Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/566702
President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, the task force mission stated, "to identify best practices and make recommendations on how such practices can promote effective crime reduction while building public trust." According to Gang, her firm is using that theme to explore how the architecture of the police station can be reimagined spatially, physically and programmatically. "We are exhibiting strategies and ideas we hope can be replicated in communities around the country that are struggling with the same issues." Surrounded by architectural gems built by Mies van der Rohe, Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, Herda explains that "while the exhibition is international in scope, Chicago is by no means absent from the conversation. For more than a 100 years it has been a laboratory of experimentation and advancements in architecture. The city provides the perfect context to have a conversation about the current state— and future—of the field." And that sentiment stretches from the city center to its shore. "Our parks are a vital part of our city's heritage, and the Lakefront Kiosk Competition is an opportunity to bring progressive design to one of Chicago's most celebrated urban spaces," says Mayor Emanuel. That competition was announced late last year in partnership with the Chicago Architecture Biennial and the Chicago Park District with support from BP. The winning entry, Chicago Horizon, by Providence-based Ultramoderne, includes a sleek modernist two- story viewing platform and lending library to be built in Millennium Park this fall before moving to Lakeshore Drive next year. Three additional kiosks created by international firms partnering with local schools will be sited around 20 miles of parks, beaches and paths. Included in the mix are the Illinois Institute of Technology and the Chilean studio of Pezo von Ellrichshausen; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Amsterdam-Lagos based architect and urbanist Kunlé Adeyemi; and the University of Illinois at Chicago, with Chicago architect and alum Paul Preissner, and Denver- based Paul Anderson of Independent Architecture who designed Summer Vault, a steel arched structure with two triangular spaces at each end, both enclosed by translucent screens. When queried about the "state of the art of architecture," Preissner, a professor at UIC says, "What's going on now feels more liberated. Architecture in Chicago previously drew very heavily from its geographical metaphors, the landscape or the pragmatism of industry. Now it seems free and liberated in a way, like L.A. in the '60s and '70s," he says. "Previously they had to come from a particular metaphor. Now they come from anywhere and everywhere." 188 CULTURED The experimental Chicago-based Weathers firm focuses on harnessing energy in built environments, such as in Amplification, above, installed at Los Angeles' MAK Center for Art and Architecture in 2006. "For more than a 100 years it has been a laboratory of experimentation and advancements in architecture. The city provides the perfect context to have a conversation about the current state—and future—of the field." —