The
Firm of Architecture Department Director Karen
Fairbanks Named as One of Two Winners in the Chicago
Public Schools National School Design Competition
KoningEizenberg Architecture and Marble •
Fairbanks Architects selected to design two new
elementary schools
KoningEizenberg
Architecture of Santa Monica, California and Marble
• Fairbanks Architects of New York City were
announced as the winning architects in the Chicago
Public Schools' (CPS) Design Competition at a
public ceremony on Wednesday, April 11, 2001 at
the Chicago Cultural Center.
Marble
• Fairbanks Architects won the competition
to build a school at the South side site, located
at 103rd and Princeton in the Roseland neighborhood.
The school will be built on the site of the current
Langston Hughes Elementary School and will also
house students from both Langston Hughes and the
Davis Developmental Center. Marble • Fairbanks
Architects designed a two-story structure utilizing
a system of ramps that allows easy movement throughout
the school, fosters the sharing of programs, and
creates easy access to a communal courtyard. The
building is designed to give students access to
all programs and facilities while maintaining
a clear distinction between the separate schools-within-a-school.
"The generative space of each small school acts
as a bootstrap for the school to generate its
own identity and link to the larger community,"
said Scott Marble.
Principals
Scott Marble and Karen Fairbanks were the lead
architects on this project. Both Fairbanks and
Marble earned Masters of Architecture from Columbia
University, where they won American Institute
of Architects (AIA) Medals and William Kinne Fellowships.
In addition to her partnership at Marble • Fairbanks
Architects, Fairbanks is the director of the Barnard
and Columbia Colleges Architecture Program. Marble
also teaches at the Columbia University Graduate
School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation,
and since 1995, has been the editor of the school's
catalogue, Abstract.
The
KoningEizenberg Architecture firm designed a school
for the competition's North side site, located
in the Irving Park neighborhood at Elston and
Sacramento Avenues. The schools slated for occupancy
of the new school are Inter-American Magnet School
and the Frederick Stock School. "We imagined a
relaxed school environment, supportive of small
school philosophy - a place where teachers, parents,
and students could teach and learn most effectively,"
said Julie Eizenberg, President of KoningEizenberg
Architecture.
KoningEizenberg Architecture's design is a single-level
building housing clusters of classrooms, each
creating a neighborhood environment for the students
and staff. A separate early childhood center provides
younger students with a building designed to their
own scale. The design also incorporates an indoor
play space as well as an outdoor discovery area
for students to gain a nature experience in a
safe environment.
KoningEizenberg Architecture was established in
1981 by Julie Eizenberg and Hendrik Koning. Both
earned Architecture degrees from the University
of Melbourne, Australia and the University of
California, Los Angeles. The firm, celebrated
for its imaginative, site-specific, people-oriented
workmanship, has earned previous recognition for
groundbreaking work in housing and community-based
projects. In 1987 it received the Progressive
Architecture First Award for creating affordable
housing in Santa Monica.
The
two-stage competition was both an invited and
an open competition. After selecting four invited
architects to participate, the sponsors announced
an open call for designs. First Stage submissions
for the competition were due in January. The jury,
including representatives of the architecture,
educational and Chicago communities, convened
the weekend of January 19-21 to select four designs
from among 115 open competition submissions for
the north and south side schools.
The
eight competition finalists, who moved on to Stage
Two of the competition, were asked to complete
further design development as well as to engage
in conversations with educational, architecture
and civic communities in Chicago for feedback.
The finalists for the north side site were invited
architects KoningEizenberg Architecture (Santa
Monica) and Ross Barney & Jankowski (Chicago)
and open competition architects Lubrano Ciavarra
Design (New York) and Jack L. Gordon Architects
(New York). The finalists for the south side site
were invited architects Smith-Miller + Hawkinson
(New York) and Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects
(Atlanta) and open competition architects Marble • Fairbanks Architects (New York) and GROUND DESIGN
Studio (Ann Arbor). Sponsors were delighted that,
through the jurying process, designs from both
an invited architect, KoningEizenberg, and an
open finalist, Marble • Fairbanks, were selected
as winners.
