Program Archive

December 19

Lunch Talks@CAF: Small World Big Projects
Perkins + Will

Ralph Johnson, P+W Firmwide Director of Design, Perkins + Will, Universidad Agostinho Neto, Angola, and the Kenya Women and Children’s Wellness Center, Nairobi

Join us for a look at and discussion of two large projects in Africa that Perkins + Will has designed, the new campus for the Universidad Agostinho Neto in Luanda, Angola (completed in 2011) and recipient of the Chicago Athenaeum, American Architecture Award in 2009 and a Women and Children’s Wellness Centre in Nairobi, Kenya (to be completed in 2013) and recipient of the AIA National Healthcare Design Award 2012 and World Architecture News Awards (Unbuilt) Healthcare Sector, 2011.

December 12

Lunch Talks@CAF: Small World Big Projects
Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture

Gordon Gill, AIA, Partner, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture

Join us for a discussion of current projects in the Middle East, including the next world’s tallest building, Kingdom Tower.  We'll discuss cultural identity and transformation of place, the economic strategies surrounding super tall buildings and the enrichment of intellectual property in emerging countries.

December 5

Lunch Talks@CAF: Small World Big Projects
Skidmore Owings & Merrill

Brian Lee, FAIA, Design Partner, Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP, Ross Wimer, FAIA, Design Director, Skidmore Owings & Merrill LL

Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM)’s innovative practice has been informed by its extensive international work since the mid-twentieth century. Brian Lee and Ross Wimer will present the firm’s recent experimentations through two current projects in the Middle East: the Nozul Lusail Marina in Doha, Qatar and the Infinity Tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Both projects demonstrate the state-of-the-art design, structural advancements, and sustainable breakthroughs that continue SOM’s remarkable and enduring legacy.

November 28

Lunch Talks@CAF: Design for Health
Urban Interventions for Placemaking: Making Walkable Streets for Healthy Neighborhoods

Janet L. Attarian, Project Director, Chicago Department of Transportation

Make Way for People is a new program launched by the Chicago Department of Transportation which promotes temporary or easily removable strategies for quickly and inexpensively creating new public space in the public right of way. The program consists of four initiatives: People Spots, People Streets, People Plazas, and People Alleys.  Janet will discuss how this Program was developed, review the projects implemented to date, and how the Department is evaluating these initiatives and setting guidelines for further expansion.

Watch a live-stream of this talk, view resources on this topic, and share your perspective at Lunch Talks @ CAF Online. 

November 14

Lunch Talks@CAF: Design for Health
Design for People, Design for Change: Three Hospitals by Rafael  Viñoly Architects

Chan-li Lin, Partner, Rafael Viñoly Architects PC

In the last decade, the focus of Rafael Viñoly Architects’ work has expanded from arts and assembly facilities to encompass research and health care facilities.  Drawing on their wealth of experience in a wide variety of public building types  (performing arts centers, museums, convention centers, courthouses, academic and research facilities)  Rafael Viñoly Architects’ hospitals are less machines for dispensing health care, than places for people with an emphasis on the public as well as the clinical aspects of hospitals.  Similar to performing arts centers, courthouses, etc., their public spaces are open and welcoming not only to patients but also to families and visitors, while their clinical spaces are designed for maximum efficiency, flexibility, and adaptability. This talk examines how three state-of-the-art hospitals of similar sizes, within different contexts, address their site, program, and need for growth and adaptability to change--resulting in three very different hospitals, each reflecting its unique combination of their nature of institution and project parameters.

November 7

Lunch Talks@CAF: Design for Health
Healthcare Design in Haiti: Can Architecture Heal More Than Illness?

Ann Clark, Principal, Ann Clark Architects LLC

Ann Clark has spent the last four years collaborating with Boston-based Partners In Health on the design of a 320 bed, 180,000 square foot teaching hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti.  The project began one year before the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010, and has gone through several iterations post-earthquake.  The hospital, once completed, will be the largest hospital in the Caribbean.  In addition to the hospital providing the most advanced care available to Haiti, it also has become a symbol for more than just healing the sick. Ms. Clark will discuss the process by which this facility was designed, the challenges of working in a post-disaster, developing country like Haiti, and long term impact of such a project.

