Archinect - Features

HDR Chicago on Learning From Other Industries, Employee Empowerment, and Representing the Community

2019-10-11T06:00:00-04:00

Over the past few years, the field has received a growing amount of attention that has highlighted long-standing labor issues within the architecture industry, ranging from unsustainable pay models to unwelcoming work environments. Looking for an alternative, the Architecture Lobby created the Just Design Initiative, which recognizes fair labor practices in architecture. Beginning with nominations submitted by employees, and followed by an evaluation process, the team looked at practices that can serve as models of a new status quo within the profession.

Archinect has teamed up with the Just Design crew to profile firms across the country that meet the initiative's standards. Whether it is a family-friendly work schedule or a health coverage plan that goes above and beyond, the series spotlights practices that honor the basic rights of their employees and can serve as exemplary models of what should become standard for the field.

Yesomi Umolu on The "Unraveling of Our Received Language of Looking and Being in the World"

2019-10-07T07:00:00-04:00

Programming an international architecture biennial is no easy task, much less so when the goal is to create a program that seeks to recast prevailing narratives surrounding lived experiences of the built environment.

For the 2019 run of the Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB), artistic director Yesomi Umolu is attempting to do just that, however. By re-positioning, documenting, and indexing spaces, their materialities, and the narratives embodied by their existences, Umolu seeks to cast these elements as active participants in our society, as phenomena that transcend aesthetics, and instead embrace a multi-faceted and sometimes deeply problematic nature.

Archinect caught up with Umolu to discuss the goals of the biennial's curatorial output, design practices that "reflect upon a broad set of spatial conditions and make space through a variety of means," and how the ways we look at buildings might be challenged by these broadly based approaches.

The Origin Story of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

2019-10-01T13:52:00-04:00

Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill are three names hardly unrecognizable. Still one of America’s largest architecture practices and pioneers of the modern skyscraper, but how did it get its start? Better yet, who is Skidmore? And who is Owings? How about Merrill? And how did the three meet? What is the story behind one of America’s most important practices? It is a story few have told and even fewer know, one filled with twists, turns, and unexpected surprises.

Fellow Fellows: Anne Dessing

2019-09-30T09:54:00-04:00

Fellow Fellows is a series that focuses on the increasingly important role fellowships play in architecture academia today. These prestigious academic positions can bring forth a fantastic blend of practice, research, and pedagogical cross-pollination, often within a tight time frame. They also, by definition, represent temporary, open-ended, and ultimately precarious employment for aspiring young designers and academics. Fellow Fellows aims to understand what these positions offer for both the fellows themselves and the discipline at large by presenting their work and experiences through an in-depth interview. Fellow Fellows is about bringing attention and inquiry to the otherwise maddening pace of academia, while also presenting a broad view of the exceptional and breakthrough work being done by people navigating the early parts of their careers.

This week we talk to Anne Dessing, the 2018-2019 Douglas A. Garofalo Fellow at the University Illinois Chicago.

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Challenging Normalcy and Bringing Value to the Mundane with Architect Paul Preissner

2019-09-29T09:00:00-04:00

Running a practice can be a balancing act of staying creative, finding the motivation to produce great work, all the while committing to the demands of running a professional business. For Chicago-based architect Paul Preissner and his firm Paul Preissner Architects, this delicate dance also involves balancing creativity and responsibility to the work, as well as reinforcing his creative responsibility to himself.

Preissner describes his practice as "a pretty good architecture and design office from Chicago, Illinois." However, you'll learn to find that his work extends beyond the quirky and obscure. Having experience in working in realms that include housing, civic buildings, furniture, installations, and architectural exhibitions, Preissner continues to show the importance of staying true to the idea of just making things work. For this week's Studio Snapshot, Archinect was able to connect with Preissner to discuss how to making "normal things weird" and "popularizing the idea th...

Midwest Architecture Journeys Shares the Sacred and Profane History Behind Chicago's Streamline Moderne Church

2019-09-28T09:13:00-04:00

Belt Publishing's forthcoming title, Midwest Architecture Journeys, features contributions from over twenty architects, critics, and journalists, taking the reader on a tour of some of the regions most inventive structures. The collection of writings feature works by Eliel Saarinen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruce Goff, and Bertrand Goldberg, among many others, while also giving equal attention to unique sites along the way, such as indigenous mounds, grain silos, parking lots, flea markets, and abandoned warehouses.

Midwest Architecture Journeys is edited by Zach Mortice, a design journalist based in Chicago. The book will be released on October 15th and may be purchased directly from Belt Publishing.

The Manifold Transparencies of Virgil Abloh

2019-06-28T12:03:00-04:00

Archinect has published news posts about fashion designer, artist and Louis Vuitton director Virgil Abloh in the last year, but only to announce any time that he had collaborated with an architect or an architectural theorist. What we had never mentioned, however, is that Abloh is himself trained as an architect, having obtained a Master of Architecture degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in 2003, and has since gone on to describe the lessons learned and architecture studied during these years as crucial to his current success.

Looking Back at the Words of Stanley Tigerman, the Man who Shaped Chicago Architecture

2019-06-04T13:11:00-04:00

From being one of the central figures of the Chicago Seven to leading the pedagogical frameworks of the Chicago scene and producing a plethora of built works to the Midwest - Stanley Tigerman had one of the most prolific impacts on a wide variety of architectural and cultural platforms of his generation.

With his recent passing, we take the time to look back at the words, images and, thoughts that provided Stanley Tigerman with the inspiration and motivations for his approach to the discipline.

