The LEED Gold development is planned for the space between Greenwood and University avenues, and 55th Street and the Henry Crown Field House. The University will demolish Pierce Tower, a 1960 Harry Weese building that currently occupies the site, beginning in August.
Studio Gang’s design transmutes several trends prevalent on campus.
Its open orientation — airy pathways lace the landscaped courtyards, leading to nearby attractions like the Smart Museum of Art — reaches out to a community that has seen a commercial and cultural boom. In recent years the University has
The buildings’ graceful curvature and expansive windows speak to the University’s increasingly contemporary architectural portfolio, which includes the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts and the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library, a sweeping steel and glass dome designed by JAHN (then called Murphy/Jahn). Yet beveled concrete edges speak to a sculptural aesthetic that owes much to the University’s gothic heritage.
Gang’s won’t be the only project to swap stodginess for a mix of modernism and homage. The University’s economics department will move into a rehabbed seminary building, in an Ann Beha Architects-directed project that balances gothic regalia with a modern research pavilion along Woodlawn Avenue.