October 31

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Much Does it Cost?
Carson Pirie Scott as Souvenir: Re-Design for Target

Mary T. Shaffer, AIA, LEED AP, Lead Design Project Manager, Target Architecture

Join Mary Shaffer, Lead Design Project Manager, Target Architecture, who led the architecture and engineering team on the interior re-design of the 1899 Louis Sullivan designed former Carson Pirie Scott Building at State and  Madison Streets.  Mary will share information about the process Target undertook to preserve elements of the historic building while addressing its retailing needs and incorporating branding elements of a Target Store shopping experience.

Watch a live-stream of this talk, view resources on this topic, and share your perspective at Lunch Talks @ CAF Online. 

October 24

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Much Does it Cost?
Rethinking Soup (on the Road), Designing Food Diversity in Chicago

Laura Bowe, Co-Director Architecture for Humanity-Chicago, Aaron Joseph, Deputy Sustainability Officer, City of Chicago, and Lisa Lee, Director of Hull-House Museum

In celebration of Food Day, which seeks to bring together Americans from all walks of life to push for healthy, affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way, join us for delicious free soup and bread (provided by the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum) at Chicago Architecture Foundation and a lively conversation that addresses food diversity in Chicago’s built environment. How do food trucks benefit the City of Chicago and how could they be used in innovative ways? What was the impact and outcome of Chicago Architecture for Humanity-Chicago’s design for 2011 Fresh Moves Mobile Produce Market—a city bus that became a market on wheels to provide fresh produce to some of Chicago’s food deserts? What is the significance of heirloom seed libraries and how does this relate to the mission of historic preservation at the Hull-House Museum and design for change? This program is presented in collaboration with the Hull-House Museum as part of their ongoing Rethinking Soup series, University of Illinois at Chicago.

October 17

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Much Does it Cost?
Design for Sustainable Transportation

Carol Ross Barney, FAIA and Chicago Transit Authority

The Chicago Transit Authority and Chicago Department of Transportation are preparing for the launch of the Jeffery Jump, Chicago’s first steps towards Bus Rapid Transit, later this fall. How does one design for more sustainable transportation? Join architect Carol Ross Barney, FAIA to hear about her firm’s vast experience in design for transportation and for the new Jeffery Jump stations, and get a glimpse of the transformation of the Jeffery Line and the importance of design in BRT worldwide from representatives from CTA and CDOT.  

October 10

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Much Does it Cost?
Symbiocity

Phil Thompson, Project Manager and David Kordel, Consultant, Swedish Trade Council

In the 1970s, Sweden was the most oil dependent country in the industrialized world. The country suffered a host of environmental problems, from polluted air to toxic bodies of water. However, the oil crisis spurred politicians to change and today the country is instead at the green forefront, especially when it comes to creating sustainable cities. The SymbioCity concept, the notion that shared urban systems create synergies, forms the core of the Swedish approach to cities. SymbioCity calls for an holistic approach to common urban concerns, such as landscape planning, transportation and waste management, from which the gain is both environmental and economic. Join us for a presentation of SymbioCity – Sweden’s model for sustainable city planning, brought to you by the Swedish American Green Alliance, a collaboration between the U.S. Embassy and the government of Sweden.

October 3

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Much Does it Cost?
AIA 2030 Update and Building Sustainably

Marya Graff, LEED AP, ASSOC. AIA, Sustainability Consultant, Cannon Design

The AIA 2030 Commitment is a program which is helping member firms better understand sustainability within the context of their own practices. Based on incremental reduction targets, the ultimate goal of the 2030 Commitment is 100% carbon-neutral new buildings and major renovations by 2030. By collecting project data, signatory firms provide an annual picture of progress to the AIA and provoke meaningful internal dialog. This presentation will outline the AIA 2030 Commitment program and benefits of participation, describe the related efforts of the AIA Chicago 2030 Working Group, and summarize the first two years of national reporting.

