Archinect - News

Midwest academic job opportunities at 6 architecture schools

2023-12-01T14:03:00-05:00

Our latest weekly curated jobs roundup from the Archinect Job board highlights nine new career opportunities from architecture schools in the Midwest seeking fellows, assistant professors, academic leaders, and facilities staff.

To look up specific job titles from the architectural profession, consult Archinect's Guide to Job Titles series. Also, follow our Archinect Tips series to improve your portfolio, resume, interviewing skills, and increase your overall chances of getting that next job.

If you're interested in all academic jobs, not just in the Midwest, go here, and if you're in the Midwest and looking for other types of jobs check this link out.

Teaching Positions

University of Illinois Chicago seeks an Assistant Professor and a Clinical Professor (Open rank)

Assistant Professor details: "The selected candidate must demonstrate potential for investigating technology through creative architectural practice or scholarship into how design, science, and culture overlap. This inc...

Two Midwesterners on the quest to document the untapped potential of America's rural architecture

2022-06-22T13:34:00-04:00

It's fascinating to document how architectural and cultural trends are deployed across the country, but we've seen that widespread disinvestment — as well as patterns of renovation and repurposing — add to an already palpable sense of impermanence.

Chicagoans Zach Huelsing and Jon Lehman’s Rural Indexing Project was first launched during the Obama administration and has grown to an archive of more than 1,200 locations spread across 25 different states. Huelsing and Lehman both studied architecture and urban planning respectively, and their backgrounds have been useful in guiding their realization that the built environment in many cases, offers more than suburbanites and city dwellers are exposed to in the easily repeatable, clickbait-laden news cycle.

“So many of the images that are propagated from rural parts of the country focus on decay or on destruction or abandonment, and we're very interested in the ways that buildings, in particular, continue to serve and continue to be adapted in ways that meet the needs of communities," he said. "I think we can actually learn some lessons ... the stories that our photographs tell are stories of adaptive reuse."

8 architectural career opportunities in the Upper Midwest

2020-12-10T13:45:00-05:00

If you're currently looking for architectural job opportunities in the Upper Midwest, take a look at this week's curated highlight from Archinect Jobs. We have selected a number of current openings for architects, designers, and academic positions in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois. (In case you're interested in academic jobs at architecture schools nationwide, don't miss our recent specific roundup and — should you feel you're qualified for a really big step — consider these dean positions.)

Flad Architects seeks a Director of Healthcare in Madison, WI (they're also hiring a Project Architect in Seattle, WA)
"Responsible for developing new project targets and expanding the Flad project portfolio in the cli...

Telling Milwaukee's Story Through Architecture

2020-01-27T13:04:00-05:00

This article was written by Genaro Armas

UWM’s School of Architecture is marking its 50th anniversary in a yearlong celebration that concludes with a gala weekend in April. To commemorate five decades of education, research and community engagement, architecture faculty members picked the most important structures built in Milwaukee during each decade since the school was established in 1969.

Milwaukee’s most iconic structure might be the Quadracci Pavilion at the Milwaukee Art Museum along Lake Michigan. Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and completed in 2001, the pavilion’s signature characteristic is the Burke Brise Soleil, a moveable, wing-like sunscreen that rests on top of the glass-enclosed Windhover Hall. Its wingspan is similar to a Boeing 747.

The pavilion’s futuristic design stands out in a downtown skyline dominated by more traditional architecture.

School of Architecture & Urban Planning faculty (from left) Whitney Moon, Mo Zell and Kyle Reynolds.

“What I...

Great Lakes Hyperloop System wins House support for Cleveland-Chicago route

2019-07-01T14:03:00-04:00

Technology that would connect the cities of Cleveland and Chicago via a 30-minute commute inched closer to reality this month as a national transportation and housing appropriations bill passed one federal hurdle. Five million dollars in initial funding for the Great Lakes Hyperloop System, an experimental high-speed transportation project, was included in legislation voted on by the U.S. House of Representatives in late June.

Kim Palmer reports for Crain's Cleveland: "The passage of the 2020 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriation bill by the House provides the funds for the U.S. Department of Transportation to create a regulatory framework for development of a hyperloop system."

Prototype of the Hyperloop passenger capsule, unveiled in October 2018. Image: HyperloopTT

"The first route studied on the Great Lakes Hyperloop network will be Cleveland to Chicago in 28 minutes," states Great Lakes Hyperloop on its website. "With over 3 million journeys annually, Hyperloop could save travelers 13 million hours each year. Cleveland boasts the largest economy in Ohio with over $120B in annual GDP. Chicago is the 3rd largest metropolitan area in the US bringing in $600B GDP per year."

