"The residence takes advantage of a favorable climate to allow outdoor spaces to become integral to the experience, greatly expanding its perceived square footage," says a news release. In Chicago, we have a favorable climate for--what?--three months of the year.  

Here's a link to more info about the house. The news release follows on the jump:

For immediate release:
Washington, D.C. – May 30, 2012 – The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has selected the 10 recipients of the 2012 Housing Awards.  The AIA’s Housing Awards Program, now in its 12th year, was established to recognize the best in housing design and promote the importance of good housing as a necessity of life, a sanctuary for the human spirit and a valuable national resource.

The jury for the 2012 Housing Awards includes: Sandra A. LaFontaine, AIA, (jury chair) LaFontaine Architecture and Design, Worthington, Ohio; Allison Arieff, New York Times, San Francisco; Sara E. Caples, AIA, Caples Jefferson Architects, New York City; Jerome King, FAIA, The Office of Jerome King; San Jose, Calif. and Bill Moore, AIA, Sprocket Design Build, Inc., Denver.

The jury recognized projects in four award categories: One/Two Family Custom Housing, One/Two Family Production Housing, Multifamily Housing and Special Housing.

The descriptions below give a brief summary of the projects.  You can learn more about these projects by clicking on the name of the project/firm name.  If you are interested in obtaining high resolution images, please contact Matt Tinder at mtinder@aia.org.


One/Two Family Custom Housing

The One and Two Family Custom Residences award recognizes outstanding designs for custom and remodeled homes for specific client(s).

Carmel Residence, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Dirk Denison Architects

Located on a dense site facing Carmel Bay and the Pacific Ocean, the residents were keen to be fully cognizant of this amazing setting in all areas of the home.  As such, the house was conceived as a central room comprised of the courtyard, living room, and bedroom, bordered by niche spaces including the kitchen, breakfast nook, office and master bath.  The courtyard, bordered by vertical a vertical screen of solid mahogany and steel, opens to the home through fully folding glass doors.  The screen, opaque when viewed at an angle, is actually porous, allowing both air and light to travel through the entire home.  The residence takes advantage of a favorable climate to allow outdoor spaces to become integral to the experience, greatly expanding its perceived square footage.

Hampden Lane House, Bethesda, Maryland
Robert M. Gurney, FAIA

Designed as a cube, the house is approximately 2200 square feet with no unused or underutilized spaces.  The flat roof provides an additional 1100 square feet of outdoor living space with views of treetops and the downtown Bethesda skyline. This house represents a deliberate departure in both the thought process and the realization of current building trends in the neighborhood.  The house is intended to be more site sensitive, environmentally conscious, and to provide comfortable, efficient living spaces. Fenestration in the ground faced block walls, composed of varying sized rectangular and square openings, is arranged to optimize views to the green spaces while minimizing views of adjacent houses in close proximity.

Nakahouse, Los Angeles
XTEN Architecture

Nakahouse is an abstract remodel of a 1960's hillside house. Due to zoning, budget and ecological considerations the foundations were maintained in the design. The interior was completely reconfigured however, several cantilevered terraces added, and the exterior was opened up to the hillside views.  A series of indoor-outdoor spaces with framed views to nature are rendered in white steel, plaster and concrete, lending further to the concept of an ‘uncontained’ space, with no rigid beginnings or ends.  The contrast between the interior and exterior of the house is intentional and total. While the interiors are light and fluid, the exterior walls are finished in a black monolithic plaster system.  These deep black plaster walls act as a net, anchoring the house in the landscape.

The Pierre, San Juan Islands, Washington
Olson Kundig Architects

Conceived as a bunker nestled into the rock, the Pierre—French for stone—celebrates the materiality of the site and the owner’s affection for a stone outcropping on her property. With its rough materiality, which encompasses stone, green roof, and surrounding foliage, the house disappears into nature from certain angles.  Throughout the house, rock extrudes into the space, contrasting with luxurious interior textures and furnishings. Interior and exterior hearths are carved out of existing stone and left raw—much like the master bathroom sink and the powder room, which are fully carved out of the rock.

Relic Rock, Scottsdale, Arizona
DCHGlobal Inc.

Relic Rock is the prototype for a sustainable building system that is based on a three dimensional structural grid comprised of 99% recycled steel and a standardized set of structural, architectural, and building components. A 7’x 7’ horizontal module and a 1’-3” vertical module allow the building to adjust to the natural contours of site in both directions creating “floating” floor planes that leave native boulder formations and natural topography untouched. The system is designed to the LEED Platinum level and can be efficiently constructed in any location, climate, or terrain.

One/Two Family Production Housing

The One and Two Family Custom Residences award recognizes outstanding designs for custom and remodeled homes for specific client(s).

Live Work Home, Syracuse, New York
Cook + Fox Architects

Essentially a small modern loft, the LEED Platinum Live Work Home is an efficient, highly adaptable space designed as an urban infill prototype for shrinking cities. Grounded in ideas of healthy living and biophilia, the home is also a response to Syracuse’s climate and ecology. Skylight tubes provide daylighting for long, light-starved winters and a perforated screen adapts to shade the summer sun and bounce daylight into the house. Using low-tech passive strategies to reinforce sustainability, Live Work Home functions as a modern response to Syracuse’s concerns as a post-industrial American city.

Multifamily Living

The Multifamily Housing award recognizes outstanding apartment and condominium design.  Both high- and low-density projects for public and private clients were considered.  In addition to architectural design features, the jury assessed the integration of the building(s) into their context, including open and recreational space, transportation options and features that contribute to livable communities.

Drs. Julian and Raye Richardson Apartments, San Francisco
David Baker + Partners, Architects

Richardson Apartments provides 120 permanent, supportive studio apartments for very-low-income formerly homeless residents, many with mental and physical disabilities. The sustainable infill development remediates the site of a demolished freeway with green homes, on-site social services, generous outdoor and common spaces, neighborhood-serving retail. The building massing and materials complement the eclectic neighborhood and incorporate sunshades, awnings, and alternating glass panels and board form concrete columns to create a dynamic facade.  Local and reclaimed materials were used to make a building with a strong identity and sense of place.

Optima Camelview Village, Scottsdale, Arizona
David Hovey & Associates Architect, Inc.

Drawing inspiration from the surrounding mountains and Native American desert communities, Optima Camelview Village is a 700-unit mixed-use condominium development comprised of eleven interconnected, terraced, bridge-linked buildings that responds to the harsh desert climate of urban Scottsdale, Arizona by creating a pedestrian friendly environment of interconnected landscaped courtyards. Deep-layered shades, shadows, colors, textures and transparency along with overlapping and interconnected forms and voids create a diverse composition of space.  Overhanging bridges and cantilevering landscaped terraces shade public pedestrian courtyards, creating shelter as a serene sanctuary from the southwest desert. 

Special Housing

The Special Housing award recognizes outstanding design of housing that meets the unique needs of other specialized housing types such as single room occupancy residences (SROs), independent living for the disabled, residential rehabilitation programs, domestic violence shelters, and other special housing.

Jesuit Community Center, Fairfield, Connecticut
Gray Organschi Architecture

Aware of their special role as teachers and spiritual guides, the Jesuits sought a building that would not only provide for their own immediate needs, but might serve as an exemplar of ecological architecture.  The apostolic center houses resident Jesuit priests and their guests, administrative offices, a chapel, community dining room, great room, and library. Throughout the project, design decisions aimed to optimize the building’s environmental performance. Ultimately, both traditional site and building design “best practices” and innovative environmental technologies serve to reduce both short and long term impact on the environment, helping the Jesuits to achieve their goal of acting as “good stewards of the Earth.”

McMurtry & Duncan Colleges, Houston
Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas + Company with Hopkins Architects

Two new residential colleges are helping Rice University grow strategically while sustaining its signature campus culture.  Seven buildings, designed in the collegiate quadrangle tradition, accommodate 650 students and faculty masters. They are woven together with shaded arcades and existing tree-lined walks, creating a careful composition and hierarchy of buildings and spaces and honoring the order of the original campus plan. While drawing inspiration from historic context, sustainability and innovation were key design drivers, including installation of custom prefabricated bathroom pods and the utilization of new construction strategies. Both colleges have earned LEED® Gold.

(Photo of Carmel house by David Matheson)

The project, whose cost is pegged at more than $1 billion, calls for a slope-roofed office building of 925 feet, which would be Chicago’s eighth-tallest structure. Another office building and an apartment high-rise would bring the project’s combined square footage to nearly 3 million square feet, more than the biggest skyscraper of the boom years, the 2.6-million-square foot Trump International Hotel & Tower.

The plans, made public at a community meeting called by Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, and attended by more than 300 people, are for the triangular Wolf Point parcel to the southwest of the Merchandise Mart. The Kennedys sold the Merchandise Mart in 1998, but still control Wolf Point, once home to pioneer taverns, a hotel and trading posts.