September 26

Lunch Talks@CAF: Sky High Chicago
Secret Spaces Atop Chicago, A Cultural History of the Urge to Climb Above the City

Tony Macaluso, Author

Almost since the dawn of urban living, people have constructed spaces for viewing cities from above.
This talk explores Chicago’s extraordinary history as a center for creating unique and imaginative functions for “spaces atop the city.” Theses  spaces “above” have served as observation decks open to all to such unanticipated functions as places to pose for photographs above the city, gathering spots for extraordinary clubs, sites for daredevil stunts, pinnacles for conveying power and communication, and eye-catching emblems.  In recent years, Chicago has become, once again, a center of innovative ideas for how to use ‘spaces atop the city’ in adventurous new ways.  The lecture is a preview of Tony Macaluso’s forthcoming book.

Watch a live-stream of this talk, view resources on this topic, and share your perspective at Lunch Talks @ CAF Online. 

September 19

Lunch Talks@CAF: Sky High Chicago
The Wind Must Be Looked After, How Lateral Bracing Influenced Two Generations of Chicago Skyscrapers

Thomas Leslie, Pickard Chilton Professor in Architecture, Iowa State University

Skyscrapers present difficult structural issues. While the need to hold things up in the air is obvious, how to brace these structures against wind is often less visible--but equally important. Built sixty years apart, this talk highlights two Chicago skyscrapers--the Monadnock and the Inland Steel Building to show how wind bracing strategies evolved as new materials and techniques emerged throughout the twentieth century.  While steel, welding, and advanced calculation methods meant that the latter building was more efficient, there are surprising similarities in how the two buildings resist wind.

September 12

Lunch Talks@CAF: Sky High Chicago
Chicago Storeys

Bastiaan Bouma, Open House Chicago Managing Director

Open House Chicago 2012 (October 13 & 14 www.openhousechicago.org)  offers a free, “insider”look at some of Chicago’s coolest and most influential tall buildings.  This year’s line-up includes the Jewelers Building, Marquette Building, 104 S. Michigan Avenue, IBM Building, the Chicago Tribune Tower and more.

June 27

Lunch Talks@CAF: Land!
Vacant Lots: Farm or Famine - Open Space in Woodlawn and Englewood
Kathleen Dickhut, Deputy Commissioner of Sustainable Development Division, City of Chicago

The City of Chicago, in partnership with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Chicago and three local community organizations, are engaging community stakeholders in a year-long process to create the Green Healthy Neighborhoods land use plan for the communities of Greater Englewood, Greater Grand Crossing, Washington Park and Woodlawn and New City. There is a large inventory of available land in these communities and this lively discussion will explore a range of ideas for housing, retail, green infrastructure, food policy and arts and culture for the landscape.

June 20

Lunch Talks@CAF: Land!
Reading and Writing the Landscape
Robert Grese, Professor of Landscape Architecture, School of Natural Resources & Environment, Director of the Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, The University of Michigan

Robert Grese, editor of The Native Landscape Reader (2011), will describe his favorite selection of writings on nature-based landscape design and conservation by some of the country’s most significant practitioners, horticulturists, botanists, and conservationists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These essays often originally appeared in obscure, short-lived publications and are difficult to locate today, comprising a rich but hidden literature related to issues of sustainability, horticulture, and gardening.

June 13

Lunch Talks@CAF: Land!
Landscape History and Design
Christopher Vernon, Associate Professor, School  of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts, The University of Western Australia

Christopher Vernon author of Graceland Cemetery: A Design History (2011), will summarize the largely forgotten history of the landscape design of Chicago's Graceland Cemetery, and what O. C. Simonds, while Superintendent of and Landscape Gardener for Graceland Cemetery, accomplished that resulted in the international acclaim accorded to Graceland cemetery's landscape design 1900-1930.

June 6

Lunch Talks@CAF: Land!
Transforming Land Use for a 24-Hour Downtown
Jean L. Guarino, Ph.D. candidate and architectural historian 

The Loop has changed dramatically over the past 20 years, from an office district that was largely abandoned at 5pm, into a mixed-use community with a growing residential population. From the demalling of State Street to the conversion of office buildings to dormitories and luxury condos, Guarino will examine the key public and private initiatives that have transformed land use and brought new life to the Loop since 1990.

