More than a year ago, a stand-alone rendering emerged for a 30-story rental tower of striking avant-garde credentials. Looking like a discombobulated Miesian black box, the design, by Lothan Van Hook DeStefano Architecture, is five boxes stacked like a three-year-old's Fisher Price building blocks. The idea, according to the architect, is to provide for the reality that the building will be caught in incomplete glimpses owing to its dense downtown siting. So it better have something to say. Conceived as a building serving students, faculty, and college staff from several Loop institutions, the architect explains that "driven by cost per bed rather than sf per unit, the program maximizes the smallest and largest units leading to a compositional arrangement that optimizes both in discrete compartments. The result is a singular identity that comes from its fragments." That's swell, but we'd love to know if and when this thing gets legs. Tip o' the hat to Spyguy at Skyscraper Page.
·Bold South Loop Rental Aims to Meet Student, Faculty Demand [Curbed Chicago]
·Highrise Projects & Construction Thread [SSP]
·Lothan Van Hook DeStefano Architecture [Official]
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