The project “gives a great boost of confidence” in downtown Chicago, Christopher Kennedy, chairman of Kennedy Enterprises, the family’s investment arm, said Tuesday before the meeting.

But the plan must overcome several hurdles, including what is expected to be strong opposition from residents of a high-rise at 333 N. Canal St., the Residences at RiverBend, whose views to the east would be blocked by the proposed towers. The development’s impact on already-congested downtown streets is also expected to be a big issue.

In addition, Reilly, whose ward includes Wolf Point, would need to back changes to the 1973 zoning agreement that governs the site.  The agreement allowed construction of the hulking Apparel Center and Holiday Inn Mart Plaza, now partly occupied by the Chicago Sun-Times, directly to the north.

"This is just the first of what will likely be several meetings about Wolf Point," Reilly said at the meeting.

The project’s financial backers are the Kennedy family, which has owned Wolf Point since the 1940s; Hines, the global, Houston-based real estate concern; Magellan Development Group, the Chicago firm that built the Lakeshore East complex; and a fourth partner whom Kennedy would only identify as a “very prominent overseas investor who is testing the waters in Chicago.”

When Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced on May 16 that Chicago would kick in $29 million toward  another Hines development along the riverfront—the 45-story River Point office tower in the West Loop—he said it would be the largest new real estate project to break ground in the city since the 2008 economic downturn.

But the new project, whose developers are not requesting a public subsidy, would dwarf River Point. Its highest tower, whose prow-like edge would jut toward the river at Wolf Point’s south end, would rise to a height of 925 feet.

The other office tower, projected to be 700 feet tall, would occupy the site’s eastern flank, next to the Merchandise Mart.

Completion of the skyscrapers, which would be marketed to law firms, corporations, professional service firms and tech firms, is not envisioned until 2018 for the south tower and 2020 for the east tower.

Demand for office space “is not strong enough today. Otherwise, we’d start up today,” said Greg Van Schaack, senior managing director of Hines’ Chicago office.

The firm of New Haven, Conn. architect Cesar Pelli has designed the office towers and has crafted a master plan which calls for 2.3 acres, more than half the site, to be open space. Up to 1,285 parking spaces would be in a three- or four-level deck tucked below street-level greenery. The open space would slope down to a 30-foot-wide riverwalk, as required by the city.

Pelli’s portfolio includes the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, once the world’s tallest buildings.
The Chicago firm of bKL Architecture has designed the apartment building, a 500-footer, which the developers want to complete by fall of 2014. The building would be marketed to young professionals and would have about 500 units, with an average size of 750 square feet. 
Rents would start at $2,000 per month for studios and go to $4,000 per month for two bedrooms, according to Van Schaack.

The developers said they plan to request a zoning change that would allow them to build slightly higher towers, achieving a total square footage for all three buildings of more than 3.7 million square feet. If that change were granted, the towers would be 950, 750 and 525 feet tall, said Hines' zoning laywer, Jack George.

The meeting was held at the Holiday Inn’s Wolf Point Ballroom, 350 W. Mart Center Drive.

(Rendering courtesy of Pelli Clarke Pelli)

From today's print edition

A safe, clean, on-time ride. That's all most of us expect from the Chicago Transit Authority. But why not ask for something more? Station architecture that puts zing in the journey and elevates the city around it. That's what we get at the crisply modern new Morgan "L" station on Chicago's Near West Side.

The $38 million station, which Mayor Rahm Emanuel formally opened Thursday, serves the Pink and Green lines and can be found at Lake and Morgan streets, about half a mile west of the Ogilvie Transportation Center. But you're bound to see it before you get there.

The station's spectral stair towers and glass-sheathed transfer bridge rise airily above the hard-edged warehouses and cold meat lockers of the West Loop, also home to trendy restaurants and galleries. The area, it's been said, is in transition from slaughterhouses to art houses. The Oprah show may be gone, but the station is a new jewel in the West Loop's crown.

Indeed, it's so handsome that it's bound to spark debate about whether the money spent on it would have been put to better use fixing the CTA's creaking rails and maddening "slow zones." The construction was paid for by state and federal grants, as well tax increment financing funds meant to spur investment on the Near West Side. Yet as Tribune transportation writer Jon Hilkevitch noted in Friday's paper, the station followed, rather than fostered, the area's resurgence.

Designed by Chicago architect Carol Ross Barney, who has previously done fine renovations on the CTA's Fullerton, Belmont and Grand stations on the Red Line, Morgan is the first brand-new CTA elevated station in Chicago in 15 years.

The last one, which opened in 1997 at State and Van Buren streets, apes the heavy-handed, postmodern design of the Harold Washington Library Center. This one reflects a different time, technology and creative spirit.

It is Barney's best transit project to date and sets a high bar for her next CTA project, a new $50 million Green Line station at Cermak Road that will serve people going to McCormick Place.

Barney's big move makes a virtue of a tightly constructed site along the Lake Street elevated line, portions of which had to be structurally reinforced to carry the loads from the station's 425-foot-long platforms.

A conventional mezzanine, where passengers would climb and pay fares before ascending to the platforms, was ruled out. It would have obstructed truck traffic. Instead, Barney and her project architect, Ryan Giblin, did something unconventional.

To the north and south of the elevated, they stacked a 40-foot-tall slab, sheathing it in glass and panels of perforated stainless steel. Each slab contains a ground-level station house, stairs leading to a platform and an elevator that takes riders to the platforms and a glass-enclosed bridge connecting them. The outcome succeeds as urban design and architecture.

There is no facile attempt here to mimic the muscular brick structures of nearby lofts and warehouses. The boxy slabs have the right toughness for the neighborhood, yet by virtue of their height, transparency and glinting presence, they give it something fresh. Large-scale stainless steel signs, proclaiming "CTA" atop the slabs and "Morgan Station" on the sides of the elevated structure, make the station easy to identify from afar.

The architecture follows in the Chicago tradition of elevating construction to art. Computer-etched patterns on the perforated steel panels suggest the shadows cast by the elevated structure on the street below. Inside, the station houses are pleasantly transparent. Above them, one encounters tall shafts of sky-lighted space, enlivened by structural columns and beams, stair railings and other features, even drain pipes, organized in a precisely honed machine aesthetic.

The platforms are also well-detailed. Translucent canopies admit natural light to the platforms while thin pairs of steel columns nicely culminate in fins -- an improvement on the squarish canopy supports at the Belmont and Fullerton stations.

The glass-sheathed sky bridge isn't bad either, even though its structural members are too bulky. It's fully enclosed from the weather and offers drop-dead views of Willis Tower and the downtown skyline.

Tying all the elements together, a rounded, horizontal band of florescent lights runs from the station house to the sky bridge. Once it's working (only some of the lights are operating now), it should help riders to navigate the space intuitively.

All this would be meaningless if Barney had not managed to synthesize the essential demands of function with the station's forms. But she's done that, the result of years of experience -- and frustration -- with the transit bureaucracy.

On the platforms, for example, she tucks conduits for electric lines and other utilities between the columns, forgoing the visual clutter one frequently encounters at CTA stations. She's thought through maintenance too. The hard-to-reach exterior of the sky bridge's glass can be power-washed from below.

Still, the public has every right to ask: Why $38 million for a CTA station? And the tab for Morgan could go higher. The eastern end of the platforms still needs canopies.

Barney's response is that the job had to be carried out while CTA trains were still running, stretching out the schedule and adding to labor costs. The need for durable, low-maintenance materials, such as stainless steel, also drove up the price. The job, she said, came in on budget.

With the CTA's aging infrastructure facing a never-ending series of maintenance problems, the issue of renovating or building stations versus repairing rails isn't going to go away. But a station this elevating reminds us that good design must remain part of the equation as Chicago grapples with the enormous task of bringing its antiquated transit system into the 21st century.

(Tribune photos by Chuck Berman)

By Melissa Harris

Tribune reporter

MIREBALAIS, HAITI — Under a blinding Caribbean sun, far from the sleek Chicago residences she usually designs, architect Ann Clark saw well-laid plans turn to improvisation, yet again.

Overhead, a 2,850-pound ventilation system dangled from a broken crane, hovering over the roof of the national teaching hospital Clark had designed for this impoverished nation.

This was the third crane to arrive broken — not a victim of the twisty, mountainous climb to the site, but of Haiti's general dysfunction. Rarely does anything work properly here.

Before this project, Clark, a slender 51-year-old, mostly worked for Chicago's wealthy. She had never designed a health care facility, much less a hospital. Certainly not in a place where a ventilation system had to be rolled into place using a jury-rigged wood-frame dolly, or where concrete, the most basic of all building materials, was of such dubious quality that samples had to be toted to two countries for pressure-testing.

She also never imagined how this midcareer opportunity would challenge her, even sour her at times, but also inspire her to continue working in Haiti.

For a video and photos, click here. 

Her project was already under way when a 2010 earthquake devastated the country, killing tens of thousands of people. After that came a surprise request from government officials to transform the modestly planned facility into the most sophisticated hospital in the nation.