May 30

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Does Your (city in a) Garden Grow?
1990s Restoration and Landscape Renovation at Graceland Cemetery
Ted Wolff, ASLA, Wolff Landscape Architecture, Inc., Chicago

Join Ted Wolff, landscape consultant to the Trustees of Graceland Cemetery, for a discussion on the internationally acclaimed recent restoration of Graceland Cemetery’s landscape, consistent with the original “Prairie Spirit in Landscape Gardening” design style of O.C. Simonds ” (1855-1931). Mr. Wolff will be introduced by John Notz, officer and Trustee of the Graceland Cemetery Improvement Fund, which has managed the cemetery since the 1930s.

May 23

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Does Your (city in a) Garden Grow?
Lincoln Elementary School's Environmental Study Center: Construction and Features
Odile Compagnon, Odile Compagon Architect;
David Offenberg, Offenberg Tiritilli, Ltd. Architect of Record and Basil Tiritilli, Offenberg Tiritilli, Ltd.

This presentation tells the story of the planning, design, funding and construction, between 2005 and 2011, of an environmental sciences learning center addition to a historic Chicago Public School building located in Lincoln Park. From the first grant application to the planting of a green roof by the school children, we will describe the parallel process through which the academic curriculum and the addition were developed. This parallel process was a collaborative participation of school teachers, non-academic staff, students, members of the local community and several interested organizations.  The presentation will include a detailed discussion of the architectural features that turned this addition into a learning lab. 

May 16

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Does Your (city in a) Garden Grow?
Garden in the Machine
Jeana D’Augustino Ripple, Design Team Member, Studio Gang

Developed by a Studio Gang-led interdisciplinary team for MoMA's Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream exhibition, on view through July 30, 2012, "The Garden in the Machine" is a proposal reimagining the inner-ring suburb of Cicero to better meet the living and working needs of its residents. Cicero, a former factory town with a high immigrant population, struggles with the foreclosure of its industrial properties as well as its homes. “The Garden in the Machine” demonstrates how the remains of Cicero's industry could be transformed into healthy, thriving neighborhoods by improving the land using nature and technology, combining housing and jobs within flexible live/work structures made from reused materials, implementing a new form of ownership that decouples the land from the house, and revising the zoning code. Join Studio Gang for a detailed look at the proposal and how it's designed to help Cicero become a successful "arrival city" where new immigrants can pursue their unique American Dreams.

May 9

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Does Your (city in a) Garden Grow?
The Future of North Grant Park
Gia Biagi, Director of Strategy and Policy, Office of the Chief Executive Officer, Chicago Park District
Paul Seck, Associate Principal, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.
Matt Urbanski, Principal, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc.

North Grant Park is poised for a dramatic transformation.  The existing Daley Bicentennial Plaza needs to be dismantled to provide repairs for the garage below. The new park currently being designed to replace it will introduce a diverse range of new park program and landscape experiences that create greater urban connectivity between many important cultural and recreational sites. Community-inspired design principles will guide Chicago Parks District and the project designers in the implementation of a vibrant living landscape, to be completed in 2015, that will draw visitors from near and far for relaxation and recreation.

May 2

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Does Your (city in a) Garden Grow?
The City in a Garden
Julia S. Bachrach, Chicago Park District Historian

Julia S. Bachrach, who has served as historian and preservationist for the Chicago Park District for more than twenty years, has recently published a second edition of The City in a Garden, A History of Chicago’s Parks. The book illuminates the city’s 175-year commitment to its public parks and explains how luminaries such as architect Daniel H. Burnham, landscape architect and conservationist Jens Jensen, and social reformer Jane Addams shaped and in­fluenced Chicago’s venerable green spaces.  Julia will share the recent research she uncovered for the book, and describe numerous restoration projects and newly-designed facilities that are highlighted in this second edition. 

