Sour Disposition Friday: Vue53 and The 606

OK, I apologize in advance, but I just have to get it out of my system . . .

Valerio Dewalt Train does good work.  I've recently posted on their Earl Shapiro Hall, at the U of C Lab Schools, and I'm quite fond of EnV, across Wells from the Merchandise Mart.

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However, with apologies to the Infinite Monkey Theorem, I'm thinking that if you combined a roomful of architects with a roomful of community activists and let them loose on 3D rendering software for an infinite amount of time, the result would look something like this . . .

rendering:  Valerio Dewalt Train

This is Vue53, the end product of a lot of iterations and consultations with the Hyde Park community.  It replaces a Mobil gas station and car wash at 53rd, between Kenwood and Kimbark.  As you can see in this presentation, Vue53 meets all kinds of desirable metrics on affordable housing, minority participation, transit-oriented development and the avoidance of TIF funding.  Everyone appears to agree it's a wonderful thing.

Am I the only who finds this design, especially compared to the new construction in and around Harper Court, numbingly banal?  It looks like the alley end of a big-box store, spit up into the sky. 

rendering: Valerio Dewalt Train

My bet is this is the kind of building that, only a few decades from now, will keep a new generation of community activists very busy trying to figure out a way to get it torn down.

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Meanwhile, on the near northwest side, another hardy group of community activists is about to see their decade-long dream realized.  Work has begun on The Bloomingdale Trail, the conversion of an abandoned 2.7 stretch of rail line into a raised public park modeled after the wildly successful High Line that's revitalized New York City's meatpacking district.  A design team led by ARUP and including Ross Barney Architects, ARUP and Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, has created a striking vision . . .

It will be a great thing.  Even the name - roll it around on your tongue: Bloooooooomingdale.  Just that long vowel sound carries the promise of something wonderful.  The very word - Blooming - evokes images of all the wonderful landscaping, “Dale” the way it flows through the neighborhoods like a valley on a viaduct, and “Trail” the spirit of adventure that invites you to explore it.

Well, we can't have that, can we?

Members of the project's advisory board emitted the bureaucrat's native cry, “Bring on the consultants!” and a consultant appeared, charged with creating a new name for the project,  encompassing both the reconstructed viaduct and the five parks to be aligned with it.

And what was the  product of all their labors?  (Wait for it):

No, I'm not making this up.  It was unveiled this past June, and far more interesting than the name itself is the enterprise with which various participants began spinning, spinning, spinning the Emperor's New Clothes to convince themselves this wasn't a nakedly bone-headed idea.

“When it was first presented, we all sort of went, ‘huh?’ one participant told The Huffington Post. “And then when it’s explained to you, it makes an enormous amount of sense.” New Rule: If you need a personal briefing to even begin to figure out what a name means, it's probably not a good name.

The consultants said people didn't understand what the Bloomingdale Trail referred to.  And when we say “people”, we mean out-of-town donors.  Apparently it was felt it will be easier to raise money for “The 606”.  (Which, in case you haven't guessed, refers to the three-digit prefix of the zip codes used, not just in the vicinity of the Bloomingdale Trail, but across every last one of Chicago's 234 square miles.)

The new name is the work of the usually highly capable Branding Agency Landor Associates, which somehow didn't seem to notice the tenuous relationship between “The 606” and the firm's own Eight Principles of Naming.

1.  Make it memorable.
“The 606” is about as memorable as the serial number on the ticket you get from the dispenser at the deli counter.
2.  Fill it with meaning.  
“The 606” - Is it a highway designation? An area code?  A sign of demonic possession that lost its nerve?
3.  Say it out loud.
Watch people stare and wait for the men with the big nets to take you away.
4.  Don't wait to fall in love.
Fast forward right to the loathing
5.  Listen to your fear.
“I wrote a big fat check for this?’
6.  Stand out in a crowd
Right next to The 202, The 64, The 8 1/2 x ll, and The “You are number six . . .”

7.  Too much is never enough.
And “The 606” is the day you went home early because you didn't want to miss Jersey Shore.
8.  Expect its story to evolve.
Some day, Timmy, you could become The 606-A!

“The 606”,  devoid of meaning and belligerently generic, will stand with “We are Beatrice,” in the Pantheon of stupid naming tricks.

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OK.  That's done.  I'm going to go lie down now.

Chicago Under Construction: Earl Shapiro Hall, University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

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The Studio/Gang Campus North Residence Hall?  We're working on it.  So, for today, here's some late-afternoon shots of the new Earl Shapiro Hall at 5800 South Stony Island, undergoing the finishing touches for a fall opening.

The new building is part of an expansion of the University of Chicago's Laboratory Schools, founded by educator John Dewey in 1896.

The structure carries the name of Earl Shapiro, grandson of the Russian immigrant who, from a 1911 beginning making ice cream cones, went on to found Maryland Cup and its Sweetheart brand.  Earl Shapiro's contribution was to push the company into plastic dinnerware.  A long-time local philanthropist, he died in 2008, the same year his family gave $10 million to the Laboratory Schools.

The 117,000 square-foot design is by Valerio Dewalt Train, with FGM Architects as architects-of-record, Rubinos and Mesia as structural engineers (with ARUP), and Mikyoung Kim Design as landscape designers.  