"I did think, 'Crap. I haven't built a hospital,'" Clark said. "But I realized that designing a hospital in the U.S. wouldn't necessarily help me design a hospital in Haiti."

Clark's journey to Haiti began almost two decades ago. While driving to work at her husband's West Loop architecture firm, she heard on National Public Radio that Paul Farmer, a college friend, had won the MacArthur Foundation's genius grant.

"I was working part time because I had a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old-ish," Clark said. "And I was like, 'Oh my God. Paul Farmer?' So I hand-wrote a letter. Not an email. A letter. 'Hey, I'm in Skokie with two toddlers at my ankles. And you're out saving the world.' I essentially told him I didn't feel very good about myself right then."

Farmer and Clark had corresponded via letter for years after graduating from Duke University in 1982. At some point, they stopped. By then, Clark was an architect but still something of a lost soul, unsure she had chosen the right career.

Farmer, however, had found his obsession: Haiti. While enrolled in Harvard Medical School, he began traveling there, doing everything he could to assign the same value to a Haitian patient as he would an American one, including the deployment of expensive drugs to combat tuberculosis and HIV.

After receiving Clark's letter, Farmer replied that she should never undervalue her role as a mother; she didn't know who her two boys would become. The note was sweet and reassuring. But it didn't change the fact that Clark was unsatisfied with her career.

From that car ride on, Clark paid attention to Farmer's work and sent small sums at Christmastime to his Boston-based charity, Partners in Health.

She joined her husband's architecture firm full time in the mid-'90s, forming Nicholas Clark Architects. While Farmer dedicated his life to the poor, Clark's career was dictated by the whims of the affluent.

Take the young Lincoln Park couple who hired her to design an addition. Without consulting Clark, the wife ordered a $1,200 stained-glass transom window. When it arrived, her clients disliked it and ordered Clark to refund them.

She refused. When the husband wouldn't let up, Clark mailed Partners in Health a $1,200 check with her client's name on the donor form. She told him that an entire house could be built in Haiti for the cost of that window and mailed him "Mountains Beyond Mountains," the 2003 book about Farmer by New Yorker writer Tracy Kidder.

Kidder's book had transformed Farmer from a country doctor into a celebrity, or as much of a celebrity as a doctor can be.

A benefit and a reunion

By 2008, Clark's most high-profile project was a well-received rehab of the Skokie Theatre. Whenever it seemed right, she told clients about Farmer and recommended "Mountains Beyond Mountains."

Then, a client with whom Clark had shared the gospel emailed her, asking if she was involved in an upcoming fundraiser in Chicago for Partners in Health.

Clark hadn't heard about it. She called the charity's headquarters and offered to host the event in her family's 3,100-square-foot Skokie home, which she had designed. In September 2008, about 130 people, including Farmer, mingled in Clark's glass-encased courtyard and spacious kitchen lined with an Italian marble backsplash.

After the house emptied, Farmer stayed behind to reminisce with Clark; her husband, Peter Nicholas; a Partners in Health doctor named David Walton; and a Partners in Health staff member. They sat on Clark's sofa, drinking wine in front of the fireplace, listening to Farmer tell stories about their days at Duke and of dining out with his new friend Bill Clinton.

Clark told Farmer. "Look, every year I send you guys money. What else can I do?"

Farmer replied: "Well come on down to Haiti and build some sh--, Ann."

First impression

The day after Christmas 2008, Walton, a Harvard-educated Farmer protege who grew up in Skokie, returned to Clark's home. The charity had never before hired an architect, and Walton knew its building practices desperately needed to be professionalized.

Walton asked Clark to design Partners in Health an 82-bed community hospital in Mirebalais, a 45-minute drive from Port-au-Prince. She accepted the job pro bono.

On Jan. 12, 2009, one year to the day before the earthquake, Clark flew to Haiti for the first time.

Partners in Health dispatched a driver and SUV to pick her up at the chaotic Port-au-Prince airport. After escaping the capital's open sewers, dust and trash, Clark rode past huts, one-room concrete-block homes, grazing goats, broken-down cars and gravel soccer fields.

The epicenter of Partners in Health's work is Cange, the site of Farmer's first clinic. Over decades the clinic had mushroomed into a maze of more than a dozen concrete and stone buildings perched on a steep hill wholly unsuitable for medical care. To get from the emergency room to the tuberculosis ward, for instance, one must ascend a steep ramp and dozens of stone and concrete steps.

Clark's first stop was Lacolline, then the newest of Partners in Health's clinics. It had been built with $640,000. Farmer didn't involve an architect until two years after the building opened — "just so we had documentation and could share the plans with others," he said.

Walking into the waiting area there, Clark saw women wearing dresses and men in dusty pants or jeans. Everyone's shoes were beaten up. Clark was immediately struck by how close the people sat next to each other in the waiting area and how sandwiched they were in line at the pharmacy window.

And people walked everywhere, even in rural areas. Clark marveled at how women balanced jugs of water and baskets of supplies atop their heads. She wondered how far these women had walked, and how far they had to go. And she noticed they were often smiling. Given their ragged clothing and signs of malnutrition — poverty unlike anything she had ever witnessed — she wondered what Haitians had to smile about.

"If anything, in a feeling sense, you learn to put up some kind of a shell or barrier, as a protective membrane," Clark said after her fifth trip. "The whole country is such an assault on your senses. Everything is in your face all the time. And if you don't do that, you're just going to get taken down."

Clark quickly gleaned that there would be no room for an architectural flourish in Mirebalais.

"I always get asked, 'So what's the architectural statement?'" Clark said. "The big architectural statement is called healing people."

Thinking it through

Back in Chicago, around the birch Parsons conference table at her West Loop office, Clark and Walton thought through health care in Haiti. It would be other people's jobs — plumbers, general contractors, electricians — to build the hospital; it would be Clark's job to think it.

How could they allow natural light into the wards, yet prevent people from being able to peer inside? How could they keep the rooms cool without air-conditioning? And how could they, in a country where electricity is notoriously unreliable, ensure the power wouldn't go out?

Partners in Health expected the hospital to draw patients from all over. Clark planned for a minimum of 250 Americans, enough space for 400 Haitians, in each of the hospital's larger waiting rooms. The most significant challenge was figuring out how to arrange the buildings so patients could move easily from one step to the next, from registration to the pharmacy. Signs wouldn't suffice. Walton estimates that 70 to 80 percent of the population of Haiti's Central Plateau is illiterate.

By August 2009, the Haitian Health Ministry had found Partners in Health a larger, 13-acre site in a rice field less than a mile down the road in Mirebalais. Clark flew to Haiti again.

There, she pulled on borrowed black rubber boots and, with Walton and a Japanese-American doctor, trekked through chest-high reeds and swampy rice paddies with a measuring wheel. By the end of the land survey, Clark's gray T-shirt was soaked in sweat.

For months, Walton had repeated, "Welcome to Haiti," every time Clark questioned why he wanted things done a certain way, a gentle reminder of the limitations there. By the end of the second trip, Clark said she was "ready to roll with the punches."

At home, things were not going as well.

The global recession was sending the architecture industry into a tailspin. For a while, Nicholas Clark, a five-person firm, made due with pre-recession assignments. But by mid-2009, the real estate crisis had killed new business. Rather than fire anyone, Nicholas and Clark cut everyone's hours to four days a week.

Not to mention that their marriage had been under strain for several years and was now breaking.

The earthquake

By January 2010, the Mirebalais hospital team was in place. Marjorie Benton, a former Partners in Health board member and Evanston resident, had signed on as the lead volunteer fundraiser. Walton would co-manage the project with Jim Ansara, a stocky, Boston construction magnate. Ansara had sold his company in 2006 and was struggling with retirement.

Clark, Walton and Ansara spent Jan. 12, 2010, reviewing electrical and engineering drawings at Ansara's Boston office.

That evening, a 7.0 earthquake knocked down Port-au-Prince.

Haiti's National Palace, its White House, folded in half, its four-sided dome pitching forward like Humpty Dumpty. The nursing school at Haiti's General Hospital collapsed during class, killing students and faculty.

Money began pouring into Partners in Health's headquarters, and Haiti's Ministry of Health saw an opportunity in Mirebalais.

"You need to set your sights higher," the health minister told Farmer, according to his book "Haiti After the Earthquake." "The hospital needs to be a place that can train young doctors and nurses. ... It needs to be bigger, many times bigger, than what we agreed upon."

Ansara worried the project had grown too big for Clark. In February 2010, he called her to say he wanted to hire the Boston office of Chicago-based Perkins+Will, the world's second-largest architecture firm by revenue that year, to assist pro bono. Ansara flew Clark and her then-26-year-old designer, Jacob Wahler, to Boston for a brainstorming session.

Clark, no doubt, felt threatened.

"It wasn't a particularly comfortable meeting," Ansara said. "It became fairly territorial pretty quickly."

