The year of the Rat

Reuters posted an article ranking the nation's top cities and their potential for Rodent Infestation. Chicago moves up the list 2 spaces since 2007, taking the #6 spot. The list nominates New York City in the top spot for both 2007 and 2009, although other East Coast cities fared better: Boston dropped below Chicago to #7, and Baltimore and Washington DC are both dropped from the 2009 list, having previously been higher up than Chicago.

The study used "U.S. Census Bureau data in combination with a host of key factors, including city revenue spent on infrastructure maintenance, climatic factors which affect rodent populations along with records of pest control sales." The study also "included new U.S. Bureau of Labor data on municipal rates of unemployment and foreclosure filings to revise their assessment from their 2007 report."


The takeaway message for Chicago is simple, but with complex overtones. While the city cannot control variables like warmer winters or even foreclosure rates, maintaining infrastructure and funding prevention measures can be addressed. And for a city that is already underfunding infrastructure, the cheaper the better.

 

Architecture, Urbanism, and the Design of Dying

As humans we have a strange relationship with death. The only species known to bury their dead, we approach the matter the only way we know how, and that is the same way we approach life. We each mourn our own way, perform the appropriate ceremonies, and then we adorn the newly departed with their own structures and architectures of stone, granite, plaster and metal. We shelter them from the elements by placing them in a tomb, then marking their location and memory with headstones, crypts, monuments or placards. Architecture may be the only thing we can take with us. In Paris, these burial plots combine to form districts of the cemetery, which are divided by boulevards, streets, or pathways. These in turn are given identification, and street signs are erected. At certain intersections, a large obelisk or sepulcher may be placed in the center, declaring itself a landmark from which visitors can get their bearings and migrate in the right direction. By applying theories of architecture and urbanism as understood by the living to places inhabited by the dead, cemeteries become places where two worlds meet and occupy the same space, both in the physical sense and symbolically. Although used for many activities in a densely packed city of bustling vibrancy these cemeteries, with their urban organization and architectural exonerations are still places of memory, of respect and somber reflection on our own mortality.

-Excerpt from Complex Context, my Nix Fellowship thesis work.

Aerial Internment

The October issue of Chicago Magazine ran an article about St. Johannes Cemetary, the 5-acre plot of land that has become a spot of contention for the future development plans of O'Hare Airport. Mayor Daley is staking a lot on the modernization of the airport, but descendants of the 160 year-old cemetery's residents are understandably peeved.

While I'm sure there are numerous legal precedents for this type of clash between eternal land rights and the forces of progress, I'm more interested in the architectural and infrastructural ramifications. What if the cemetery stayed? What if the two shared custody of the ground? Could the runway be elevated off the ground? Perhaps in the dead of night 12 CF-47 Chinook helicopters could grab the parcel by the edges and hoist it above the ground. Then fly the whole lot, dirt and all, to plug up a nearby depression in the earth. Maybe place it in an abandoned gravel quarry. Or revive John Ronan's vision for the Old Post Office.

I can only imagine that the final solution should somehow balance the needs of both the cemetery and the airport. Perhaps the permanent levitation of a large swath of land in the airspace above a runway. A literal translation of the metaphorical ascent to heaven, aided not by divine redemption but by aged DeHavilland turboprops.

Talking Tall

Cityscapes on Friday published an article about the upcoming conference hosted by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The conference will be headlined by Eric Trump, Mohamed Ali Alabbbar, Mayor Richard M. Daley, and Adrian Smith, to name a few, and will focus on the role of the skyscraper in the era of financial upheaval and global climate change. Reading on the CTBUH website about the event brought to mind the fire that destroyed the hotel-portion of the CCTV project in Beijing. Perhaps reaching even further back one can include the Twin Towers into the lineup of tall and supertall structures which have slowly morphed from objects of status to objects of liability.

The twin obstacles of terrorism and climate did a lot in the 6 years following 9/11 to stop the exponential growth of buildings, but growth still occurred.  Starting in 2007, it finally took the dollar to do what terrorists and climate couldn't do: stop the tall building. Lynn Becker said it best:

"When, in February, a raging fire, set off by illegal New Years’ fireworks, turned the still-to-open 31-story TVCC building, housing a super-luxury Mandarin Oriental Hotel, into a burnt-out hulk, it was seen by many as the signpost of the end of an era. The hotel was the less-known component of the complex designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas for the Chinese television monopoly, dominated by the sloping, interlocking towers of the new CCTV headquarters, Many of the locals saw the conflagration as a bad omen for the incoming Year of the Ox. Others saw it as a comeuppance for the hubris of their city’s orgy of massive eye candy constructions for the 2008 Olympics. In the words of one satisfied blogger, it was like “seeing a bully fall down.” 

Although with buildings like the Burj Dubai nearly ready for occupancy there's a strong argument that the era of the tall building is far from over. Perhaps an attendee of Adrian Smith's lecture would be given this perspective. Certainly Dubai's newfound desire to become a tourist destination has come to rely heavily on the iconography of the tall building, and the explosion of new towers have all sought to be the biggest, best, most advanced building in the city, just as the competition between the Chrysler building and Empire State did in 1931. But then there's the other part of the issue -  the UAE understands that global climate change and more specifically peak oil have changed the game, and that in the future oil will not be their primary source of income.

But while Dubai is at one time acknowledging the changing enviromental landscape, the also choose to defy it. SkiDubai is a 400M indoor ski slope in the middle of the desert. Its mere presence suggests the cavalier attitude of the regions' developers toward environmentalism.