With no room to expand on its original 59th street campus, the Laboratory School is splitting off nursery school, kindergarten and first and second grade classes and moving them to the new building.  According to the U of C . . .

. . . Earl Shapiro Hall has been planned to optimize the Reggio Emilia approach to learning, an educational model [in which] the learning environment is meant to be another teach, stimulating natural curiosity and providing room for independent action.

The cantilevered porte-cochere offers views across Jackson Park towards the dome of the Museum of Science and Industry.  The new building is projected to support an increase in Lab School enrollment from 1,750 to 2,050 students.

image courtesy The Chuckman Collection

Shapiro Hall was constructed on the site of Schmidt, Garden and Martin's Hyde Park Hospital, built in 1914 by the Illinois Central Railroad both as a public facility and to provide free care to its employees (friggin' socialists).  The IC sold the building in 1973, and it was bought by Doctors Hospital in 1992.  After racking up $60 million in debt, the hospital was closed without warning in May of 2000, and, after a abortive plan to replace it with a hotel, was purchased by the University of Chicago for $10 million in 2006.  It was demolished in 2011.

Also scheduled to open this fall is the $5.1 million, 13,000 square foot Child Care Center East child care center, just south of Shapiro Hall, designed by Wheeler Kearns Architects, with MIG landscape architects.  It will serve 124 children from six weeks to five years.  Wrapping around Shapiro Hall to the south and west, it resembles a series of cottages, and features a folding green roof, tree bark siding, and a play area enclosed with 400 tons of massive, multi-colored glacial boulders.

 

 

Read More:

University of Chicago Laboratory Schools: Outlook - Future of Education

Godfrey, My Man - You're Alive!

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When last we left The Godfrey Hotel Chicago, in March of last year, it was still enshrouded and dormant as a pupa that had been lingering in that state for almost four years, ever since the money run out and construction halted at the LaSalle and Huron site for what was originally known as the Duke Miglin hotel, to a design by Valerio DeWalt Train. 

The troubled property had just been acquired by Oxford Capital Group, the folks who even now are  putting the finishing touches on The Langham Chicago, the 316-room hotel being constructed on twelve floors of the Mies van Der Rohe designed IBM Building, at 330 North Wabash, anticipating a July opening.  Last year, the 212 room Godfrey was also announced for a 2013 completion, and while their website now just says “Coming Soon”, things are definitely stirring.

With the coming of spring, the building has shed its winter coat.  The fabric sheeting that protected the innovative staggered-truss frame when the project was in mothballs has been stripped away.  According to website where you can follow the hotel's construction, it was not entirely effective. “The old construction site sat for a long time so we needed to remove all the old fire proofing on the building and apply new.”

The facade framing is in place . . .

. . .  the exterior walls continue to be affixed . . .

Spring-green Securock glass-mat insulation makes its eye-opening appearance . . .

With the exception of the still empty hole on the site of aborted Chicago Spire, the Exquisite Corpses we wrote about in 2008 have all revived as part of a 2013 construction boom that also includes a new Virgin Hotel in Rapp and Rapp's Old Dearborn Bank Building at Wabash and Lake . . .

giant Angry Bird, Virgin Hotel, 203 North Wabash

 . . . and the long-stalled Waterview skyscraper on Wacker, where work has resumed with a new name (111 West Wacker) and a soaring new crane.

111 West Wacker

Read:
Mummy No More: Valerio's Staybridge About to Escape its Wrappings
The Mummy of River North
Staggered Truss: not as Painful as it Sounds
Exquisite Corpses
Waterview has Risen from the Grave! (as 111 West Wacker)

Mummy No More? Valerio's Staybridge about to Escape its Wrappings

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We've written several times about the project at 127 West Huron, referred to variously as the Duke Miglin, or Staybridge Suites Hotel.  It's the striking building designed by Valerio Dewalt Train using innovative staggered truss framing, where the sheets never made to the guest beds but instead have covered up the project's steel frame since the money ran out almost four years ago.

Now that may finally be about to change.  We received an email yesterday from John W. Rutledge, President and CEO of the Oxford Capital Group . . .

With regard to 127 W. Huron; after acquiring the loan, Oxford has now settled various claims on the project and has recently acquired full title from the original developer and as such is in the midst of a formal remobilization. Oxford expects  to deliver an upper upscale boutique/lifestyle hotel in 2013.

 With regard to the Langham Chicago Hotel; Oxford Capital Group, LLC remains the managing partner of the local Chicago based development team executing the project.  You’ll be pleased to know this project has formally commenced construction and we expect to deliver this luxury Langham Chicago Hotel in the summer of 2013.

The Langham Chicago, of course, is the project that's currently keeping the southern part of lobby of the Mies van Der Rohe-designed 330 North Wabash (aka IBM Building) under wraps while construction of the hotel continues.

 We wrote about it last on February 20, and a few days later the Trib's Blair Kamin reported that Mies's grandson, Dirk Lohan, who is doing the lobby redesign, is promising that any changes to the ground floor will leave Mies's original vision largely intact.

So get out cameras and take your pictures of the Mummy of Huron Street while you can.  2013 isn't that far off, and by then you may be seeing something a lot closer to what the architect originally intended . . .