Still hopeful a partnership could form, Ansara told Clark and Perkins+Will's Dennis Kaiser to collaborate on a design scheme. Ansara asked to see their plan when he returned from Haiti. Ten days later, the two architects hadn't reached an agreement, and Clark was still tending to her previous plan.

Farmer, meanwhile, said he had been "cajoling, guilt-tripping, begging and employing all of the usual Catholic stratagems" to get the project moving. Ansara felt the pressure. Over the phone, Ansara ordered Clark and Kaiser to go to lunch, come back and work out their differences.

"The marriage between Ann and Perkins+Will was not clicking or working," Ansara said. "The cultures, the sizes of the firms, everything was at opposite ends of the spectrum. That was one issue. The other issue is we had to sort of start all over again with Perkins+Will and negotiate what was possible in Haiti and what wasn't possible."

On that point, Clark's inexperience proved an advantage — she couldn't tell Ansara or Walton, "That's not how it's done," or, "You shouldn't do that," because she didn't know how things should be done. And she had seen enough of Haiti to know that monumental ideas couldn't be executed there. The equipment and skilled labor didn't exist.

"They didn't have to reprogram me," Clark said. "I knew this couldn't be U.S. hospital redux."

That afternoon Ansara called Perkins+Will. He wanted to find a support role for the firm but made it clear Clark would lead the design. And with that, Perkins+Will departed.

Getting paid

Clark would need to quickly generate about 100 drawings plus revisions and clarifying sketches. She believed she could do it, but not for free. She asked Ansara to pay her to finish the project at 40 percent her normal rate.

Ansara agreed. In fact, he said it was his idea.

"She didn't actually ask," he said. "I insisted on it. I knew what she was getting into, and what she had initially committed to. ... Initially she was reluctant because she had made a commitment to Paul Farmer to donate her services."

Clark doesn't remember it that way. In fact, she said she has had an epiphany about pro bono work: She won't do it anymore.

"Because I can't live," she said. "I'm now realizing I undermine my own value by doing that."

Clark's new model is to help charities raise the money to pay for their building projects, including a reduced fee for her design services.

"I really think architects are the worst businesspeople in the world because they will do business for free ad nauseam," Clark said. "There are competitions nobody gets paid for. There are requests for proposals that nobody gets paid for. In a small office, I can't really afford to do that."

During spring 2010, Nicholas Clark Architects hired a temporary employee, then dedicated everyone at the firm, except Nicholas, to the hospital. Wahler served as the point man.

More than architecture

Nicholas Clark's contract with Partners in Health states that from January 2009 to February 2010, the firm donated 570 hours of pro bono design work. Ann Clark estimated the firm billed an additional 3,000 hours to finish the job.

Clark would spend that time pondering the substantial, such as the composition of the walls in the radiology room, to the unsubstantial, such as where a donated video art installation would hang.

Drawings continued to be updated, but by August 2010, Wahler had transmitted the bulk of them. The most difficult challenge — building the 205,000-square foot, 320-bed facility — would fall to Ansara and Walton.

If this were a Chicago hospital, Clark would visit the construction site weekly to answer questions and inspect the work. But Clark couldn't afford to fly to Haiti regularly, nor could Partners in Health afford to pay her to do so. So Ansara adopted that role, and Clark contributed in other ways.

Through Rita Knorr, the same client who provided the heads-up about the 2008 fundraiser, Clark secured pro-bono landscape design work. Then through a relationship with a tile showroom in Chicago, called The Fine Line, Clark secured 80,000 square feet of Chinese porcelain tile and 28,000 square feet of Fiandre Italian tile at steep discounts.

Of the hospital's $23 million budget, about $7 million was covered with in-kind donations. Walton doesn't know if Partners in Health could replicate such generosity now that international interest in Haiti has waned.

"Were the timing different, we would have had much more difficulty finding this degree of enthusiasm for the hospital and for Haiti in general," Walton said.

A new career

Clark's life has changed significantly since construction began. She and her husband are in the process of divorcing. They also dissolved Nicholas Clark Architects and sold their Skokie home.

Clark has launched her own firm, Ann Clark Architects, and hired a 30-something fresh from his licensing exams to assist her.

But she still wakes up thinking about Haiti. The hospital won her a new client: Haiti Sustainable Education, a charity trying to build a boarding school in Grand Bois, a remote, mountainous area two miles from the Dominican Republic border.

Although that site is just 37 miles from Port-au-Prince, it took Clark four hours and 42 minutes to reach. The trip is like going white-water rafting. After nearly getting carsick along the way, Clark turned to her boyfriend, Chicago cardiologist Samuel Dudley, who was in the back seat, and declared, "Mirebalais is for wussies."

In retrospect, she said, the hospital didn't cost her anything. Instead, it afforded her very much.

"It offered me an opportunity to move in a different direction with architecture, which is something that I hoped to do but just didn't know how," she said. "While it is difficult, I relish the idea of doing more work in Haiti or in places like Haiti where buildings are needed and where good construction can improve peoples' lives."

The Mirebalais hospital, scheduled to open this fall, is Haiti's best example of this. It is white and beautiful.

"It's big — just the scale of it, it's so big," Wahler said. He snapped a photo of the hospital's iron gates, which are pinned with Haitian metal drum art.

Clark's plane was delayed. She arrived after lunch, wearing charcoal slacks and a white linen shirt, her long graying hair pulled back in a clip. Her first reaction was to look down at the floor, stomp her foot and shout: "A buck a foot! A buck a foot!" Then she burst into her huge, squawking laugh, thrilled at how cheaply she had acquired the elegant Italian tile.

Clark's next reaction was a testament to Walton and Ansara. The quality of the construction awed her. "Wow," she said, as she walked through the lobby, running her hand along one wall.

When Clark walked in the emergency room, she told Wahler with pride, "This is an incredibly American-feeling room." And when she walked into the labor and delivery ward, she said: "There is no artificial light on right now and look at how it feels in here. It's healing and soothing for people."

For a country that has experienced so much suffering, that was always her goal.

Epilogue

About six months after the earthquake, Clark was doing her morning yoga routine at her Skokie home when her eyes locked on a shoe box. Inside, she found letters, including this long-forgotten one, dated March 15, 1989, the year after she completed architecture school.

Well, Ann, when we last spoke you were teetering between business and art. If business won out, would you please help me to build a hospital for the poor in Haiti? If you stayed with art, would you please send us a painting to cheer up our patients? Seriously, drop a line.

Yours, Paul Farmer

Cityscapes reader Lawrence Okrent, an acute observer of Chicago, emailed the following in response to today's review of the Congress Parkway revamp. In his email, he underscores and amplifies my point about the damage done by the widening of the former Congress Street:

This image is from the reverse side of a commercial envelope postmarked in 1893.

You can see that at that time Congress Street was only two blocks long, Michigan Ave. to State St.

The expressway connector did huge damage to the fabric of the city.  The arcaded sidewalk adjacent to the Auditorium Building was created at great cost to signature interior spaces, especially Sullivan's Art Noveau long bar.  To quote David Lowe (Lost Chicago), "In a staggering act of vandalism, when the Congress Expressway was built in the early 1950s, 16 feet were sliced off the Auditorium's first floor and this seminal room was one of the casualties."

Even greater vandalism was inflicted on Plymouth Ct., and Dearborn, Federal and Clark Streets, which prior to the project were characterized by intact blocks between Van Buren and Harrison Streets.  (The south wall of the Manhattan Building was, at that time, an interior side wall.) Rand McNally images of the intact blocks are depicted in Randall's History of Chicago Building.

From tomorrow's print edition

When the big revamp of Chicago’s Congress Parkway was announced in 2010, it was something to get excited about.

This was to be a road improvement project that was about more than roads. It was going to uplift the city around it. The idea was to transform the ugly drag strip that led into downtown from the Eisenhower Expressway into a smooth-flowing experience for drivers, an inviting stretch for pedestrians and a handsome gateway to Chicago.

Yet two years and innumerable construction delays later, it’s hard to muster enthusiasm for the nearly complete, $20 million undertaking (above), which was paid for with city, state and federal stimulus program funds. That’s not because the job has failed to accomplish what it set out to do. Rather, it’s because many of those things have been done and, still, no one would mistake the new Congress Parkway for the Champs-Elysees.

Undoing the damage inflicted decades ago by the widening of Congress, it turns out, is a far more complex task than anyone anticipated.

In their 1909 “Plan of Chicago,” Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett envisioned Congress as the city’s main east-west axis, an elegant Beaux-Arts boulevard punctuated by a domed civic center (left). But in the late 1940s, the post-World War II engineer’s aesthetic doomed Congress to a different fate: a utilitarian connector road linking what eventually became the Eisenhower with Michigan Avenue.

Gas stations uglified the connector. So did parking garages and hulking, blank-walled buildings, giving most of Congress a ragged urban edge rather than a sharply defined frame like the one formed by the Congress Hotel and Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler’s Auditorium Building (now Roosevelt University) at Congress and Michigan.