The U.S. Senate is now next in line to vote on the bill.

Can architecture brace itself during the Polar Vortex? Here are 5 examples of structures designed to withstand freezing temperatures

2019-02-03T10:49:00-05:00

There's no way to sugar coat it, the Polar Vortex of 2019 has aggressively hit various parts of the world. As people have braced themselves for the cold and frigid temperatures, how does the harsh cold remind us of building more resilient structures? Chicago and many other areas in the U.S. have made headlines with its reaction to the Polar Vortex. Photos and videos of snow covered roads, icicle buildings, and frozen bodies of water have graced the media. Although these record-setting temperatures in the Midwest have made a substantial impact on several people, the solution to designing thermal resilient structures is nothing new in the world of architecture.

Several architects and designers have constructed buildings that were made to withstand some of the most extreme temperatures. Places that are prone to the cold like Antarctica and Norway are home to several structures built to withstand such extremes. Below are 5 examples and descriptions of buildings that can brace the cold.

...

Blair Kamin's 2018 best architecture moments in Chicago and the Midwest

2018-12-10T14:27:00-05:00

Construction cranes filled the skyline, but much of the best work in Chicago and the Midwest in 2018 was tucked away in settings far from the high-rise commercial maelstrom.

Chicago Tribune architecture critic, Blair Kamin, takes a look back and lists 2018's most notable architecture moments in the Windy City and the greater Midwest region, including the transformation of Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch landmark in St. Louis, the anticipated new home of the Chicago Architecture Center planned by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the Tadao Ando-designed Wrightwood 659 art venue, and Studio Gang's energy-friendly Solstice apartment tower.

Remembering the eccentric and lovable architecture of Bruce Goff

2018-09-13T18:52:00-04:00

Yet now, in our era of elegantly restrained and frequently dour minimalism, when architecture is almost always the province of the rich, it may be that Goff, with his aesthetic idiosyncrasies and affinity for middle-class Midwestern clients (schoolteachers, farmers, salesmen, small-town newspaper publishers), still has lessons to teach us, 36 years after his death.

In her NYT feature, Amanda Fortini revisits the flamboyant and impressive work of the largely forgotten midcentury architect Bruce Goff. "His daring, elaborately imagined homes—he loved unusual shapes and made ample use of found materials—are often dismissed by cultural mandarins as overly futuristic and corny, but they possess a warmth, an earthiness and a wild ingenuity that serve as an antidote to the soberly luxurious, the pared down and the austere," Fortini writes.

John Frank House, Sapulpa, Oklahoma, 1955.

A closer look at gentrification in the Rust Belt

2017-12-26T18:50:00-05:00

Gentrification. It is a word that we hear with increasing frequency in contemporary discussions about American cities. But what does that word really mean? And, even more importantly, what does it mean in the context of the region that I live in and love – the Rust Belt? [...] It is important to be clear about the meaning of this increasingly ambiguous term, because what needs to happen in the vast majority of urban neighborhoods in the legacy cities of the Rust Belt is far less ambiguous.

"Many critics of Rust Belt gentrification are holding cities to an unreasonable standard, and placing them in an impossible situation. If much of the city remains poor and run-down, this is proof that the city does not care, and is not trying hard enough. If, on the other hand, parts of the city begin to attract new residents and investment, this is proof that the city does not care, and is not trying hard enough. Heads I win. Tails you lose."

City Observatory published a commentary piece by Jason Segedy, Director of Planning and Urban Development for the City of Akron, Ohio.

The New York Times travels to Eero Saarinen's Michigan (and follows up with an unfortunately ignorant tweet)

2017-10-09T19:09:00-04:00

While Saarinen’s groundbreaking works gave him international prominence, many people don’t realize that his earliest architectural and design laboratory was in Michigan.

John L. Dorman, for the travel section of the New York Times explored Michigan's modern architecture, and more specifically, buildings by modern architect Eliel Saarinen and his son Eero. He reports visiting the Saarinen's house designed by Eliel and the first buildings realized by Eero, such as his office, the University of Michigan School of Music, Dance and Theatre, and the General Motors Technical Center. The article describes the genesis of Eliel's career in Michigan before becoming famous internationally.

The New York Times shared the article with a tweet insinuating that midwest architecture wasn't renown, generating many angry responses.

