Chicago Debates Wrigley, A River Runs Through it at CAF, Evanston Design, Robert Ivy, Jewels in July, Architecture 101 on Jeju Island and more. Don't leave town - it's the July Calendar!

Where'd everybody go?

It's full-up summer, and a number of institutions have gone on hiatus for July and August, but for those of us who haven't abandoned the city for our summer homes in Ocean Springs, there's still nearly three dozen great items on the July Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.  (There's also eleven fascinating exhibitions - from Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli, to The Rendered Image, to Take Me to River and more, and we've got information on all these, as well.)

The month gets off to a late start, with this Fourth of July holiday week featuring only Radiant Cooling for Commercial Projects at the CCGT, but things start heating up after that, with Accelerating Sustainability in Chicago's 77 Community Areas at CCGT on Tueday the 9th, and then a panel discussion, A River Runs Through It: Developing and Designing Chicago's Shoreline, with Doug Farr, Benet Haller and others at the Chicago Architecture Foundation, which is also sponsoring the latest in its series of Chicago Debates: Wrigley Fast Pitch: Renovation Wreck or Refreshed Design, at Moe's Cantina  on Clark on Monday the 15th.

John Eifler will talk about Wright's Search for Innovation in Design at Fourth Presbyterian's Gratz Center on Thursday, the 11th,  the same day the CCGT offers up Previewing the GreenBuilt Home Tour, and AIA/Chicago and Design Evanston has a panel discussion with Stuart Cohen, Jack Weiss, Laura Saviano and others on Evanston Architecture, Urbanaism and Landscape Design: 1880 to 2012, tying into the just published Evanston: 150 Years, 150 Places. On Saturday, the 13th, AIA Chicago offers a daytrip to the John DeSalvo Design's Jett Residence.

Archi-treasures annual Jewels in July takes place on Wednesday, the 17th, while Thursday the 19th, USGBC Illinois offers Hartshorne Plunkard's Megan Zack, dbHMS's Sachin Anand and M&R Development's Paul Marucci discussing Parc Huron, the first LEED Gold certified high-rise apartment building in Illinois.  AIA/Chicago offers a tour of Joe Valerio's U of C Laboratory School Early Childhood Center on the 18th, and Revolution Brewery on the 19th.

Sunday the 20th, CCGT offers From Debris to Elegance: A Metamorphosis of Timber Frame Construction, and on Tuesday the 23rd, former Architectural Record editor and current AIA CEO Robert Ivy delivers the keynote, Design Excellence in Affordable Housing: The Multiplier Effect, to this year's Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute, at a public-welcome Cultural Center event which will also feature the presentation of awards to New York's Via Verde and Chicago's La Casa.  On Thursday and Friday, the 25th and 26th, this year's Complete Streets Symposium takes place at CTA HQ.
The month finishes up on a romantic note with a free Cultural Center screening of Architecture 101, the breakout South Korean hit film about a 35-year old architect being asked by a long-lost first love to rebuild her home on Jeju Island.

And there's a lot more.  So spending the month in a Chicago seemingly stuck in a holding pattern alternating between broiling and freezing, monsoons on the side, isn't really so bad when you can check out all the great items on the July Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.