Handling more than 60,000 vehicles a day, Congress became a barrier that separated the revitalized Printers Row district to the south from the Loop to the north. The recent appearance of dormitories and other academic buildings on both sides of Congress has only accentuated its identity as an asphalt moat.

So it’s hard to argue with what Chicago’s Department of Transportation and URS, a big San Francisco-based engineering and design firm, have done to Congress between Wells Street on the west and Michigan on the east, even if most of their moves are staples of the urban planner’s tool kit.

While Congress Parkway still narrows from eight lanes to six east of State Street (left), its lanes have been straightened, reducing the chance that drivers will engage in dangerous weaving. The road has also been slimmed slightly — not exactly a full-blown “road diet,” but enough to allow sidewalks to be widened by as much as 12 feet. The sidewalks, in turn, are more alluring places to walk.

Benches made of solid blocks of rough-hewn, brown granite provide a place to sit and echo the muscular walls of the Auditorium and the Harold Washington Library Center (left). Sidewalk planters are also ringed in granite. Planters in the center of the road achieve the same effect with brown-tinted precast concrete.

Crosswalks have also been widened and they’re made of real brick, not faux brick stamped into the pavement. Pedestrians typically have a generous 30 seconds to cross the street. Reassuring countdown timers let them know how much time they have to make it to the other side.

Once trees, grasses and flowers are installed in the planters, they should provide a layered effect, shielding pedestrians from the roar of cars and trucks.

For now, though, the new features remain overwhelmed by the still-intimidating width of the road and its vast field of shiny black asphalt (left). The cars don’t seem to have slowed down. Engines still rev. Horns still honk. Some pedestrians still jog through crosswalks to avoid speeding cars. As cars accelerate as they near the Ike, Congress feels more like a highway than a parkway.

While city officials said that some emailers have thanked them for making it easier to cross Congress, pedestrians I asked about the changes characterized them as cosmetic.

The drivers “are still whipping through,” said Ted Vito, 65. They “still have the same attitude,” said Christopher Tamayo, 40, who was picking up his daughter at day care. “It still is a pain in the (expletive) to get across,” said Mike Duffy, 47.

To be fair, the project isn’t done and its boldest strokes, including a display of LED lights, are yet to come.

Fifteen-foot high stainless steel trellises will rise out of the sidewalk planters, adorned with decorative patterns of prairie grasses and thistle. At night, they’ll be lit with the LEDs, as will 20-foot-tall pylons rising in the medians. LEDs will also wash the harsh underpass walls beneath the Chicago Stock Exchange and the noble arcades of the Auditorium (left).

The concept, which strikes me as risky, is to marry the sobriety of the brown granite and the gaiety of Buckingham Fountain, whose spectacular nighttime display of light, color and water is just to the east in Grant Park, forming Congress’ visual exclamation point (below).

“This streetscape will be able to dance with that fountain,” promised Janet Attarian, who runs the transportation department’s streetscape program.

Perhaps that will happen, but it will be more important in the long-run for city planners to keep attacking other problems that continue to make Congress Parkway a Champs-Elysees wannabe, such as the ragged building edge and a relative lack of street-level shops. The present revamp, while welcome and attractive, is but one step down a very long road toward taming the highway monster.

(Tribune photos of Congress Parkway by Chris Walker; "Plan of the Complete System of Street Circulation" from "Plan of Chicago"; Congress Parkway rendering courtesy of the City of Chicago; historic postcard courtesy of Burnham Plan Centennial; Tribune photo of Congress Parkway at Wells Street by Alex Garcia) 

Tribune transportation reporter

Although the new CTA Morgan rail station on the Lake Street elevated opened last week with no fanfare, the city will hold a grand opening today.

The $38 million station, at Lake Street and Morgan Avenue on the Near West Side, serves the Green and Pink Lines. It opened May 18, overshadowed by the public attention given to the NATO summit in Chicago.

The mostly stainless steel and glass station has a modern appearance, including an enclosed transfer bridge for riders, that matches the upscale neighborhood featuring restaurants and retail stores on Randolph Street. It was designed by Ross Barney Architects.

The elevator-equipped station is fully ADA accessible, outfitted with security cameras and electronic signs that provide Train Tracker information.

It was funded by tax increment financing funds and state and federal funding.

The Morgan station opening follows the recent opening of the new Oakton-Skokie station in downtown Skokie.

The next new CTA station will be at Cermak, near McCormick Place, on the Green Line, officials said.

jhilkevitch@tribune.com

The survey, made public Wednesday by the San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land, gave the city an overall rating of 3.5 out of 5, based on access to parks, parks acreage, services and investment.

The survey reported that 90 percent of the city's 2.7 million residents are within a half-mile walk to a neighborhood park, Cook County Forest Preseve or other open space. 

It also cited two areas where Chicago's parks have room for improvement--a relatively low 2.3 playgrounds per 10,000 residents and a median park size of just two acres.

The disparity between the image of Chicago's lakefront, with its nearly-uninterrupted chain of parks and beaches, and the reality of the city's inland neighborhoods, many of which have a severe shortage of open space, was documented in a Tribune story last year. That disparity has not gone unnoticed by city leaders.

In March, trumpeting a "quiet revolution in our neighborhood parks," Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a plan to pump $290 million into more than 800 parks and recreation facilities during the next five years.

Here are a link to the Trust for Public Land survey and, on the jump, a ranking of the cities rated in the survey: 

1.       San Francisco      

2.       Sacramento   

3.       Boston, New York (tie)   

5.     Washington, DC     

6.     Portland        

7.     Virginia Beach     

8.     San Diego     

9.     Seattle     

10.    Philadelphia

11.    Albuquerque   

12.    San Jose

13.    Denver

14.    Chicago

15.    Baltimore

16.    Kansas City,  Milwaukee,  Phoenix

19.      Long Beach,  Austin

21.      Dallas

22.    Detroit

23.    Las Vegas

24.    Fort Worth

25.    Los Angeles

26.    Atlanta

27.    El Paso, Columbus 

29.      Nashville

30.      Houston   

31.  Tucson,  Memphis         

33.  Oklahoma City     

34.   Jacksonville     

35.   San Antonio

36.     Indianapolis, Mesa       

38.   Louisville     

39.   Charlotte     

40.   Fresno

(Tribune photo by David Trotman-Wilkins)

In his story about how the foreign press reacted to the city, Tribune reporter Robert Channick writes repeatedly about overseas newsies were wowed by the city's architecture, as well as its setting along Lake Michigan and the Chicago River. 

This comment from an Agence France-Presse reporter, Michelle Stockman, is typical: "I saw this gleaming city on the lake that was full of amazing architecture--I would say even better than New York City--and that was really impressive to me."  

(Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

From today's print edition

By Jonathon Bullington

Tribune reporter

Neighbors of Chicago’s Indian Boundary Park vowed to rebuild early Sunday evening after an extra-alarm blaze severely damaged the park’s landmark fieldhouse.
 
Firefighters were called about 12:06 p.m. Sunday to the fieldhouse, located in the 2400 block of West Lunt Avenue in the Rogers Park neighborhood.

The fire, which appeared to start in the upper level, caused the roof to collapse and sent two firefighters to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston with heat-related injuries, Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said.
 
Both firefighters are in good condition, Langford said. The cause of the fire was under investigation Sunday, but did not appear suspicious, he added.
 
Windows were shattered and interior beams appeared to have crumbled inside the fieldhouse, which was constructed in 1929 and designed by Clarence Hatzfeld.

Seen by many neighbors as the hub of the Chicago Park District’s Indian Boundary Park, the fieldhouse was designated as a landmark in 2005, and hosts a variety of classes and performances.

(Photo of Indian Boundary Park fieldhouse by Chicago Park District)

From Friday's print edition

So far, at least, fears that the upcoming NATO summit would produce an ugly, alienating Fortress Chicago have yet to come true.

The city's parks and plazas remain open. There are more police than normal on downtown streets, but they're not brandishing riot gear. Though an 8-foot-high security fence (left) rings McCormick Place, where the summit will be held, such precautions are to be expected, especially in the post-9/11 era.

Beneath the relatively tranquil surface, however, there have been skirmishes over Chicago's renowned public spaces, including Daley Plaza, where a national nurses organization will hold the summit's first major protest rally Friday.

The conflicts reveal the inherent tension between hosting a military alliance devoted to protecting democracy and permitting protesters to exercise democratic rights, especially free speech. And those tensions could become sharper as the protests play out and security measures are ratcheted up.

Sunday update: Tribune photograher Alex Garcia's first-hand view of clash between protesters, police 

Monday update: Protestors plan to march at Boeing headquarters

(Photo of McCormick Place fencing by Jim Young, Tribune photo of Daley Plaza by Zbigniew Bzdak, Zuccotti Park photo by Seth Wenig/AP, photo of Boeing headquarters by Boeing)

CHICAGO (May 17, 2012) – Frank Lloyd Wright’s reputation as a brilliant architect and outsized personality came from complex roots – many going back to his early years in Chicago. The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events presents Wright’s Roots, an exhibition at Expo 72, located at 72 E. Randolph Street, which highlights the beginnings of Wright’s influential architecture career.

