Legends South: The Results

A cook-out after party. Announcements are being made in the background honoring all of the volunteers.

Remember when I posted about the Legends South Design Charette I attended back in July? The wrap-up party was last week and I had the opportunity to check out the new digs.

The barbeque zone.

This in-laid tile was just one of the details I was pleasantly surprised to find.

This was the first time I had seen the results of a charette I was a part of with Archi-teasures and I was pleasantly surprised. Not only was the quality impressive but many of the things we had discussed at the charette were implemented here at the site.

The adults hang-out on the west open area, the kids on the east.

Here's a quick run-down of the site: there are several apartment buildings arranged around a parking lot. The lot had an open green space on each side. Young children would play on one side and older kids would hang-out on the other. When people barbequed and hung-out, there would be nowhere to sit so they would sit on the steps of the back porches. This made it difficult to get down and out the back, especially as one of my team members described, while trying to get out with a bicycle.


The table and benches in the foreground are made of concrete in-laid with ceramic tile. They sit on substantial steel legs.

So a couple of tables of teams at the charette focused on the same site and proposed some of the same solutions. Permanent barbeques were installed on a concrete slab. Permanent tables and benches were also installed. On the other side a sort of playground was set-up consisting of a concrete water monster, stainless steel tusks and benches sized for children.

The childrens' side includes a concrete water monster, benches and a stainless steel tusk.

This development is on the former site of some of the infamous Robert Taylor Homes. So far it looks like a great improvement. I saw a wonderful sense of community and neighbor involvement.

Monkeying around on a stainless steel tusk.

What's Better Than the Chicago Air and Water Show?

The week-long practice session leading up to it. Don't beleive me? Try being on the 40th floor of an office building when an F-16 flashes her underbelly at you a hundred yards out. Imagine being in an urban area as dense as the Loop with fighter jets weaving in and out between buildings. The show is this weekend, but for me the preview is the real show.

GCC Arrives at Critical Community Meeting

Michael Reese Hospital addressed by committee "ad nauseam".

Words spoken by the moderator of the community meeting last night. While many questions were asked about preserving MRH, they received the same response, "we have committed to preserving the only landmarked building on the site" built in 1909 and not a Gropius. Which is why the questions were asked more than once.

Lots of haters, few supports, all had their own agenda.

Frustrating as it was, the Gropius in Chicago Coalition was offered a private audience by the committee at which time it broke up into several groups where GCC members peppered them with questions. I could only be in one discussion at a time, that helmed by Cassandra Francis of Chicago 2016.

She was well-spoken and seemingly well-informed. She insisted the Olympic Village is already crammed onto the site and no space could possibly be given up for any reason. She said she has met with the top architecture and preservation firms in the city on the matter and not one has said the buildings are worth saving nor that it would be possible to share the site between the Olympic Village and any potential Gropius buildings. We were told she met with 3 firms today on the subject and came to the same conclusion and says she asked them if they could be quoted but was refused permission.

Grahm Balkhany disagrees with Chicago 2016's assessment:

... which is common lip service in this matter. They are proposing 21 identical 12 story buildings on parking podia, all crammed onto the south portion of the site. How is this good site or neighborhood planning?

Mr. Balkhany claims the IOC is flexible in its requirements and Chicago 2016 is simply showing them what it wants with the intent of modifying it once the bid is awarded. These claims counter those of Ms. Francis who insisted the IOC requirements are stringent and that the Olympic Village as it is planned now only just meets those requirements.

One of Mr. Balkhany's chief criticisms is the 12 story height limit and suggests that limit may be malleable. Increasing the heights of some of the buildings would free up land for the Gropius buildings to remain, not to mention improve views to the lake making these post Olympics market-rate apartments more marketable.

Mr. Balkhany is also peeved at the parking podiums being proposed, likening them to the parking podium blight of River North. He claims other architects have proposals in the works but he too has been sworn to secrecy. I'm not sure what all the covertness is about but he suggests Ms. Francis is open to reviewing these proposals.

They better hurry and get them to her, demolition has begun and time is running out.

Volunteers needed at Wright’s Home and Studio and Robie House

From the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust:

Volunteer at the remarkable Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park or at Wright’s icon of modern architecture, Robie House, in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago.

