[Zephyr]

Warning: This thread if copied may activate EC

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This is called 'Homeless II,' because I consider this to be a thematic follow-on to a prior thread on the UT, which focused on what to do with the homeless in our midst, after a man was murdered in Toronto, by allegedly homeless "panhandlers".

Undoubtedly, this will present another perspective, not directly about the homeless, but rather about what can be done. At its center is the very thing that defines one as homeless - the lack of immediate shelter, however temporary or transitional. Each building was done separately, and is otherwise unaffiliated, except in the group targeted. The individual architect waved portions of the service fee in each instance. The architects themselves are both world renown and are based in Chicago. Although unpublicised, Helmut Jahn has volunteered in the past to teach immigrant Germans and Austrians to Chicago, basic English. Stanley Tigerman has an association with an organisation he co-founded with Eva Maddox in 1993, Archeworks, which is an alternative design school that uses a multi-disciplinary approach in designing and building structures for a variety of social concerns.

Mr. Jahn's use of wind tunnels on the roof of his Near North Apartments SRO (left two photographs)
Mr. Tigerman alongside his renderings and 3D model for Pacific Garden Mission on the near Southside of Chicago

(© The New York Times / Photos by William Zbaren; © Aerotecture)

​

If nothing else, I think you will find these separate efforts thought provoking. Please, take the time to share your views on these buildings, and/or the ideas that spawned them.

- Zephyr

 

[Zephyr]

National Perspectives
Social Improvement With Architecture

By ROBERT SHAROFF
New York Times – Real Estate Section
November 5, 2006


THIS city, which is often described as one of the world’s great architecture capitals, also has a strong tradition — dating back to 1889 when Jane Addams founded the Hull House settlement community — of innovative housing projects aimed at improving the lives of the disadvantaged.

These two traditions, architectural and social improvement, continue today in two projects by leading architects under way in the downtown area.

The first is the Near North SRO by Helmut Jahn, a 96-unit project aimed at homeless people. (The project uses the phrase supportive housing, a social services term for housing that provides access to services like mental health assistance and vocational guidance, in addition to shelter.)

The second project is a new home for the city’s largest and oldest homeless shelter, the Pacific Garden Mission, by Stanley Tigerman.

Both projects symbolize what some say is Chicago’s leading role in housing the homeless and indigent. ...



© The New York Times

CLICK HERE to view the entire article​

 

[Zephyr]

HELMUT JAHN

Helmut Jahn in his younger days, when he was also tagged 'Flash Gordon' by his colleagues (left)
In his late 60s now, a picture of Mr. Jahn taken in his Chicago office (right)

(© JRTR / Laurel Spingola; © Chicago Chronicle)


Helmut Jahn's
Near North Apartments SRO
Opened March 2007
Chicago, Illinois USA

(© Jetson Green)

(© flickr / skajaz)

(Architectural Record / Photo: © Doug Snower; © Murphy/Jahn; © flickr / Tony Domacher)
​

 

[Zephyr]

“I always looked at the I.I.T. [State Street Village (Sudent Housing) on the South side] ... as kind of a prototype for low-rise urban housing. ... The Mercy SRO project [aka Near North Apartments SRO] is a way to introduce the concept on the [N]orth side.”

-- Helmut Jahn

Helmut Jahn's
State Street Village (IIT Student Housing)
2001 - 2003
Chicago, Illinois USA[/B]

(© ArtNet; © flickr / DSCF3299; © Murphy Jahn / Doug Snower)​

 

[Zephyr]

[

STANLEY TIGERMAN

Stanley Tigerman 'The Younger' (left)
In his late 70s, addressing an Archeworks graduating class (right)

(© Trans Cultural Exchange; © flickr / ChicagoEye)


Stanley Tigerman's
Pacific Garden Mission
Opened October 2007
Chicago, Illinois USA

(© PGM)
​

 

[Zephyr]

SOCIAL ARCHITECTURE
Tigerman-designed Mission brings light and hope to its clientele

By Blair Kamin
Chicago Tribune Architecture Critic
October 14, 2007

This is the age of designer everything -- designer poker chips, designer flatware and, now, designer digs for the homeless. The new Pacific Garden Mission by renowned Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman, which gathers the good works of the city's oldest and largest homeless shelter under one roof, shows us that. What this admirable, albeit flawed, work of architecture also reveals is that it's a whole lot easier to craft a Michael Graves teakettle than a shelter that ministers to society's most vulnerable people.

The mission, which was dedicated Saturday, squats anonymously along downtown's southern fringe, two blocks south of a suburban-style shopping mall on Roosevelt Road. Its tough, brick and concrete-framed exterior suggests a warehouse -- good if you think that means it fits in with its industrial surroundings, OK if you see the building as a factory for healing, bad if it reminds you of the Chicago Housing Authority's stigmatized projects.

Inside, though, the shelter is full of light and hope, especially in a sun-filled courtyard that Tigerman has effectively punctuated with a serene, gently curving prayer chapel. Throughout, he demonstrates a laudable attention to subjective human perception as well as objective physical structure, the inner world of the residents as well as the outer world they inhabit. He's gotten inside their heads, in other words.