Curated by Tim Samuelson, Chicago's Cultural Historian, the exhibition opens Friday, June 22 and runs through Sunday, September 30, 2012 at Expo 72. Admission is free. Expo 72 is open Mondays – Thursdays 8 a.m.-7 p.m.; Fridays 8 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturdays 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; and Sundays 10 a.m.-6 p.m. For more information, visit www.ExploreChicago.org.

Since his death in 1959, the story of Frank Lloyd Wright’s life and career has become legendary – and sometimes drifted into myth. Many of today’s perspectives came from Wright’s own accounts of a professional career that spanned three quarters of a century. His path to becoming a colorful public figure synonymous with modern architecture was filled with many little-known detours and diversions, but all contributed to his lasting fame and reputation.

Using seldom-seen illustrations and original artifacts to tell the story of his complex personal journey during the often-overlooked early period of his life and career, Wright’s Roots explores Wright’s formative years.

By John Byrne

Tribune reporter 

The city will kick in $29 million toward a downtown high rise project on a prime piece of riverfront property, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Wednesday.

The long-discussed River Point office tower in the West Loop will rise 45 stories, overlooking the Chicago River from east of Canal Street and north of Lake Street. Emanuel said it will be the largest new real estate project to break ground in the city since the 2008 economic downturn.

Speaking to reporters on his one-year anniversary in office, Emanuel characterized the new building as evidence that businesses believe he is taking the correct steps to reform government and address the city's shaky financial situation.

"If you do the fundamentals right, people will bet on the leadership that a city is showing, not running away from its future. Denial, as I've always said, is not a long-term strategy, but meeting its challenges head-on," Emanuel said. "And that gives them the confidence."

"Confidence is the cheapest stimulus you can buy," he added. "It's free."

What's not free: The city will pay for part of the cost of a tunnel for Metra trains that pass to the east of the proposed tower and for a public riverfront park to be built on top of the underground structure. To come up with the $29.5 million for the work, the city will tap reserves from a downtown special property-tax district originally designed to promote development in blighted areas. The developer will pay an additional $30 million for the tunnel and park, according to mayoral spokesman Tom Alexander.

Emanuel said the investment makes sense because the park will be available for everybody. He also pointed out that River Point will bring in tax money and result in 1,000 construction jobs as the $300 million building goes up.

The project has been on the drawing board for several years. In 2008, the city approved a $30 million tax district payment for construction of the park to accompany a 51-story building at the location, but the financing fell apart.

Downtown office vacancy rates recently have been going down from their peak during the recession, a trend River Point developers Ivanhoe Cambridge and Hines Interests hope will continue when the building is ready for occupants in 2016.

"With the mayor's leadership, we've seen an influx of tenants coming into the community, into the city, from the suburbs, as well as from other outlying cities," said Kevin Shannahan, CEO of Hines Midwest.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois has reached an agreement with the managers of McCormick Place to allow protesters to place literature and multimedia materials inside the convention center while world leaders are there for NATO meetings, a spokesman for the group said.

Because of security for the event, protesters won't be able to be physically "within sight and sound" of the convention center, but a long-standing federal consent decree regarding McCormick Place and Navy Pier requires free speech rights to be upheld inside the venues, said Ed Yohnka, a spokesman for the ACLU.

As a result, some of the protest organizations demonstrating in Chicago this week will be able to place pamphlets and other literature, as well as audiovisual equipment to play videos inside the common areas and media center of McCormick Place, he said. Details were still being worked out regarding whose messages would be disseminated, Yohnka said.

"The goal, of course, is to get the protest so it's within sight and sound. In the case of McCormick Place, it isn't going to necessarily be within sight or sound. That clearly was a decision that came down from the Secret Service in terms of the cordon that they set up around the facility," Yohnka said.

Literature and video inside is the next best thing, he said. "We've sort of worked it out with McCormick Place."

The agreement also calls for protesters to be able to place banners and signs in an outdoor plaza space at the convention center, he said.

Groups can submit material for consideration Friday morning, but the procedure is still being determined.

After its controversial move from Philadelphia's Main Line suburbs to the city's Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the Barnes opens its art galleries to the public this Saturday, May 19.

My colleague at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Inga Saffron, delivers a mixed verdict, praising the building but lamenting its suburbanization of the city. Read her full review here. Vanity Fair's Paul Goldberger, on the other  hand, gives the building a rave. 

(Philadelphia Inquirer photo by Michael Bryant) 

But now, as the Associated Press is reporting, new questions have arisen about 1 WTCs height, and they could be resolved in a way that lets the 1,4501-foot Willis Tower retain its title as the nation's tallest.

It turns out that 1 WTC's spire is actually a broadcast antenna that was supposed to be sheathed in a decorative cladding. This aesthetic feature would have made the antenna an integral part of the building's design--and thus, technically, a spire. Spires count in height measurements. Antennas don't. 

But now, the AP says, the cladding has been shelved over maintenance issues. That puts the focus on the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, which sets height measurement standards. The Council has issued a statement--I've put it on the jump--which says, in effect, "we'll have to wait and see."

One World Trade Center Statement from Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has received many media queries about the ultimate height of One World Trade Center, which is currently planned as the tallest building in North America.

We are aware that changes have been announced to the design of the structure on top of One World Trade Center, which may affect the final height measurement for the building. We understand that sculptural cladding has been removed, which will change the structure.

One World Trade Center, which is still under construction, is currently listed in the CTBUH’s Skyscraper Center at an anticipated height to “architectural top” of 1,776 feet. This includes the structure described in the materials previously provided by the architect as a spire. A spire is typically a permanent structure and part of the architecture and artistic expression of the building.

The CTBUH includes spires in its height measurement to “architectural top,” the primary category in ranking the tallest buildings in the world. But antennas, masts, water towers and other functional-technical structures – which often are not designed by the architect of the building and change according to prevalent technologies – are not included in the height measurement to the architectural top. However, they are included in measurements to the architectural “tip,” a secondary category tracked by the CTBUH.  Definitions can be found on the CTBUH website at www.CTBUH.org.

At this point, since the building is far from completion, there is no final determination on the height of One World Trade Center. A final determination will be made by the CTBUH Technical Height Committee based on analysis of the drawings and other information submitted by the building owner, development and consultant team. Building designs often change during construction and final ratification of the height and formal recognition on the list of 100 Tallest Completed Building in the World occur after the building is officially completed and application details submitted.

Over 40 years the CTBUH has developed detailed criteria for measuring the height of buildings, which are widely accepted in the industry. Any disputes are resolved by the CTBUH Height Committee - a panel of industry experts specifically set up for this purpose.

McDonald is currently executive director of the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota. She'll face numerous challenges, including the battle to save old Prentice Women's Hospital and the ongoing court case that threatens Chicago's landmarks law.

She'll start her new job on June 18.

A  news release follows:

Landmarks Illinois, one of the country’s leading historic preservation organizations, appointed Bonnie McDonald as president, the board of directors announced today.   

In her new role, McDonald will lead the organization in a period of growth and opportunity, overseeing an operating budget of $1 million and five full-time staff.  In advancing the mission, vision and values of Landmarks Illinois, McDonald will be responsible for leading statewide strategic initiatives, programming, financial management, fundraising and membership and volunteer development.  She assumes the post June 18^th and will be based in Chicago.

“Bonnie possesses all of the qualities our organization needs at this juncture to grow and thrive,” said board chair Shelley Gorson.  “We are thrilled to have the benefit of her expertise and successful track record in leading an organization forward.”

McDonald, a seasoned historical preservation professional, joins Landmarks Illinois from her current post as executive director of the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota, based in St. Paul.  In this position, she has been responsible for operations, fundraising, strategic planning, policy and advocacy as well as financial oversight and management.   Previous positions include the Anoka County (MN) Historical Society, the Preservation League of New York State, and Preservation Action in Washington D.C. 

“Landmarks Illinois has a special mission to advance historic preservation statewide,” McDonald said.  “As president, I am committed to broadening the constituencies throughout Illinois who care about preservation as a means to preserve, protect and promote architectural and historic resources, and who understand the tremendous impact that preservation has on economic development and community building.”

During her tenure at the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota, McDonald earned a reputation for creating, fostering and managing partnerships with an array of groups and individuals across professional disciplines, as well as securing the confidence of donors and public officials, as well as business and civic leaders and organized labor.  In addition, McDonald spearheaded the growth of the organization to include communities throughout Minnesota.

McDonald has a Master of Arts in Historic Preservation Planning from Cornell University and a Bachelor of Arts in Art History (Summa Cum Laude) from the University of Minnesota.  Her numerous leadership positions include serving as chair of the public policy task force for statewide and local partners at the National Trust for Historic Preservation; participant in the James P. Shannon Leadership Institute, Amherst H. Wilder Foundation (St. Paul, MN); and chair of the public policy subcommittee for the Building Jobs Coalition (St. Paul, MN).  In addition, McDonald was included in “Minnesotans on the Move” by Finance & Commerce.