Meet Future Firm, the Chicago-Based Practice Calling on Architects to Visualize Vibrant New Futures

2019-04-01T14:13:00-04:00

Ann Lui and Craig Reschke see themselves as "the ones that start awkwardly dancing to jumpstart a bigger dance party." As founders of the Chicago-based practice Future Firm, the two are pushing boundaries in urban architecture and design by starting conversations and sparking fresh ideas. A core group of four, the small office collaborates with a network of people to manifest new futures, working across a range of mediums, scales, and disciplines. For this week's Studio Snapshot, we talk with Ann and Craig about agency in architecture, the need for a public architect, and the feminist activists, the Guerrilla Girls.

Want to Join Studio Gang? Design Principals Share How Top Job Applicants Made a Strong First Impression

2018-09-20T11:00:00-04:00

Nurturing collaboration has been the heart and soul of Studio Gang since Jeanne Gang founded the firm in 1997. Whether they're working on a project, bonding at their yearly Camp Wandawega retreats, or setting a precedent to close the wage gap in architecture, the Studio Gang collective takes creating “a strong, supportive studio culture” very seriously.

Now with a staff of just over 100 people in their Chicago, New York, and San Francisco offices, Studio Gang is on the lookout for new talent. So what should job candidates hoping to join the Gang do to stand out in the application process? In Archinect's latest “How To Get A Job At ____”, Design Principals Weston Walker and Juliane Wolf took a moment with us to share some tips and offer a glimpse into office life at the firm.

At the Chicago Architecture Biennial, T+E+A+M Deconstructs the Big-Box Store as a Post-industrial Community Space

2017-12-28T15:00:00-05:00

This article was originally published on the blog of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the largest platform for contemporary architecture in North America. The 2017 Biennial, entitled Make New History, will be free and open to the public between September 16, 2017 and January 7, 2018.

Political pavilions: Dellekamp Arquitectos’ “Wallderful” presents a gathering space for the U.S. - Mexico border at the Chicago Architecture Biennial

2017-11-16T09:00:00-05:00

This article was originally published on the blog of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the largest platform for contemporary architecture in North America. The 2017 Biennial, entitled Make New History, will be free and open to the public between September 16, 2017 and January 7, 2018.

Apple's Latest Offering is a Wood, Metal and Glass "Town Square", Designed by Foster + Partners

2017-10-25T18:47:00-04:00

With the grand opening of Apple’s brand new Chicago outpost this month, it appears that the tech giant’s new line of stores, recently renamed "town squares", has well and truly dropped. We saw a sneak peek of their glass curtain wall system and super slim roof lines at the Apple Park this year but it now appears that this is more than just a one-off thing for their big time California HQ; it seems that this is their latest rendition of Apple Architecture, delivered by Foster + Partners.

Exhibiting Visionary Histories: a Conversation with the curators of "Past Forward" at the Art Institute of Chicago

2017-10-12T09:00:00-04:00

This fall has brought no shortage of design events and exhibitions to Chicago, the hometown of American architecture. In addition to exhibitions at the Graham Foundation and Chicago Architecture Foundation, this year’s Biennial ties together numerous tours, performances, events, and allied shows in two and three dimensions. But no other event seems to complement the Biennial so well as the inaugural presentation of the Art Institute’s permanent Architecture and Design collection.

The Amnesias of "Make New History"

2017-09-27T10:30:00-04:00

Before there was Mies, there was Mecca. Built originally as a hotel for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, the Mecca Apartments, which once occupied the site of the now-heralded IIT campus in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, served as a cultural epicenter for the city’s Black community. This was a community formed primarily by participants of what is called “the Great Migration,” one of the largest mass internal migrations in history. Between 1916 and 1970, 1.6 million people fled the American South, where they faced Jim Crow laws, racist ideology, and widespread, institutionalized murder (nearly 3,500 Black people were lynched between 1882 and 1968). But when they arrived in Chicago and other Northern cities, they were met with similar instances of racism, segregation, and violence. Places like the Mecca Apartments served as rare shelter. So when, under the guise of so-called “urban renewal,” the Mecca Apartments were slated for demolition to make room for the IIT campus,...

The Continuous Reinvention of Chicago's Palace of the People

2017-08-10T09:00:00-04:00

The 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial blog is edited in partnership with Consortia, a creative office developing new frameworks for communication. This article also features embedded content from Are.na, an online platform for connecting ideas and building knowledge.

What we can learn from Chicago's CARYATIDS, the feminist curatorial collective that fought sexism in architecture

2017-06-27T13:11:00-04:00

This article was originally published on the blog of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the largest platform for contemporary architecture in North America. The blog invites designers, writers and other contributors to independently express their perspectives on the Biennial across a range of formats. The 2017 Biennial, entitled Make New History, will be free and open to the public between September 16, 2017 and January 6, 2018.

Enjoying architecture with Kwong Von Glinow Design Office

2017-04-24T09:00:00-04:00

They may not have even reached their paper anniversary, but Kwong Von Glinow Design Office has already made waves having won a few high-profile competitions including the 2016 Chicago Prize. Founded by Lap Chi Kwong and Alison Von Glinow in December of 2016 (which for those that are counting, is all of 5 months ago!), the two Harvard GSD grads have impressive CV's including stints at Herzog & de Meuron, Wang Shu, and SOM.

For obvious reasons, we have included them in our weekly-series, Small Studio Snapshots. Read on as the duo discuss collaborative working models, getting clients to support innovative design, and simply, enjoying architecture.