April 28

Special Bus and Walking Tour: Pilsen Past, Present, and Future

Explore a neighborhood that continues to welcome immigrants from all over the world, who in turn make our city a richer place; a vibrant community whose architecture, planning, and art reflect the dreams of all who come to work in Chicago. We will travel by bus and by foot to introduce Pilsen’s history, present, and potential future. After the tour, we’ll enjoy a prix fixe lunch from an award winning local Mexican restaurant (Fogata Village). Participants can return downtown via bus after lunch at the restaurant (1:30 p.m.) or remain in Pilsen to attend a free 2:00 p.m. presentation (separate advance registration required) by architect Patricia Saldana Natke, that focuses on the Pilsen Fashion Incubator, a visionary project recently exhibited at Chicago Architecture Foundation’s exhibition Design on the Edge.

April 28

Design on tthe Edge: Envisioning Neighborhood Change through Design a Look at Pilsen
Patricia Saldaña Natke, Founding Partner of UrbanWorks and Maria Bucio, Director of La Casa

Join us for an afternoon presentation and community discussion on visionary design and its hypothetical impact with architect Patricia Saldaña Natke, founding partner and president of the architecture, planning and interiors firm UrbanWorks, and leadership from The Resurrection Project, an community development and planning organization working to make Pilsen a vibrant and healthy community. Natke’s visionary idea for Pilsen is part of Chicago Architecture Foundation’s former exhibition, Design on the Edge, in which seven Chicago architects were invited to envision a built environment to address a need in a particular Chicago neighborhood. Recently, The Resurrection Project selected Natke’s team to design its latest project—La Casa—a new, innovative model in student housing aimed at attracting area college students to provide them with a safe-living environments and specialized programs to incrementally increase their chances of college success. Together, Natke and The Resurrection Project will lead a conversation about the visioning of their projects, where big ideas come from, what does a city or community do with them, and how does a city or community implement change through visionary design. Pilsen Cultural Center Spring 2012 semester projects by twelve IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) Architecture Students will also be on display.

April 25

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Much Does it Cost?
Bus Rapid Transit: Chicago’s New Route to Opportunity
Peter Skosey, Vice President, Metropolitan Planning Council

The money you spend at the gas pump or drop into a bus or train fare box is just a fraction of the $7.3 billion metropolitan Chicago wastes each year due to congestion. To improve transportation options and keep more money in people’s pockets (and the public coffers), cities around the world are implementing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), a cost-effective way of using existing streets to provide commuters with a fast, affordable and green way to travel. One of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s first-term priorities is to establish a BRT route, and the Chicago Transit Authority and Chicago Dept. of Transportation are exploring its potential along multiple routes. Come learn how BRT’s modern technology, sleek design, and smart implementation may make it Chicago’s best bet yet at beating congestion.

April 18

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Much Does it Cost?
The Cost of Water
Josh Ellis, Metropolitan Planning Council

Rain is free, but when it comes to water, everything else – treatment, pumps, pipes, drains, meters, more treatment – comes with a cost.  Problems arise when the price we pay doesn’t match the cost.  Whether the pipes leak, mains break, or our waterways get contaminated is up to us.  We get what we pay for… so in a metropolitan region with, hundreds of sewage discharge points to our rivers, thousands of miles of pipe, millions of people, and billions of square feet of impervious pavement, what exactly should we be paying for when it comes to water? Join CAF and the Metropolitan Planning Council’s Josh Ellis for a lunchtime discussion of the dollars and cents/sense of our region’s water resources.

April 11

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Much Does it Cost?
Housing + Transportation Affordability Index
Scott Bernstein, President, Center for Neighborhood Technology

How much does it cost to get around? We may know where to buy the cheapest gas or how much a bus ride costs, but it is the built environment that has an enormous and primarily hidden influence on people’s transportation costs. The Center for Neighborhood Technology’s Housing + Transportation (H+T®) Affordability Index uncovers and quantifies transportation costs by location. The Index demonstrates how living in a compact, walkable, transit-connected neighborhood can lower a household’s expenses and its environmental impact. This lunch hour presentation walks through the newly updated H+T Index and explains the implications its findings have on the housing market, sustainability, and quality of life.