“I am ready to undertake Landmarks Illinois’ strategic priority in expanding its presence throughout the state of Illinois.  We can be even more effective in saving historic buildings and raising awareness about the issues if we engage our entire community,” McDonald said.

Exactly 180 years ago, as depicted in an old postcard, pioneers patronized primitive taverns and inns at a patch of land alongside the confluence of the Chicago River’s north and south branches. Native Americans paddled canoes down the river.

Now, after years of failed proposals for the prominent site, the Kennedy family is floating plans for a three-tower complex whose tallest skyscraper would rise 900 feet. That would make it the city’s eighth tallest building--no Willis Tower, but nothing to sneeze at.

No drawings are available. We likely won’t see any until a May 29 community meeting called by Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd.

Yet the public has every reason to start analyzing the broad outlines of the development now. The fate of one of the choicest parcels in town hangs in the balance. And the issue is whether the design by New Haven, Conn., architect Cesar Pelli will rise to the level of greatness demanded by the site — or whether the Chicagoans of today, like the Indians of long ago, are going to get hustled.

As the story is playing out in the press, it is all about height measurements and the usual NIMBY concerns: blocked views, predictions of nightmarish traffic tie-ups and so forth. What is little-discussed are the essential matters of urban character and architectural quality. How these towers meet the ground — and the riverfront — will be as important as how they shape the skyline. Will the public spaces around them memorably evoke the site’s past and craft a future that weaves the now-isolated site into the fabric of downtown life?

What we know at this point is that the Kennedys and their chosen developer, the Chicago office of Houston-based Hines, are proposing three towers. They are likely to be built in phases on a four-acre site now occupied by a surface parking lot and a skinny river walk.

The first tower, which would rise on the west side of the site, would be 525 feet tall and house 510 rental apartments, reflecting current strong demand. The other two high-rises, expected to mix residential and commercial uses, would be 900 and 750 feet tall. There’s no clear timetable for them. It’s also unclear whether the project would require a change to the 1973 planned development ordinance that regulates the site.

The city’s zoning administrator, Patricia Scudiero, advised Reilly in a letter last week that the law remains in effect, despite assertions by neighbors fighting the Kennedy plans that a new development ordinance is needed. The 1973 law cleared the way for the construction of the Chicago Apparel Center and Holiday Inn Mart Plaza at 350 N. Orleans St. It also envisioned an office building, retail, residential space and parking facilities on the site where the Kennedys want to build.

Jack George, the zoning lawyer hired to represent the project, has offered assurances that the selection of Pelli demonstrates the Kennedys’ commitment to good design. Perhaps so. Pelli has a distinguished track record that includes the 181 W. Madison high-rise, an homage to Eliel Saarinen’s second-place entry in the Chicago Tribune Tower competition of 1922, and the graceful, spire-topped Petronas Towers in Malaysia, which were once the world’s tallest buildings.

But after a meeting with the developer, Chicago planners did not take George’s guarantee at face value. Officials in the Department of Housing and Economic Development told George to have his client produce a host of detailed drawings — from colored renderings of all four sides of each proposed building to detailed images of how the riverbank would be developed. A Jan. 13 letter from Assistant Commissioner Heather Gleason to George criticized the Kennedy proposal for a “dearth of specific language.”

If nothing else, the three towers would save us from having to look at the Apparel Center, a concrete hulk from which Christopher Kennedy, who oversees the Wolf Point property, clearly wants to distance himself. The proposal also appears to conform to at least a portion of the Chicago Central Area Plan, which calls for Wolf Point to have a “signature building,” about 80 stories high.” A 900-foot building would have roughly that many stories.

Yet there are fundamental questions: Would three towers require a zoning change? Would the three towers fit comfortably on the site or overwhelm it and the riverfront, destroying its natural state and the way it evokes Chicago's pioneer past?

There are broader urban design concerns: Has Pelli fulfilled the Central Area Plan’s aim of emphasizing the river’s natural character, creating a soft-edged counterpoint to the hard-edged properties nearby? How do the developers propose to route vehicles through their tightly constricted site without aggravating rush-hour traffic jams? How will the rest of the site be treated in the potentially years-long interval between the building of the first tower and the construction of the other high-rises?

Then there are design issues that only drawings can answer: Has Pelli realized the goal of a signature skyline statement? Will his three towers work together? Can his firm skirt the danger inherent in the planned apartment high-rise. Such buildings, typically low-budget, rarely offer the chance for the sort of top-drawer architecture required by this site.

Reilly deserves credit for getting ahead of these issues — before the developers formally submit their proposal to the city. Likewise, the city’s planners should be praised for giving the initial Kennedy plans a hard look. After all, this is much more than a real estate deal. Given its showcase site — and all the promise and pitfalls inherent in the undertaking — the Kennedys’ Wolf Point proposal deserves the highest level of scrutiny.

(Postcard courtesy of Tim Samuelson; Tribune photos of Wolf Point by Phil Velasquez; Petronas Tower photo by Goh Seng)

It's a topical issue in light of the ongoing battle to preserve old Prentice Women's Hospital. It should come as no surprise that the event is sponsored by the Coalition to Save Prentice.

The three critics are Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Goldberger, architecture critic of Vanity Fair; Ned Cramer, editor of Architect magazine; and Lee Bey, architecture contributor for WBEZ.

A flier for the event says they'll "explore what Modernism means today, why it still matters (or does it?), and the main impediments we face in saving our Modern heritage."

Appropriately, the event is at a significant Modernist building--Harry Weese's 1968 Seventeenth Church of Christ Scientist, 55 E. Wacker Drive. A cocktail hour and tours start at 5 p.m., with the presentation at 6 p.m.

For ticket information, click here.

Under a plan introduced Wednesday to the City Council by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Chicago's transportation department will buy a 2.7-mile railroad embankment on the Northwest Side from the Canadian Pacific Railroad. The price: $1. Naturally, that's not all. A news release says the city will also kick in "$105,000 in administrtive fees associated with the vacation of the railroad right-lof-way."

Construction of the Bloomingdale Trail is supposed to be "substantialy completed" by late 2014. It is to provide an answer to New York's High Line--13 acres of open space, uninterrupted by motor vehicles, that offers a special raised path through the dense city.

Separately, the trail's design team will appear at a public meeting on May 15 at 6 p.m. at the Humboldt Park Fieldhhouse, 1440 N. Sacramento Ave. At the meeting, a flier says, there will be a short presentation on the project's status. The meeting will also include a chance to discuss details of the design, such as the small "access parks" that will be located alongside the trail.     

If we say that enough times, maybe the Cubs and Rahm "Fenway-ization" Emanuel will get it.

I said it a week and a half ago as part of a story that looked at the challenge Charles "Chuck" Izzo, Fenway's renovation architect, is facing in re-making Wrigley.

Now, as the Tribune's Hal Dardick is reporting, Ald. Tom Tunney is saying it, too, but in a different way. He's opposing the idea of shutting down streets outside Wrigley, a Fenway-inspired idea the Cubs have proposed to generate revenue for their plans.

"I'm not inflexible, but ... I think the idea of regularly shutting them down would be a problem for the residents of my community," Tunney tells Dardick.

Alluding to a recent visit he made to Fenway, the 44th Ward alderman added: "Different neighborhood, different evolution....The area around it doesn't compare to Lakeview. ... Historically, a little warehousey, a little gritty. There's an expressway on one side of it."

Tunney's right about that and he's right, too, to suggest that the Cubs could create a street fair atmosphere if they build the long-promised Triangle Building along Clark Street. One side of it would front on a pedestrian walkway on the former Seminary Avenue, but it wouldn't inconvenience anybody in the neighborhood, as closing Waveland and Sheffield Avenues would.

To date, though, there's been no mention of the Triangle Building in the mayor's Fenway plan. Why not?  Maybe somebody in the City Hall press corps should ask.

Amy Martin, who was named to the post Tuesday, previously served as the state coordinator of the Illinois Main Street Program. In that role, a news release from the agency says, she worked closely with IHPA staff to revitalize historic downtowns. The full release follows on the jump:

“Amy Martin’s Main Street experience has given her a proven track record of promoting and preserving Illinois’ heritage, which is vital in these tough fiscal times,” said IHPA Board Chair Sunny Fischer.  “I want to thank Catherine Shannon for guiding the agency for nearly eight months as we searched for a new director.”

Martin, 41, was named director by the IHPA Board of Trustees in a vote today at the board’s regularly scheduled quarterly meeting.  She takes over from Acting Director Catherine Shannon, who has been leading the agency since September 2011.  Shannon will return to her position as IHPA deputy director.  

Previously, Martin was the state coordinator of the Illinois Main Street Program where she worked closely with IHPA staff to revitalize historic downtowns.  She was also managing director of marketing and communications at DCEO, during which time she developed and maintained numerous public-private partnerships to promote economic development, which is a key ingredient in many historic preservation initiatives.    

