Valerio Dewalt Train
Chicago
Valerio Dewalt Train Associates

A ballet of calibrated planes and shimmering translucency in the design of its own offices 
 

© Barbara Karant

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

By James S. Russell, AIA

In new premises for Valerio Dewalt Train’s Chicago offices, image making mixes with a near-obsessive concern for inexpensive material wrought beautiful by careful detailing. 

The image aspect is established dramatically at the entrance, where a flat-screen monitor, deprived of its case, dangles precariously from a rolling, folded-metal panel door. Images of the firm’s work flicker across the display’s exposed innards.

After such a daunting introduction, the actual character of the office is quite different. Shimmering perforated-metal panels define a series of vertical planes. A horizontal surface slides overhead, softly diffusing stripes of light through plastic panels. The piers are laid out perpendicularly to the path the visitor would take through the space.

This pavilion-like quality is married to a rigorous plan. The piers and ceiling system are organized on a 16-foot module (aligned to the building’s structural grid), forming six semi-enclosed bays (opposite, upper left). The bay system demarcates space for the firm’s typical project teams, which range from two to eight people. At lower densities or for smaller teams, the Teknion benches lining the metal partitions are sufficient. Teams add extra tables as they grow, placing them perpendicular to the partitions. 

It is in the use of materials that the firm’s detailing fetish shows itself. Valerio had long experimented with perforated metals as a means to achieve translucency, but he found that the detailing required made an inexpensive material costly. His "Eureka!" moment occurred on a job site when he stood under an acoustical metal floor decking and saw how beautifully its small holes diffused daylight. The conversion to vertical partitions proved inexpensive, and the overlaps in the panel-meeting joints accommodated drops for wiring. Valerio thinks a great deal about ceilings, too. He simplified a conventional suspended-ceiling system by adapting a standard metal-channel shape (in which lie horizontal wiring runs) to support the translucent-plastic light-diffusing panels. Above the panels, he hung $30 fluorescent tubes. The channels and the lighting are both coordinated to the 16-foot grid spacing.

See the June 2001 issue of Architectural Record for full coverage of this project.

Formal name of building:
Valerio Dewalt Train Associates Office

Location:
Chicago, IL

Gross square footage: 
7,700 sq ft

Total construction cost:
$297,000

Owner:
Valerio Dewalt Train Associates
www.buildordie.com

Architect's firm: 
Valerio Dewalt Train Associates
500 N. Dearborn, 9th Fl.
Chicago, IL 60610