April 4

Lunch Talks@CAF: How Much Does it Cost?
Chicago’s 7 Most Threatened Historic Places 2012--What is the Cost of Preservation?
Jonathan Fine, Executive Director of Preservation Chicago

What is the cost of losing or saving Chicago’s past? In this widely anticipated annual event, Preservation Chicago reveals its list of Chicago’s 7 Most Threatened Historic Places of 2012. The purpose of this program is to draw attention to the importance of the chosen historic buildings and districts, and to indicate how the efforts of Preservation Chicago and neighborhood residents will be directed toward preserving them. Past Chicago 7 announcements have played no small part in the eventual landmarking of irreplaceable buildings and spaces such as The Richard Nickel Studio, 444 N. LaSalle Street, and the Wicker Park Commercial District.

March 28

Mies van der Rohe’s McCormick House and the Elmhurst Art Museum
Karen Carter, Film Director/Producer and
Phyllis O’Neill, Executive Director Elmhurst Art Museum

The McCormick House at Elmhurst Art Museum is a mid-century masterpiece designed by legendary architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The house—a one-story, horizontal layout study of Mies van der Rohe’s 860 – 880 Lake Shore Drive towers—was designed as a prototype for middle-income row houses in suburban Illinois. More recently, the McCormick House served as the conceptual framework for DeStefano+Partners’ design of Elmhurst Art Museum. Learn how the structure befits the museum’s mission and hear about a new documentary film, Mies van der Rohe's McCormick House, which tells the story of the iconic house from its conceptual beginning through its move by flatbed truck to Elmhurst Art Museum.  

March 21

National Museum of Health and Medicine Chicago
Gordon Gill, Partner, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, and
Michael Doyle, President, The Buonacorsi Foundation

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture is designing the National Museum of Health and Medicine Chicago, a satellite location of the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. Learn about their vision for the design—which will repurpose an existing building on Washington Street—and see who NMHMC will function as a bridge between the physical and virtual realms. With the incorporation of interactive exhibits, physical artifacts that interface with interpretive video, and other virtual applications, NMHMC will be a user experience like none other.

March 14

DePaul Art Museum
Louise Lincoln, DePaul Art Museum Director and
Jeffrey P. Mason, Project Architect, Antunovich Associates

Museum architecture has become an area of critical and popular interest as well as a large part of the visitor experience. While the design of DePaul University’s teaching museum presented some unusual challenges, including a narrow and site and the administration’s desire for a design that would blend into the neighborhood, many of these offered advantages as well.   Learn how the DePaul Art Museum evolved from these series of challenges into a Museum building that the Sun Times calls a “masterpiece.”

March 7

Museum of Broadcast Communications
Matt Wylie, LEED AP, NCARB, Principal Eckenhoff & Saunders and
Bruce DuMont, Founder-President & CEO, the Museum of Broadcast Communications

The transformation of a dilapidated parking garage into a striking new home for the Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) was a triumph of vision and creativity over obstacles including media scrutiny, brutal politics, and economic struggle. Hear about the decisions and drama behind this Gold LEED Museum in Chicago’s River North neighborhood and how one of the city’s ugliest corners was transformed by a man who refused to throw in the towel.

February 29

History and Facade Assessment/Restoration of the Randolph Tower Building
Brett Laureys, Associate Principal with Wiss, Janney, Elstner, Associates, Inc

Brett Laureys, Associate Principal with Wiss, Janney, Elstner, Associates, Inc. in Northbrook, Illinois, will discuss the history of this 1920s-era skyscraper and its Chicago significance in relation to Wiss Janney’s findings on the significant distress to the terra cotta cladding as part of the building’s restoration and renovation. Brett Laureys will discuss the design of the exterior façade restoration work and the restoration of historically significant features that were removed from the building in the past. 

February 22

VOA Roosevelt Tower: High Rise University
Christopher Groesbeck, AIA, LEED AP, NCARB, Principal VOA Associates Incorporated

The expansion project for the Chicago Central campus of Roosevelt University is a key component in the University’s  goals and objectives for creating a distinguished and high educational environment that is student centered and reflects the University’s deep commitment to the principles of Social Justice. This lunch hour presentation will discuss the how the needs of student activities, academics, and student life of Roosevelt University’s expansion relate to the downtown community and its impact on the larger vision of Chicago and sustainability. Join us for a virtual tour of the features of this design presented by Christopher Groesbeck,  AIA, LEED AP, NCARB, Principal, VOA Associates Incorporated.