“I’m looking forward to joining the Historic Preservation Agency,” said Martin.  “It’s important that we continue to encourage tourism and education at our historic sites and museums, because the revenue that people generate when visiting our sites is especially important in these tough economic times.”     

The IHPA preserves and promotes the culture and history of the State of Illinois.  The agency administers more than 60 historic sites and memorials throughout Illinois, oversees the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, conducts regulatory oversight of federal and state-funded projects, places Illinois historic sites on the National Register of Historic Places, and coordinates the Illinois History Expo program for Illinois middle and senior high school students.

Those plans--prepared by New Haven, Conn. architect Cesar Pelli for the owners of the site, the Kennedy family, and their developer, Hines--call for a 525-foot-tall residential tower and two mixed-use high-rises, according to Reilly. One would be 900 feet tall, the other 750 feet tall. 

A group that calls itself Friends of Wolf Point already has met with the alderman and expressed fear that the project will lead to a dramatic increase in traffic congestion. The high-rises are also likely to block views of the RiverBend condo tower at 333 N. Canal St.

With the heat growing and the urban design stakes high--the Wolf Point site occupies a prominent spot, west of the Merchandise Mart, at the junction of the Chicago River's north and south branches--the 42nd Ward alderman has decided to quick-start public meetings on the project.  

"Given the prominence of this property and the number of inquiries my office has received about the future development of this site, I have directed Hines Development Corporation and their team to start our community review process early, even before they take the initial step of filing a formal application with the City of Chicago," Reilly wrote in the email.

The May 29 meeting is to be held in the Wolf Point Ballroom of the Holiday Inn, 350 W. Mart Center Dr. The event is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. 

In the 1830s, Wolf Point was a focal point of pioneer Chicago, home to taverns, trading posts and a hotel. Currently, however, the site consists of a surface parking lot with a narrow riverwalk.

"Everyone was anticipating that that would be the center of the city," said Tim Samuelson, Chicago's cultural historian. But "it turned out that not much happened on that site when you consider its prominence."

Reilly's email offered new details about plans for the four-acre site at 350 N. Orleans St.:

--The 525-foot-tall residential tower, to be located on the site's western portion, would contain 510 units and 200 parking spaces.

--The 900-foot-tall mixed-use tower, which would rise on the southern part of the site, would contain 600 units and 885 parking spaces. Reilly's email did not specify whether the units would be residential. The tower would be Chicago's eighth tallest building, according to the emporis building database.

--The 750-foot-tall mixed-use tower, planned for the eastern side of the site, would contain 200 parking spots. A number of units was not specified.

(Wolf Point photo from www.flickriver.com)

Tribune reporter

A self-described architecture buff is scrambling to dismantle a Frank Lloyd Wright-connected cottage in Wilmette and move it to Wauconda, saving the structure from demolition and earning applause from preservationists.

But the wrecking ball could still swing on a second historic Prairie School-style home next door if a buyer is not found within four months.

Schaumburg developer George Hausen recently purchased the adjoining properties and had planned to redevelop the site before the provenance of the two homes was revealed, showing links to three prominent architects: Wright, Rudolph Schindler and John Van Bergen.

In response, Hausen offered to donate the cottage and temporarily put the larger home on the market, setting off a desperate attempt by preservationists to save them.

Joseph Catrambone, an Oak Brook-based contractor and real estate manager, read news accounts of the endangered cottage at 1320 Isabella St. and, after a selection process, took ownership recently for $1.

The 594-square-foot Prairie-style cottage was designed in 1920 by the Austrian-born Schindler, who ran Wright’s Oak Park studio at the time, according to records. Schindler would later move to the Los Angeles area and earn fame and acclaim for his modernist designs.

After a Wilmette Park District committee decided last month not to take ownership of the structure, preservationists had to move quickly to find someone to take over the cottage by the April 30 closing date, said John Thorpe, vice president of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy.

“This building would have been demolished, in my opinion, this week if we didn’t make a decision with (Catrambone) a week ago,” Thorpe said Friday. Catrambone was chosen from several who expressed interest.

It’s been a whirlwind for Catrambone, who was given about two weeks to put together a plan and acquire the necessary permits to dismantle and remove the building.

“I wake up in the morning thinking how crazy I am. It’s exciting and crazy all at the same time,” he said.

Catrambone owns one of his family’s three adjoining properties in Wauconda, where he plans to relocate the Schindler cottage. It will likely cost him about $7,000 to dismantle, which will involve removing each wall panel and numbering each roof sheath for later reassembly, he said.

“A lot of the material is not conforming to the original structure, so, quite frankly, a lot of it is going to get tossed,” said Catrambone, whose plan is to restore the cottage to its original features and floor plan, which was altered during a 1950s renovation. He plans on spending an additional $40,000 on reconstruction.

The dismantled home will reside in a storage container until a foundation can be built on the Wauconda property, and Catrambone said he hopes to have it reconstructed by next summer. His family could use the one-bedroom cottage as a multipurpose room to cook or play music together, he said. Catrambone is also planning to rent it “on a limited basis” to Wright and Schindler aficionados to help cover the project costs.

“The only way you can understand Prairie School architecture is to stay in it,” he said.

He said he might also establish a building corporation, selling $200 shares for people supportive of the effort.

There has been a flurry of activity over the double lot since February, when preservationists learned of Hausen’s initial plan to demolish the two homes, including the Prairie-style house designed in 1927 by Van Bergen, a Wright associate.

With the cottage likely saved, preservationists are focusing on the Van Bergen home. Hausen has agreed to keep the house on the market for four months before he’ll consider bringing in the wrecking ball.

“It’s very kind of him, but it’s also a good business decision (to market the home),” Thorpe said.

The three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom home is listed for $599,000.

Lisa DiChiera, advocacy director for the nonprofit Landmarks Illinois, said the new home owner could seek landmark status and qualify for an eight-year property tax assessment freeze, which would help finance any necessary renovations.

She said she is worried that four months isn’t enough time to get the property sold, citing a recent increase in the teardown market.

“Even though we’re in this down market, the market to tear down older and historic homes and replace them with new homes is back in play,” DiChiera said.

Hausen said the Van Bergen home was listed May 1 and has already received substantial attention.

“If I had to guess, I’m pretty confident it’s going to sell,” he said.

The four-month window is just practical business, Hausen added.

“The goal is to try to sell the house,” he said. “If the house doesn’t sell, there comes a time where I can’t just sit on it forever and hope that it sells.”

Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust Acquires Wright’s Home and Studio From National Trust for Historic Preservation

CHICAGO – May 7, 2012 – The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust and National Trust for Historic Preservation announced today that the Preservation Trust has assumed ownership of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio from the National Trust.

This transfer of ownership marks a new chapter in the history of the legendary Oak Park IL landmark.  For nearly four decades, the Chicago-based Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust operated the site in cooperation with the Washington, D.C.-based National Trust. As an innovative preservation strategy at the time of the original purchase nearly 40 years ago, the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust was given the option to acquire the property during the term of a lease with the National Trust.

From July 2011 to January 2012, the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, a privately funded non-profit organization, conducted a capital campaign to gather sufficient local donor support to finalize the purchase.  Now as owner, the Preservation Trust will initiate a public campaign to establish a Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Fund for the perpetual upkeep and maintenance of Wright’s Home and Studio.

“I grew up in Oak Park and was always aware of the importance that the Home and Studio played in this community,” Graham Rarity, Preservation Trust Campaign Chair and Board member, said. “I have discovered that so many others feel the same. This is an affirmation of our organization and our community.”

The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust was originally launched in 1974 as a local grassroots effort to purchase and restore Wright’s historic Oak Park Home and Studio.  The organization now operates at three historic Wright-designed sites throughout the greater Chicago metropolitan area: Wright’s Home and Studio in Oak Park, Robie House on the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park, and The Rookery in central downtown.  Since its inception, the Preservation Trust’s staff — along with preservation architects, historians and community volunteers, and with the assistance of the National Trust — have not only restored and maintained the world-renowned historic house museum and architectural laboratory, but have presented the complex to the public continuously through its extensive touring and education programs.

“The original spirit of our agreement with the National Trust was an acknowledgement that the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust would be capable of the financial and other responsibilities of independent ownership of this important cultural property.  On behalf of our Board, staff, volunteers and members at large, we are excited to assume this responsibility,” said Jim Schiefelbein, Chairman of the Preservation Trust Board.  “We’re also very grateful to our partners at the National Trust for their friendship and steadfast support these many years, and for their unwavering commitment to the historic preservation of significant properties throughout the United States.”

“The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio is a great American preservation success story,” said Stephanie Meeks, President of the National Trust.  “We were delighted to assist the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust when they needed it most. They have grown over the years into a strong internationally recognized preservation and education organization.  We remain allies in our shared dedication to preservation and are gratified by the enduring importance of the historic site.”