On a recent trip to PHIUS, we were asked, along with Wii Design-Build, to head up the Chicagoland PassivHaus Alliance. Stay tuned for more information.
We also got to see University of Illinois’ second-place winner in the 2009 Solar Decathlon (pictured above) - a great example of the PassivHaus standard in action.
For the first half of 2010, Hampton Avery Architects will be working with a talented team to propose realistic and compelling design solutions for urban challenges at three interlocking scales: block / building, neighborhood, and region.
The work of Hampton Avery Studio 309 will culminate in a public exhibition in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood.
Stay tuned!
Best wishes to everyone in the new year.
Hampton Avery Architects celebrates its one-year anniversary today.
We look forward to working with great clients on great projects in 2010!
Trellises, repurposed from galvanized aluminum security grilles from the ReBuilding Exchange, slip from the rooftop garden, over the coping, and down over the wood rainscreen cladding to make it easier for Santa to get to the chimney (not in contract).
The trellises will later form what we like to call around here the ‘green combover’ of trailing plants from the rooftop garden.
See construction photos.
From left to right: guest jurors John "Jack" Munson, Dave Hampton, Richard Avery, John Isch.
Richard and Dave were pleased to serve as guest jurors for Prof. Dan Woodfin’s Architecture 201 semester review at Ball State University’s College of Architecture and Planning - Richard’s alma mater.
The project was a townhouse in Santa Fe, which was to employ sitecast concrete with CMU infill and stucco finish. The second-year students acquitted themselves nicely for the most part in their presentations, many offering a compelling handling of space and beginning grasp of how to employ sustainable techniques and strategies such as thermal mass to moderate temperature swings and passive cooling through stack effects.
Opting for Jimmy John’s over the falafel sandwich option for lunch in downtown Muncie, had a nice dinner after the review with Prof. Woodfin, his wife, and our fellow jurors: Jack Munson of Richardson Munson and Wier, Indianapolis; and John Isch of RWA Architects, Cincinnati.
Our lecture was presented on Tuesday, Dec. 8 from 12:15-1:00pm at the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Download the presentation (PDF format, 2.2 MB)
Contact us for more on the Red Line Green Roofs Initiative or green roofs along any other public transportation corridor!
It’s much more than just an attractive near-alliterative term, but you heard it here first.
Learn more about the concept of ‘entrepreneurial infrastructure‘ from The Genetically Modified Strip. We collaborated with giffin’termeer on this award-winning solution to the 2008 Flip a Strip competiton in Phoenix, AZ.
No, we haven’t designed a man-made lake, but listening to this song by Calexico struck a chord with me following discussions Richard and I have been having about some missed opportunities in designing our built environment.
About 60 people attended the Smack Down. Apparently the largest turn out ever for a UHC lecture. Thanks to all who came out and contributed to the discussion.
The discussion was great and thought provoking. While we architects (see all the people in black in the picture below) had some good things to say, the real star of the show was the moderator, Lynn Becker. In about 15 minutes he gave the most clear, astute, and informative, and insightful description of the plan I have ever heard.
View of a rooftop garden at Ainslie Ave. before laying down the growing media
They’re a little bit scruffy right now with no plants yet - just seeds, but we have high hopes that warmer weather in late spring 2010 will make rooftop gardens at Ainslie Ave. and Champlain Ave. grow tall and lush.
On left, conventional parking lot, on right, the same lot with permeable paving. See the difference?
Could it be that in twenty years time we will find ourselves driving our solar charged electric cars to eat at the California Pizza Kitchen, with a green roof that grows it’s own vegetables and cooks them in a solar oven, and sits in a parking lot paved with permeable concrete, in front of a day lighted & geothermally heated Target. Lord help us if that is the case.
On November 4th, Urban Habitat Chicago will be hosting The Burnham Plan of Chicago: Smackdown! at Schubas Tavern, 3159 N. Southport. To quote from the UHC website:
“This lively, fast-paced discussion, moderated by Chicago’s one-and-only Lynn Becker, will feature a panel of local practitioners who will each take on one aspect of the 1909 Plan of Chicago by Burnham and Bennett, make it relevant and accessible by bringing it up-to-date, then offer real-world solutions on how it might be implemented.”
The panel includes Samuel Assefa, Zoka Zola, Nick Petty, Mike Newman, Rashmi Ramaswamy, Lesley Roth, and (I suppose for comic relief) Richard Avery. The whole thing will be moderated by Lynn Becker.
Put it on your calendar, come with questions, and be ready to mix it up.
Dave’s guest blog entry for eco-intel.com makes the case for integrated-design and -project delivery using the Coleman garage as an easy-to-grasp example.
Humboldt Park Residence
The City of Chicago was nice enough this morning to give one of our projects a 2009 Chicago Landmark Award for Preservation Excellence. The project in question was the interior and exterior renovation with an addition, to a house in the Logan Square Boulevards Landmark District. Other award recepients this year included the restoration of the Palmer House Hilton on State Street, The West Town State Bank Building at Madison & Western, 310-318 S. Michigan Ave (the ‘beehive’ building), The Quinn Chapel, and the South Shore Cultural Center, among others. The ceremenony, which was held in the newly restored Honore Room at the Palmer house, was presided over by David Mosena, the Chairman of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. 35th Ward Alderman Rey Colon joined the clients and myself in accepting the award.
This was a nice end to a six year long project that saw 3 contractors, a lengthy landmarks review process, a trip to the building board of appeals, and a lot of work on the part of us and the client.
“As I have traveled the this nation this year, I have discovered that despite the sense of hopelessness and helpless frustration that too often dominates the energy debate in Washington, there is a revolution of Yankee ingenuity changing the energy future of local communities.”
- Senator Edward M. Kennedy
September 1980
From the Introduction to “Passive Solar Energy: The Homeowners Guide to Natural Heating and Cooling” (1981) by Bruce Anderson and Malcolm Wells, Publisher: Brick House (click the link for a free download).
The Senator then goes on to cite examples of some of that ingenuity: increased gasohol production, solar water heaters installed in the Tennessee Valley, citizens turning to wood stoves to heat their homes, an MIT house that would employ meltable salts to store and release heat with only small changes in temperature.
Derek Ottens of Green Cross Build, the general contractor for the garage experiment project burns the rain screen cladding for it’s own good. The wood was originally flooring and is already finished & sealed on one face. The remaining faces are being charred to seal them from the elements. The wood is then installed with the charred side facing out (see image below).
Read about our work on bringing 50,000 square feet of underused Chicago real estate with unbeatable sky-views along commuter rail lines to life with rooftop gardens.
The roof membrane is on and siding (big shingles!) is going up. See the latest progress photos.
I realize I am coming very late to this, but I was finally able to figure out what has been bugging me about the Friends of the Park plan “The Last Four Miles”. If you are not familiar, it is worth taking a look at the plan, here, before reading further.
To say that the disconnected parcels of park and beach at the north and south ends of the city should be tied together with more parkland is like saying oxygen is a good thing for humans. It is absolutely true and it should have been a part of the park systems capital plans and budget long ago. But, to butcher a phrase, if you want to stir people’s blood, you have to do something other than finish someone else’s old ideas.
… sometimes means disconnecting your downspouts.
This photo taken at the Coleman garage jobsite after the rear stairs were demolished (not part of our contract, otherwise we’d have insisted on deconstruction!).
Click below for information on Passive House
(0)
Coming around the bend...
Please have patience with our site. We are currently working feverishly on a new, real, shiny one. Jess Giffin over at giffin’termeer is whipping us into shape. No timeline yet, but if you keep checking back you’ll know as soon as we do! (0)
