on the intrinsic character of materials used to build this simple box. First, we needed to uncloak its forgotten beauty, hidden behind the layers of old gypsum skin. Once the perimeter was brought back to life, we kept clear of it, and began to introduce the components needed for an everyday “office use”.
FCB Chicago, the largest agency within the Foote, Cone & Belding global network, recently relocated to the iconic John Hancock Center. The new office’s modern and comfortable design clearly expresses the spirit, culture and direction of this advertising/marketing powerhouse.
• 800 student beds: 252 single rooms, 193 double rooms including 16 RAs, and 48 student apartments including eight Resident Head apartments and two Resident Master apartments.
• Grouped into eight “houses” of 100 students named for prominent members of the UChicago community: Dr. Robert A. Behar House, John and Barbara Boyer House, Brady W. Dougan and Laura E. Niklason House, Rogers Family House, Alexis and Steven Strongin House, Immanuel Thangaraj House, Tina and Byron Trott House and Francis and Rose Yuen House
• 48,791 sf green roof, including 23,603 sf resident-only (private) landscaped courtyards on the second level
• Five music practice rooms and eight pianos
• Community Commons, multi-purpose room, 14 group study spaces, and a 24 hour reading room
Project: University of Chicago Campus North Residential Commons
Location: 5500 South University Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637 (55th Street and University Avenue), USA
Photography: Tom Harris, Steve Hall | Hedrich Blessing
Client: The University of Chicago
Design Builder: Mortenson Construction
Architects: Jeanne Gang, Mark Schendel, Todd Zima with Aurelien Tsemo, John Castro, Emily Licht, Vincent Calabro, Wei-Ju Lai, Ashley Ozburn, Laura Ettedgui, Chris Vant Hoff, Beth Zacherle, Paige Adams, Ana Flor, Zac Heaps, William Emmick, Roger Molina-Vera, Kara Boyd, Jay Hoffman, Schuyler Smith, Weston Walker, Juan de la Mora, Christopher Ciraulo, Lindsey Moyer, Will Lambeth, Danny Jimenez, Angela Peckham, Michael Leaveck
Article source: RIEDER SMART ELEMENTS GMBH and Demonica Kemper Architects
Joliet Junior College (JJC), a community college based in Joliet, Illinois, is the first public community college founded in the United States. The building is cladded with 650 m² of öko skin a concrete facade by Rieder and designed by Demonica Kemper Architects.
Article source: The American Institute of Architects (AIA)
Alancing aesthetics, pragmatic programming, and sustainable design, the 16,000-square-foot Chinatown Branch Library serves as an educational and social hub for Chicago’s historic Chinatown neighborhood. As one of the Chicago Public Library system’s busiest branches, the new library focuses on inclusive community activities and technology-based learning while uniting the two distinct North and South Chinatown districts. The interwoven design elements have created a library that serves as a community anchor and an enduring cultural asset that slips easily into the city’s urban fabric.
Looking to connect its future to the past, Vail Systems, a communications software developer, found a perfect home in the former Chicago Daily News pressroom. The once industrial space has been transformed into a collaborative environment that inspires innovation. Unique structural elements organize functional requirements. Staff is located in large reconfigurable areas, while meeting spaces are organized under mezzanines and catwalks.
Looking like a missing tooth, this project helped to complete a gap in the urban fabric of this intimate residential row house street in Chicago. The row-houses were built in the 1890’s, showing wear and demolition over the years. Infilling this small lot provided challenges for the new residence; to not disturb adjacent 100 year old structures, party wall encroachments and to respect the existing scale of the street. The shoring of the adjacent structures and the house’s new foundations required complex design and construction, including a cantilevered concrete foundation wall to avoid interfering with the adjacent party wall footing.
Located in close proximity to the heart of Lincoln Square in Chicago, the new 85,000 SF Lycée Française de Chicago has been conceived as a unique educational with light-filled spaces intended to encourage educational and shared environments aimed to celebrate the Lycée’s international.
After a year of design renovations, a unit in a well-known high-rise apartment building in the heart of downtown Chicago has received a makeover – in part thanks to Banker Wire’s architectural mesh. The apartment features the most luxurious of amenities, and the design team at Becker Architects was faced with the challenge of creating minimalist, yet elegant wall panels to conceal both mechanical equipment and an elaborate home control system.
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