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| Ford Calumet Environmental Center, Studio/Gang (click images for larger view) |
It's common knowledge that
Jeanne Gang is for the birds. She was a pioneer in thinking about
bird strikes and the often lethal effect glass-walled architecture has on migrating species. Her still-unbuilt design for the
Ford Calumet Environmental Center not only deploys a delicate metal mesh to keep birds from crashing into the glass, but draws its inspiration from the kinds of nests turkeys built from materials both “natural and man made.”
Studio/Gang's relationship with fish may be less clear, but there's an unmistakable aquatic twist to much of the firm's recent work. Their contribution to the Venice Biennale and recent exhibition,
City Works: Provocations for Chicago's Urban Future, consisted of a model that put four different watery projects in a continuous terrain. First
Reverse Effect, the firm's proposal with the NRDC to re-reverse the flow of the Chicago River, then the new
Lincoln Park Nature Boardwalk, the redesign of Northerly Island, and finally, a new boathouse on the river's north branch.
Saturday, October 19th, marks the official grand opening of what is now called the
WMS Boathouse at Clark Park, named for the company, located just across the river, that gave $1 million towards the facilities $9.45 million cost.
ROWtoberfest will open the facility to the public from 8:45 to 2:00 p.m, featuring a 12:30 p.m., ribbon cutting and opportunity to lunch on a piece of the 65-foot-long “Chicago's largest bratwurst.” (It matches the width of a rowing shell) The boathouse is the new home to the Chicago Rowing Foundation, which promises “the premier rowing center in the city, with year-round training and facilities unmatched in the region . . . one of the jewels along the Chicago River.” The boathouse is at
3400 North Rockwell.
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| WMS Boathouse at Clark Park (under construction) |
Studio/Gang has back at the waterfront still again with last week's announcement Wisconsin's Beloit College has chosen the firm to lead the effort to turn Alliant Energy's century-old Blackhawk Generating Station, on the Rock River next to Beloit's campus, into an
activity and recreation center for the school.
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| photo: Trevor Johnson, courtesy Beloit College |
No details on the design have been released, and funding is still to be procured, but the thinking seems to be that the Studio/Gang brand will help in raising the $30 million cost of the project. The college has defined a three-year-long ‘window’ to negotiate sale of the property from Alliant. In the press release, Beloit President Scott Bierman stated the project “should be a model—for connecting college to community, campus to river, and our city’s past to its future while honoring the role Alliant Energy and its employees played in powering our state’s growth over a century. This is a vision Studio Gang is already helping shape and make possible. We are thrilled to see what they can teach us, discover, and do for the college and our region.” [full press release after the break]
Read More:
Studio/Gang's Clark Park Boathouse: A Century of Urban Transformation flowing down Chicago's River.
A Closer Look at Studio Gang's Clark Park Boathouse (
Curbed Chicago, photographs by Kevin Dickert)
How I Built a Better City by Going Off the Grid
Smash the Birdie - The fatal allure of architectural glass
Reimagining Urban Eden: Studio/Gang and the Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park
