IIT Design Center, grad school project

I was recently doing some archive clean-up and ran into some images of a project I did at grad school.

The proposal was for a new Design Center at IIT on the campus in Chicago.   In the course of the project, I worked largely in model, with the overall design being a very long, narrow building surrounding the ‘L’ tracks as they approach South 35th.   The large model was built in a series of segments:

It seems I don’t have a photo of all the pieces linked together, only an earlier schematic model:

This all seemed like a slightly wacky idea in 1993 – surrounding the train and making building along it.

In the Fall of 2003, Rem Koolhaas’ new IIT Campus Center was completed, a 530 foot long complex surrounding the elevated tracks in the center of the campus.

Not that my work was that good, and a very different aesthetic, but a similar response to the same problem – how to take a massive dividing element and use it to create a unifying element – utilize the most difficult and problematic proposition of a project as the focus of a solution.

Fall cottonwoods, Boulder, Colorado

This week has started off cold and rainy, a proper harbinger of Fall and the anticipated return of the beautiful silhouettes that the local cottonwood trees make against the landscape.

a photo from last winter, here in Boulder County.

by Mark Gerwing

30th and Glenarm Condos, Northeast Denver Housing Center, Denver, Colorado

I recently passed by a project that was completed a number of years ago that was designed by myself, with Arcadea as the architect-of-record.

This project started as a national AIA Young Architects competition in conjunction with Northeast Denver Housing Center and the convening of the AIA convention in Denver.  My wife, Kate Iverson, and myself conceived of the winning submission of a series of small, market-rate condos and some ancillary retail space for this site in Five Points, in Denver.

The character of the neighborhood has changed rather dramatically from the time of the initial competition to the final execution of the building five years later, to the current situation.  Once a challenged, under-served neighborhood with the parallel problems of unemployment and crime, the place has now been significantly upgraded by the local light-rail service and some questionable gentrification.  Some of the newer projects, like this one, were carried out by local non-profits on empty lots and greatly improved the neighborhood.  Many simply displaced existing residents.

Our solution to the problem of the site was to try to tie together the disparate scales of buildings on the adjacent streets and make a tough, but street-friendly building.  I think it has been successful on the architectural level, but on the socio-economic one, I am not the one to judge or maybe even comment.  So many things are beyond the reach of the architecture to positively effect.  We should at least stick to the “first do no harm” motto.

‘collage’ construction photos

In Boulder, we are working on the renovation and addition to a 1890’s house on Walnut.  To accomplish this, we have removed the poorly-built 1960’s addition to reveal the interface of the old building with its younger construction.

These are a couple of photos showing the various levels of board sheathing, OSB, siding, and framing that now compose the temporary exterior of the building.  If only more of current construction could have this kind of crazy juxtaposition collage of materials, colors and textures.

bridge design, by emilia gerwing, age 3

I really love this drawing by my youngest daughter.  It seems to hold the promise that a bridge should have – a mixture of fear and excitement that the threshold of a bridge should encompass.

found object sculpture

a diversion from making buildings – more direct, more immediate, with the satisfaction of having made something

found object sculpture by mark gerwing, made around 1992, from stuff on the roof of my apartment in Boston

trolley car tracks, Boulder, Colorado

For many months now Broadway in front of the office has been torn up with new construction – the concrete paving of the street from Pine to Iris.  As demolition first started, the old trolley car steel rails that used to run down Broadway were revealed.   A vestige of our past, more sensible, public transportation system, the rails were quickly cut and hauled away, probably to be smelted back down into more Escalades.

However, a spur of the tracks was preserved, I assume by the City, as it cuts across the sidewalk (and out of the way of the paving) in front of buildings along the west side of the street between North and Alpine.

projects under construction, Boulder, Colorado

In the midst of a dismal economic environment, we are lucky to be staying busy with a number of projects in design and five in construction.

Four of the under-construction projects are in Boulder, Colorado, with another in Chicago.  Each is a combination of addition and renovation, with clients engaged and willing to transform their current house into something more.

We are getting started on another project outside of Eldorado Springs in Colorado, and possibly another in South Boulder.  Both of these projects are in the early design phases, with each house seeing a combination of renovation and addition to better accommodate growing families.  In one case the family has young children growing out of their small rooms, in the other a family is growing as older parents move back in with their adult children.’

As usual, in all of these projects we are projecting into the future.  However, the multi-generational work of the homes highlights the transitory nature of the house, allowing a home to be a changeable, flexible space endowed with memories and dreams, not merely a fixed architectural object.

It is also good to see construction activity humming along at each jobsite.  Carpenters, masons, electricians, etc. are all busy working.  Our drawings become the conduit through which local tradespeople can thrive.  Each line on paper, each note, is a task, a livelihood.

construction paper

construction is under way on a number of projects in Boulder

Highlands Farmer’s Market competition

our submittal to the Highlands Farmer’s Market competition in Denver, Colorado

a link to a page with more photos and information:

http://mgerwing.wordpress.com/highlands-farmers-market-design-competition/