Senior Architect Quinn Evans | Ann Arbor, Michigan Stories are often a powerful tool and intangible link of past, present, and future. They speak to the collective cultural memory as well as the personal, and the preservation of which can often leave an influential echo in the minds of those who come long after they have been written. In architecture, stories and narratives can be found in each building and every space within the built and natural landscape in an often visual and tactile form—or in the intentional use of the abstract space; from architectural vernacular, exterior stylistic dialect, and interior design language, to its surrounding context, and the…
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Jackie Koo, AIA, IIDA, LEED AP, NOMA
Founder, Owner, Principal KOO | Chicago, Illinois In architecture, as in literature, arts, and other social sciences, there is a wealth of traditions, movements, applications, and analyses—avant-garde, thought-provoking, and otherwise—that have shaped their respective fields throughout time and have challenged scholars and practitioners alike to consider the world and communication around them anew. For many, architecture is a form of communication, a language written through form, function, and material—and for the deconstructivist, the exploration of tension and potential contradiction. For Jackie Koo, AIA, IIDA, LEED AP, NOMA, founder, owner, and principal of KOO in Chicago, Illinois, it was the combination of philosophy and the examination of architecture that first…
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Inland Seas
Containing approximately 90 percent of the United States’ freshwater supply, and about 20 percent of the world’s freshwater supply, the Great Lakes—Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario—are a vital natural resource. Aside from providing many Americans and Canadians with clean drinking water, the Great Lakes also contribute to the region’s economy through the creation of jobs, goods, and services. Since its founding in 1989, Inland Seas Education Association, or ISEA, a nonprofit organization located in Suttons Bay, Michigan, has worked toward educating people of all ages on the importance of long-term preservation of the Great Lakes through hands-on experiential learning activities aboard a traditionally rigged, tall ship schooner. “The essence…
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Classic reborn
In a former industrial campus along Massachusetts Avenue in Indianapolis housing one of the largest Coca-Cola bottling factories in the world, a new mixed-use site known as Bottleworks District recently opened and has set down roots as a new hospitality and entertainment epicenter. The district, a nearly $300 million, 12-acre transformative initiative, is the largest private development of its kind in Indiana, and it encompasses the city’s first food hall, a boutique hotel, residential space, and more than 300,000 square-feet in flexible office space and retail space. With phase one of the district’s development completed, the campus now holds some retail and service tenants, an independent movie theater, The Garage…
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Cook County Hospital(ity)
In the Illinois Medical District on Chicago’s West Side, Harrison Square, a new micro-neighborhood is being formed that will add residential, office, and retail and hotel space to the immediate surrounding area. One transformative project in the heart of the development oversaw the restoration of an eight-story iconic building with a distinctive Beaux-Arts façade that led to a 2020 Landmarks Illinois Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Preservation Award for Adaptive Use. Decommissioned in 2002 and vacant for more than 15 years, the sprawling old Cook County Hospital has been converted into a dual-brand Hyatt House and Hyatt Place Hotel, alongside other relevant additions to the area. The historic rehabilitation project…
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Preservation by design
Detroit’s architectural fabric is rich with unique historical structures—some recognizable, others more discreet—that have continually been re-purposed for the modern-day city. They also double as keenly protected sites for historic conservationists, one of which was recently recognized by both the Michigan chapter of the AIA and Michigan Historic Preservation Network for its sensitive design and rehabilitation of two historic buildings located in Detroit’s Corktown and the Greektown neighborhood areas. The firm, McIntosh Poris Associates, is an integral full-service architecture and design force for historic building preservation in Detroit and other areas of service. Since its founding in 1994, McIntosh Poris Associates, based in Birmingham, Michigan, has garnered more than 100…
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Driving curve
Hailed as the “Versailles of Industry” during its debut in 1956, the General Motors Design Dome and Auditorium was an unprecedented architectural feat for the automotive industry designed by renowned architect Eero Saarinen, with the collaboration of Harley Earl. For more than 60 years, the iconic structure on the nearly 710-acre GM Technical Center in Warren, Michigan has come to stand as a symbol for innovation and style—reflective of the very industry and purpose it serves. It is a historical landmark where industry, engineering, design, and manufacturing minds have the ability to propel automotive design into the future; pushing the boundaries of style, form, and function. While its campus has…
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Restoration icon
Since its establishment in 1889, the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago’s Grant Park neighborhood has been an integral piece of the area’s architectural record and community engagement efforts. Many know the theatre for its distinctive original architecture by one of Chicago’s most influential design pair, Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, but it is also known for an extensive restorative effort that began in the 1960s and continues today. In July 2019, the League of Historic American Theatres recognized the Auditorium Theatre for its restorative and programmatic achievements thus far, presenting it with the award for 2019 Outstanding Historic Theatre at the LHAT’s National Conference in Philadelphia. “The historic Auditorium stood out…
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Garrick Landsberg, AIA, LEED AP
Garrick Landsberg, AIA, LEED AP, senior architect at Quinn Evans Architects in Detroit, Michigan, had a prolific and inspired, if not circuitous, path into the field of architecture and historic preservation. As a licensed architect, planner, and urban designer, Landsberg has an affinity for urban history and historic architecture—particularly that of Detroit, Michigan—and yet it was a passion courted slowly throughout his personal and professional life. “[Design] is searching for ways to make the world better. It’s the practice of trained practitioners across various disciplines—architecture being one of them—that seeks to employ an approach, skill, and knowledge to identify problems, propose solutions, and really move things into the future,” Landsberg…