Photo courtesy of the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust

Fall volunteer training at the Home and Studio begins Tuesday, September 15 and at Wright’s Robie House Tuesday, October 6. Volunteers enjoy membership benefits, invitations to special events, educational opportunities and great new friendships. Volunteering at our world-class museum sites is a fascinating and rewarding experience as our volunteers explore widespread interests and develop new skills.

Photo by Don Kalec

Support an appreciation of architecture, design and the legacy of Wright while engaging in educational and aesthetic experiences with people from around the world. Visit GoWright.org or call 708.848.1976 for more information.

In College, I held a stint working for the Facilities Manager of the Architecture Department. The school owned the Affleck House in Bloomfield Hills, MI and we were responsible for some minor maintenance and setup and breakdown of events and studios they would hold there.

It was in a beautiful setting, a creek had run through the site and under part of the building. It had been dry for some time as the adjacent area was built up. What was interesting to me was the living quarters looked out onto the creek. This valued view was in contrast to the tight quarters and extremely narrow and low corridor leading to it which also contained pipes and conduit. You had to access this corridor through a tight winding stair and I remember one day seeing a tuft of hair embedded in some of the detailing that was projecting out in the Wrightian style; someone had hit their head and it looked very painful.

Don't let this deter you, volunteer today!

Rebuilding Together Volunteer Opportunity

A call for volunteers from Rebuilding Together:

We are pleased to announce the new neighborhood for National Rebuilding Day 2010 has arrived along with the hot weather!

This year's House Selection will begin on Saturday, August 22nd in a section of the North Austin neighborhood. Identifying homes that are appropriate for our program is a very important step in making National Rebuilding Day a success. We would greatly appreciate your help this year interviewing potential applicants and assessing the repairs needed at each home.

Previews take place on Saturday mornings from 8:30 am to noon. We meet at the Park National Bank at 11 W. Madison St. in Oak Park (accessible by car and Green Line train).
Please use the links below to sign-up on-line or email me the dates you would like to participate!

Returning House Selection Volunteer Sign-up

New House Selection Volunteer Sign-up

If you have not volunteered for house selection before and would like more information please contact Andrea. The county neighborhood has not yet been determined. We hope to announce the neighborhood in a few weeks.

Save Walter Gropius

The Gropius in Chicago Coalition needs more bodies. Tomorrow, Tuesday, Aug. 11th at 6pm, the Chicago 2016 Olympic Committee is hosting a community meeting at the Chicago Urban League, 4510 S. Michigan Avenue. The GCC indicates this may be the last opportunity to voice concern over the demolition of Michael Reese Hospital in a forum within that community.

A recent discovery made by Grahm Balkany indicates Gropius acted as a design architect to at least 8 of the 29 buildings on the 37 acre MRH site as well as the master plan. The design decisions were given to local architects of record to be drawn up while Gropius remained on board to ensure the designs maintained their original integrity. Gropius' involvement with MRH has rarely been documented and he has no other projects in Illinois.

Unfortunately, the site is slated for demolition to make way for the Olympic Village. The demolition contract was awarded several months ago and demolition of the landscaping has begun.

Gropius founded the Bauhaus school and worked under Peter Behrens with fellow colleagues Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. He was Chairman of the Architecture Department at Harvard University until he retired from the position in 1952.

To voice your concern that an architectural legacy will be erased forever, show up.

CAF Partners with Upward Bound

I recently had the opportunity to work with the Chicago Architecture Foundation on a workshop designed to teach high school students a little something about architecture and planning. CAF partnered with the Upward Bound Program this time, but the format is very similar to that used in the Saturdays in the Studio program, something CAF does every year.

We broke into several groups, each occupying a table and each lead by an architect or planner. Each table was given a map of a different city; Chicago, New York, Dubrovnik, Split and San Francisco. The cities were selected using a proven algorithm defined by whatever maps employees of CAF had brought back with them from their travels.

Each group then outlined the major components onto trace paper. The purpose of this exersise is to get the students to notice the elements that shape a city, both man-made and natural. Each group had to present their findings before we continued the exersise in the atrium using the new Chicago Model City Exhibit.