And that, in the end, is what promises to make this soon-to-be-occupied building one of the most noteworthy of Chicago's enlightened efforts to put high-profile architects at the service of those at the bottom of the economic ladder. These efforts, which include Helmut Jahn's sleek new single-room-occupancy building near the fast-disappearing Cabrini-Green public housing project, constitute a laboratory of international significance, one every bit as important as the city's new supertall skyscrapers or its much-publicized push into green architecture.

... Despite the presence of the familiar signs, the mission's new surroundings may prove dislocating to the homeless people it serves. Its old home was within steps of transit lines as well as prospective employers. But the new site ... is a hefty walk from nearby transit stops. And those hikes will seem long indeed when the wind lashes the skin come December. ...

Whatever the merits of the site, Tigerman, now 77 years old, was the right architect to attack it. While his catalog is filled with postmodern whimsy on behalf of affluent clients -- a house with a pompadour-like profile to match the hairstyle of its owner, a house with a curving projection that is deliberately phallic -- his street cred in designing for the disadvantaged is unassailable.

For 14 years, he's co-run Archeworks, a socially conscious design school he founded with Chicago designer Eva Maddox. His best works combine formal inventiveness with a deep-seated concern for their users. An example: the former Illinois Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped of 1978, where bright colors and curving interior walls allowed blind and partially-sighted visitors to navigate the space.

...


(© Chicago Tribune)

CLICK HERE to view the entire article​

 

[adma]

Jahn + Tigerman

 

[Zephyr]

Since this is now an archived article, I will be unable to provide a direct link to it:

Architect gives twist to affordable housing
Star designer makes his mark on the fringes of Cabrini-Green

By Blair Kamin
Chicago Tribune Architecture Critic
March 1, 2007

Helmut Jahn is perhaps the last architect you'd expect to design the type of housing for single, poor adults that people once sneeringly called a "flophouse." He puts his trademark modernist stamp on condominium high-rises where the most expensive units are being hawked for $2.2 million.

But on Thursday, a new single-room occupancy, or SRO, building that resembles a glistening, streamlined train will open at 1244 N. Clybourn Ave. on the fringes of the fast-disappearing Cabrini-Green housing development.

Its architect: the same Helmut Jahn who designed the acclaimed United Airlines Terminal at O'Hare International Airport and the mostly despised James R. Thompson Center in the Loop.

Ironically, given Jahn's association with the energy-hogging Thompson Center, the $14 million, 96-unit building is touted as a model for saving energy, its roof sporting twirling wind turbines. As a bonus, its tiny units boast drop-dead views of the downtown skyline.

"This building was intended to be a stigma smasher," said Cindy Holler, president of Mercy Housing Lakefront, the Chicago non-profit group that developed it with a patchwork of public and private funds. "All of us deserve to live in beautiful spaces and healthy environments with beautiful views." ...

As in other Mercy Housing Lakefront single-room occupancy housing, a typical tenant will pay 30 percent of his or her adjusted gross income in rent.

"It's like a hotel with small rooms," the 67-year-old Jahn said during a tour Tuesday. He designed the project, he said, to show that even with simple materials, "you can actually do something very spirited."

Even so, Jahn occasionally tripped up. His early plans called for brightly colored walls--electric orange, for example. Mercy Housing Lakefront's staff, however, rejected those hues and ordered up more muted shades.

"We thought his colors were wrong," Holler said. "When we really looked at them and started to look at some research, [we concluded] this is not going to be comfortable for mentally ill people."

Is the building's sleek architecture more of a fancy, attention-getting shell than a nurturing home tailored to the needs of its residents? One of those who will become tenants Thursday, 52-year-old Donnie Conner, said he likes the sleek exterior and looks forward to having a room of his own.

Conner, who is studying to get an associate's degree at Harold Washington College, said: "Can you imagine finally being able to get your own place and study?"

(© Chicago Tribune)​

 

[Zephyr]

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT: ARCHITECTURE NOTES
Archeworks creators plan to pass the baton

Architect Stanley Tigerman has indicated he will step down
as head of the school he helped found.
(Chicago Tribune Photo by Chris Walker / October 25, 2007)​

By Blair Kamin
Chicago Tribune
Architecture Critic

October 25, 2007

Thirteen years after launching an alternative Chicago design school with a social conscience, the school's founders, architect Stanley Tigerman and interior designer Eva Maddox, are ready to pass the baton to a new generation. They just aren't saying who will replace them -- at least not yet.

The school, called Archeworks, has graduated nearly 300 students since it was started in 1994. Instead of designing skyscrapers or single-family houses, like their counterparts at conventional architectural schools, students at Archeworks have crafted projects such as an elegant, head-mounted pointing device for people or a prototype for a serene, wood-lined room that would let nurses escape from a hospital's stressful, institutionalized environment.

And now, the leaders say, it's time to move on. ...

bkamin@tribune.com Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune

CLICK HERE to see complete article
​

 

[adma]

Re Tigerman, it's uncanny. The physique; the facial expression; the posture; the white shirt...freaky...