Machines Don't Care; A Conversation about Exhibit Columbus's Student-Built Structures

2017-06-15T19:24:00-04:00

Today’s show follows up on Archinect Sessions episode 83, when we discussed this first year of Exhibit Columbus. The inaugural exhibition of Exhibit Columbus opens this summer, on August 26, and will include six built structures, designed by teams from six different Midwestern universities, investigating the built environment of Columbus. On today’s show, we will be discussing these projects along with Joshua Coggeshall and Janice Shimizu from the Ball State University team, and Martin Summers from the University of Kentucky.

Listen to "Machines Don't Care":

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Download: this episode

Renzo Piano's Kum & Go HQ enters construction phase + new (better) renderings

2015-09-22T09:00:00-04:00

Earlier this summer, Midwest convenience store chain Kum & Go revealed a first peek at their new Renzo Piano-designed Des Moines, Iowa headquarters. The initial round of design illustrations were of a rather austere, CAD-like quality, and Archinect commenters remarked that the renderings failed to express how the project would relate to its urban context.

Now several new, photorealistic renderings have been revealed that help to get a better understanding of the 5-story building at 1459 Grand Avenue, officially dubbed the Krause Gateway Center.

↑ East View.

With construction fencing going up and demolition work of existing buildings beginning this week, the project is certainly moving forward. Presentation of updated plans to the Urban Design Review Board is scheduled for the coming days.

↑ West View.

All images courtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop.

Renzo Piano's designs for Kum & Go HQ revealed

2015-07-02T13:49:00-04:00

When Midwest convenience store chain Kum & Go announced the selection of Renzo Piano as design architect for their new Des Moines, Iowa headquarters last November, speculations immediately ran wild about what the Italian master would put to paper.

The secrecy has now been lifted with the official reveal of the designs for the 5-story Krause Gateway Center, scheduled to open in 2018.

Scroll down for the announcement Kum & Go published, along with first design impressions, this week.

Kum & Go shared today the designs for their new Downtown Des Moines headquarters, Krause Gateway Center, located at 1459 Grand Avenue. The building was designed to provide Kum & Go associates a modern and highly collaborative work environment that offers flexibility for growth in the years to come.

The five-story building is being planned and constructed for LEED certification, and will feature glass prominently on all sides to provide transparency and light throughout the building. The layout was designed to...

Renzo Piano will design the new Kum & Go corporate HQ in Iowa

2014-11-20T15:57:00-05:00

Renzo Piano Building Workshop will be the design architect for the new corporate headquarters of Midwest convenience retailer chain Kum & Go. The 120,000 sq.foot building will be located at the Pappajohn Sculpture Park in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. After competing teams submitted written proposals, six finalists were interviewed last month before RPBW won the project. In the next few months, a local architect and general contractor will be chosen as the design process begins.

UPDATE: Renzo Piano's designs for Kum & Go HQ revealed

Temple University Physicist proposes three 1,000-foot walls to tornado-proof Midwest

2014-06-30T20:31:00-04:00

In a paper he recently published in the International Journal of Modern Physics B, Tao points to two regions of China... that have a similar geographic location as the Midwest—but far fewer tornadoes. The difference, he says, is that China's plains are surrounded by three east-west mountain ranges, which slow down passing winds enough to prevent tornados from forming. Tao, then, is essentially suggesting we build mountain range-sized walls across Tornado Alley...

An Architecture-Lover's Road Trip

2014-06-13T16:45:00-04:00

THANKS TO preservation efforts and the museum-building boom of the past decade, America's hot zone for modern and contemporary architecture is still the Midwest. And driving is the best way to see it all, including the star attraction, Chicago. "It's the birthplace of tall buildings," said Zoë Ryan, an architecture and design curator at the Art Institute of Chicago

Tornado Response UPDATE

2012-03-02T17:16:00-05:00

It looks like Harrisburg dodged more severe weather last night. [...] We've seen an impressive response to yesterday's appeal for volunteer and fundraising support, and have launched the Midwest Tornadoes Recovery campaign on our website and Global Giving. We got emails and calls throughout the day - we've directly responded to most already and are positioning talent offered for our response.

Roof ripped off St. Louis airport by tornado, 5 injured

2011-04-23T03:44:47-04:00

At least five people were treated for minor injuries at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, said airport spokesman Jerry Lea. Four were taken to the hospital. Lea said the injuries were believed to be from shattered glass. The storm lifted the roof and blew out glass on Concord C, airport officials said. Upper-level terminals were damaged and vehicles were reported overturned at the parking garage. An Air National Guard facility at the airport was also reportedly damaged.