February 15

Monroe Building Past/Present/Future
Tom Lassin, Project Architect, Holabird and Root

This lunch hour lecture, presented by Tom Lassin, Project Architect, Holabird and Root, features the recent renovation and restoration of the Monroe Building. Designed by Holabird and Roche and built in 1912, this terra-cotta clad/steel frame sixteen story building has seen a great number of building occupants—including the new recent relocation of the Pritzker Military Library. Find out about the history of alterations to the building and multiple interventions and its current state of construction in this illustrated talk.

February 8

Remembering Marshall Field’s
Leslie Goddard, author

For more than 150 years, Marshall Field and Co. reigned as Chicago's leading department store. This illustrated talk traces the store's history from its beginnings as a dry good store on Lake Street in 1852 into a world-class fashion and service trendsetter renowned for its elegance and exceptional customer service. Photographs, ads, postcards, and memorabilia trace the store's history and its cherished traditions - the Walnut Room, the Christmas tree, the legendary window displays, the 28 shop, and, of course, Frango Mints. Based on Goddard's book, Remembering Marshall Field's, published by Arcadia Publishing in 2011 and available for purchase at the CAF Shop. Buy the book online >

February 1

Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy and UNO Charter School
Juan Moreno, AIA, President JGMA Architects

Juan Moreno of JGMA Architects will discuss the design and construction of two recently repurposed building projects for two Chicago Charter Schools, Instituto Health Sciences Career Academy and UNO Charter School, both on Chicago’s Southwest Side. Hear about the projects, then be inspired to take a behind-the scenes tour of UNO Charter School at the end of the month with Juan Moreno.

January 25

Small Projects, Big Talent
Zurich Esposito, Julie Liska, Pat Saldana Natke, Rob Natke, Steven Suski, and John DeSalvo

Hear from the award winners of the Small Firm/Small Project Award program who have been recognized for their high-quality work coming out of several small Chicago architectural firms. A brief overview of the competition will be followed by architects presenting on their winning work. This program will be introduced by Zurich Esposito, Executive Vice President AIA Chicago together with award winning architects Julie Liska, AIA,  Patricia Saldaña Natke, AIA, Robert Natke, AIA, Steven Suski, AIA, and John DeSalvo, AIA. A short question and answer period to ask the architects will follow. This program is presented by the AIA Chicago Small Practitioners Group. The goal of this award program is to raise public awareness of the value that architects bring to small projects and to promote small practitioners as a resource for design excellence. All firms in the competition have fewer than 10 licensed architects & architectural interns.

January 18

The Bloomingdale Trail
Ben Helphand, Executive Director of NeighborSpace and
Beth White, Chicago Region Director of the Trust for Public Land

Listen to Ben Helphand, Executive Director of NeighborSpace and Beth White, Chicago Region Director of the Trust for Public Land, discuss the planned Bloomingdale Trail, the nearly three-mile-long elevated park running through and over the City's near northwest side. Hear about the embankment's history as a railroad, the development of the idea to turn it into a linear park, and the current status of the Trail's design and development.

January 11

Low-Key Genius: The Life and Work of Landscape-Gardener O.C. Simonds

Barbara Geiger, Author

As the Victorian age gave way to the Progressive Era, Chicago designer O.C. Simonds (1855-1931) was a seminal figure in the naturalistic landscape movement and the first to popularize the use of native plants. The original partner of William Holabird, he was instrumental in shaping Graceland Cemetery’s landscape for over 50 years, consulted at Lincoln Park, created the University of Chicago campus in 1902, collaborated with Pond and Pond on Frank Orren and Florence Pullman’s Sinnissippi Farm, and designed hundreds of other projects. Join Barbara Geiger, author of Low-Key Genius: The Life and Work of Landscape-Gardener O.C. Simonds for this illustrated presentation.

This book is available for purchase at the CAF Shop. Buy online >