Power to the People

ComED on Wednesday received unanimous approval from the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) for its recommended one-year Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) pilot. "One of the most comprehensive tests of smart meter technology in the nation, this pilot will assess how technology can improve service, help customers make more informed decisions about energy use and contribute to lower energy costs and reduced carbon emissions."

Later this year the region could receive as many as 310,000 smart meters to towns surrounding Chicago. So what does all of this mean?
 

"A smart meter is a digital electric meter that collects usage information every 30 minutes and sends that information to ComEd through a secure network. When the pilot is fully implemented in early summer 2010, this new technology will:

-- Provide customers with daily usage information, accessible through the Internet, to help monitor their energy use and manage energy costs.
-- Enable ComEd to access important account information on demand, so customer service representatives can provide more complete information,  more quickly.

-- Allow ComEd to begin assessing the potential operational, environmental  and other benefits of smart meters for all ComEd customers."

 

 

While still very early in the slow conversion to a smart grid,  the system makes great leaps in the right direction for a smarter, cleaner, and more efficient grid. Consumer-scaled projects aimed at providing feedback to the consumer - think drivetrain readouts in a Prius - helps consumers understand how much energy they are using at any moment, and knowledge leads to conservation. For ComEd, having that feedback is a critical part of operation that is currently lacking. Under the status quo, most power companies will not even know there is a power outage until concerned customers begin complaining. All the while their power stations are burning fuel and profits providing power that no one can use. By receiving feedback about usage patterns, energy companies can increase or reduce power production to more closely match the demands. All of this provides more consistent power more efficiently for less cost and less environmental impact. 

 

Here's hoping the pilot is a success.

The Economies of Space

Given the current state of the financial crisis, projects all around the city have ground to a halt. Some high profile buildings like the Spire or Waterview Hotel have come to epitomize the fantastic fall from the heights of a real estate boom. But beyond all the intangible atrocities of the derivative markets are real, concrete structures waiting to serve a purpose.

So what happens when these skeletons of buildings become the armature for new spaces? When the voids are filled with nature, people, or sculpture instead of vanilla-boxes and stock analysts? Of course all of this should be done with the minimum of financial backing. Grass-roots urbanism.

What happens when the hole left by the Spire is finally abandoned? Local artists steal chairs from outside restaurants and on snowy side streets and arrange them into a theatre-in-the-round.

Or a disoriented architect, in homage to Alvaro Siza, plugs up all the drains and creates a very deep swimming pool, reflecting the canyons of the city beyond.

Entire floors of the Waterview could house sculpture gardens. Or urban agriculture. Plug-and play apartments for the richest and poorest citizens could be inserted using shipping containers and tents to give each floor plate its own communal feel. New projects will not be presented in front of board members, but by Tweeting in haiku:

Cities of the dead.
Made of Bones of so many,
Buildings lost to funds.

Cavernous voids make
excellent locations to
meet and greet your friends.

Taking back the streets.

Few events in Chicago have the capability of shutting down large stretches of roadway. The Chicago Marathon is one of those events. Despite chilly weather at the starting line, some 45,000 runners braved the near-freezing temperatures, even setting some race records in the process. Lost in the crowds and the partying is the tremendous feat of closing and diverting traffic around the 26.2 miles of Chicago streets for the race.

via mappery

Perhaps more interesting from my point of view is a small glimpse of a triumph of the pedestrian over the vehicle. While a city the size of Chicago will always require some level of vehicular access for emergency vehicles, certain deliveries, etc, more of the cities streets can be turned over to non-vehicular (or at least multi-modal) transit without impacting the overall access of the network. Here are some options:

Improved bicycle lanes: The current design minimum for bike lanes is 4'-0" While this is sufficient for the physical width of a bicycle, it really takes few other parameters into consideration: passing another cyclist, dodging car doors or poorly parked vehicles, potholes and other obstacles. In many cases, the narrow bike lane can be the most dangerous location for a cyclist to be. One option would be a dedicated bike lane.

via streetsblog

Diagonal Diverters are a second option. A simple, low-cost option that prevents thru-traffic on local streets while still providing universal vehicular access. These are especially effective on residential or low-traffic streets, and slow vehicular traffic significantly, making things much easier on pedestrians and cyclists. I've seen these done simply by stringing bollards across an intersection, which has the dual effect of preventing vehicular access while remaining completely porous for pedestrians.

My personal favorite are the Personal Transit Pods. Too many early mornings on the El looking over vast expanses of concrete and traffic got me thinking of this application in Chicago. Personally I'd love to see something that's a cross between a Taxi and the Paris tramway - Personal pods that interact with existing public transit, while simultaneously creating greenways in their wake.

Of course these are only a few concepts that already exist but could be adapted to Chicago's extensive street network to augment its intended purpose, which is to get people from A to B quickly, safely, inexpensively, and environmentally friendly. Talk about a marathon...

The Chicagoist

Chicagoist: What's in a name?

The title of the blog follows a long line of -ists and -isms that denote some form of interest in the prefix. In this case, I have an interest in what is happening in and around Chicago.

Then why ORDist?

The main reason is because someone beat me to "Chicagoist" There are many enthusiasts of the City by the Lake.

The second reason is because ORD denotes the airline code for Chicago's O'Hare airport. This is significant because of what this blog will be about: Issues relating to architecture, planning, and infrastructure in the city of Chicago. Just coming off a failed bid for the Olympics, Chicago is faced with a lot of unique opportunities; will a few of the magnificent buildings be constructed despite little need for them? Will others be spared? What impact will Stimulus funds have on Chicago Infrastructure, transportation, greening initiatives, and new construction in the President's hometown? As the architecture and urbanism of the city breathes, this blog will attempt to breathe with it, while offering another side to the story, told by a Chicago resident. An Enthusiast. A Chicagoist.