Now that the students had thoroughly honed their skills in urban observation it was time to put them to use in the real world. Each group was assigned a nearby intersection; my group went to Jackson and Michigan. We pointed out the stark contrast between the west side with the Michigan Ave wall and the other with the Art Institute and the park. What amazed me was the amount of infrastructure packed into about 4 blocks; our intersection had an entrance and exit ramp to the underground parking below, a pedestrian elevator to access that parking, a littler further east the Metra lines ran under Jackson and to the west is a Brownline stop. I tend to take theses things for granted when they’re running smoothly I suppose.

This was one session of Upward Bound's summer program. This particular program is designed for students interested in pursuing a career in architecture, planning, civil engineering, etc. and runs for about 8 weeks this summer. Before they met with us at CAF they were touring IIT's College of Architecture. More information.

It was an easy fit for the CAF people who run the Saturdays in the Studio program. Check out this year's schedule. If you're interested in volunteering please contact Krisann Rehbein.

CAF Seeks New Docents

The Chicago Architecture Foundation is seeking new docents for their 2010 class. Docents are volunteers who provide architecture tours in Chicago's downtown, surrounding neighborhoods like Wicker Park or Beverly and suburbs like Evanston. Potential docents should attend one of two open houses to learn about the process of becoming a docent: Thursday, August 13, 6– 7pm and Saturday, August 22, 10 – 11 am at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, 224 South Michigan Avenue. More information.

Can Intern Architects Work for Free to Get IDP Experience?

Under federal law, the answer is "no".

An interesting read here.

The author made me think of an interesting concept; how can we establish the projects we do at Architecture for Humanity Chicago so that young architects can still get IDP credits? I only mention AFH because that's about the only organization I know of locally that could accommodate the requirements. I'll have to pose that question at the next AFH meeting on July 21st at 6:30pm at Brehon Pub.

Archi-treasures Design Charette at Legends South

I recently had the opportunity to participate in one of Archi-treasures' community charettes. This one took place at a mixed-income community called Legends South located at about the 4000 block of S. State St. Archi-treasures has worked with Legends South once before which is nice for two reasons; they were familiar with the community, and there was lots to do since they had only worked with them once before.

The event was well organized, after 13 years they have it down to a tee. Coffee and donuts were a welcome provision to keep our energy levels up through the morning. We started with table introductions. The residents at my table ranged in age from high school students to a lady whose age I won't attempt to guess for fear of retribution. But, overall I would say there was a great sampling of ages from early grade school to grandparents.

We then moved on to site analysis, beginning by ensuring everyone knew how to read the site plan provided. Asking team members to identify their homes is a good start. From here we identified the site elements we liked and disliked, and then proceeded to a brainstorming session of ideas for elements to be built.

The invited architects or artists are asked to facilitate versus create. The intent is to allow the community members to come up with the ideas while the architect or artist perhaps asks questions to help coax those ideas out. It’s easy to forget at first.

The brainstormed list was then prioritized and only then were the ideas drawn on paper by my team members. The drawings and maps needed to be presented by each team at the end. During the presentations a master list tallying the ideas was created and from there you could see, in some cases, many things repeated.

Archi-treasures uses this list to find the most popular (and buildable) items. These will be the things that get built over the summer work program and range in scope from mosaic stepping stones to benches to an outdoor projection stand and screen to view movies.
One of the nice things about this program is that youths from the community are hired to build the most popular (and feasible) projects over the summer. Many of the youths participating in the charette were also interviewing for one of these paid positions.

I really liked that the community members were engaged. For example, when I arrived, it was determined we wouldn't tour the site as we normally would due to rain. However, about an hour into the brainstorming session one of the members of my team asked if we would be willing to tough it out so she could get a better idea of the areas of the community we were talking about.

Archi-treasures doesn’t always work with residential communities. They’ve worked with schools and other public spaces with community groups. They also do some youth development projects by taking youths from some of these communities to UIC, for example. One of these communities is only a 5 minute walk from UIC and most of the youths have never been.

The communities Archi-treasures work with usually have some connection to a member of the board. For example, the firm of Landon Bone Baker was the architect for the Legends South development. Pete Landon participated in the charette and a representative of the developer was on hand as I’m sure they see the value of this type of community involvement.

Check out their website for more information on projects, photos, and upcoming volunteer opportunities. I’ll be posting photos of my experience soon so check back for that. Archi-treasures always has volunteer opportunities and another round of charettes is planned for later this summer. Keep an eye on the sidebar. Until then, you can purchase tickets and attend their fundraiser, Jewels in July happening on the 15th.