The
schools will be accessible for all students without
being disability centered. CPS plans to begin
construction on the two winning designs no later
than 2004 as a part of its Capital Improvement
Program. In addition to featuring universal design,
competing architects were asked to address issues
of innovation, feasibility, contextuality and
small schools in their designs. These criteria
guided the Jury's decisions and framed the community
discussions on the finalists' designs.
The
architects on the jury include Ralph Johnson,
of Perkins & Will in Chicago; M. David Lee, of
Stull & Lee in Boston; Brigitte Shim, of Shim-Sutcliffe
in Toronto; and Lance Jay Brown, Chair/Director
of the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture
and Urban Design at the City College of the City
University of New York. Community jurors include
Dr. William Ayers, of the University of Illinois
at Chicago; and Dr. Giacomo Mancuso, Director
of Programming and Demographics for CPS. In addition,
staff members Dennis Vail of Langston Hughes and
Linda Owens of the Davis Developmental Center
participated on the jury for selection of the
south side site winner, while Marissa Hopkins,
an Inter-American parent, and Richard Smith, principal
of Stock, sat on the north side site jury.
Plans
are being discussed to create a multi-city exhibition
of finalists' designs after the completion of
the Chicago Public Schools Design Competition.
This exhibition aims to extend the goals of the
competition to a broader audience in a variety
of ways. It hopes to help school and elected officials
in cities across the country to incorporate innovative
design ideas into new school construction plans,
share new ideas with architects and architecture
students, and inspire school communities to push
for better designed school buildings. The "Architecture
for Education" exhibition will put a spotlight
on the Competition's eight finalist designs, notable
non-finalist designs, and on the innovative public
process that was at the heart of the competition.
The
first exhibition will take place at the Chicago
Architecture Foundation and at other neighborhood
and school-based forums after the winners are
announced on April 11, 2001. It is anticipated
that the exhibitions will continue nationally
from December 2001 - August 2002.
Funding
for the Competition has been provided by the Richard
H. Driehaus Foundation, the National Endowment
for the Arts, the Graham Foundation for Advanced
Studies in the Fine Arts, The Oppenheimer Family
Foundation, the Chicago Association of Realtors
Education Foundation, Nuveen Investments, United
Airlines, and the Polk Bros. Foundation.
In
addition to the Chicago Public Schools,
sponsors of the competition include the Mayor's
Office for People with Disabilities, Business
and Professional People for the Public Interest
and Leadership for Quality Education.
The Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities
was established by Mayor Richard M. Daley in January
1991 to better meet the diverse needs of the more
than 500,000 persons with disabilities who live
and work in Chicago and the additional 1.5 million
people with disabilities who visit Chicago each
year. Chicago is the only city in the nation with
a cabinet level department devoted exclusively
to programs and services specifically for people
with disabilities. MOPD promotes total access,
full participation and equal opportunity for people
with disabilities of all ages and in all aspects
of life. It seeks to accomplish this mission through
a multi-faceted approach that includes systemic
change, education and training, advocacy and director
services.
Business
and Professional People for the Public Interest
is a not-for-profit law and public policy center
dedicated to equal justice and a better, more
equitable quality of life for all people living
in the Chicago region. BPI works to transform
segregated public housing, revitalize economically
disadvantaged communities, improve public education,
and promote sensible metropolitan growth strategies.
In its public education work, BPI has played a
central role in CPS's 1995 adoption of a "small
schools" policy and continues to foster the development
of these more intimate and effective learning
environments by strengthening existing small schools
and creating the small schools Chicago still needs.
Leadership for Quality Education is a business-backed
education organization based in Chicago. LQE brings
business resources and ideas to the table to support
innovation in education, empowers new leaders
to rethink schools, and partners with others to
improve the Chicago Public Schools.
For
more information about the Chicago Public Schools
Design Competition, visit the competition web
site at www.schooldesigncomp.org.
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