May 4, 2004

	Images Courtesy Chicago Department of Environment/ Studio Gang Architects

Locally-based Studio Gang Architects, led by Jeanne Gang and Mark Schendel, were announced winners in April of a two-stage, international green building competition for the $6.8 million Ford Calumet Environmental Center in Chicago.

The proposed building’s setting on the city's Far Southeast Side is an undeveloped wetland surrounded by heavy industrial uses that have ravaged the area’s natural landscape for the past century.

Sponsored by the Chicago Department of Environment, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and Chicago’s Environmental Fund, the building will utilize LEED standards for high performance sustainable building.

Questions were raised publicly shortly after the announcement when it was revealed that Studio Gang had prepared the initial program statement for the project under a $30,000 contract for the city. David Reynolds, First Deputy Commissioner, Department of Environment, responded to allegations of possible impropriety, stating that “We feel that we’ve done nothing wrong.” Reynolds pointed out that Studio Gang’s draft was three years old, had changed in scope, and was for a different site.

The 26,800 square foot single story structure will be built to a seed shaped plan with a glass wall along its south façade. Shaded by a porch constructed of steel rebar and other discarded man-made materials found within four miles of the site, Gang intends the building to sit lightly on the land.

Salvaged bundles of steel columns will be driven as piles into the marshy site to support the structure. Slag will used as a surface material in the exterior garden and as aggregate for terrazzo in the interior floors.

The architects dubbed their solution “Best Nest,” a name that applies to both their process of design and the building’s construction. “We’re weaving discarded materials into something more refined, like a basket,” explains Jeanne Gang.

Gang and Schendel’s design was premiated from five finalists who included Carol Ross Barney (Ross-Barney + Jankowski Architects, Chicago), Brian Strawn and Karla Sierralta (Chicago), Martin Felsen & Sarah Dunn (UrbanLab, Chicago), and Kevin Yim, Dr. Jin Taira Alonso, Alvaro Bonfiglio and Tomoko Kano (Tokyo, Japan). The finalists were selected in February 2004 from among 108 architects representing seven countries.

The jury included Ralph Johnson, (Chicago), Julie Bargmann (Charlottesville, VA), Marian Byrnes (Chicago), Raymond Clark (Chicago), Laurie Hawkinson (New York), Brian MacKay-Lyons (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) and James Wescoat (Champaign, IL).

The jury’s recommendation is currently being reviewed by the City’s Public Building Commission, which will ultimately prepare the contract for the design services.

An exhibition of the finalists’ solutions will be held at the galleries of the Chicago Architecture Foundation from 1 June through 12 September.

The building is scheduled to open in 2006.

Ed Keegan

ADVERTISEMENT