Urban areas have to collaborate and rely on intense and thoughtful design, resulting in carefully constructed, beautifully orchestrated areas. However, that process may go to the wayside outside of the urban core, delivering solely to meet demand or quick profits. This Crain's Chicago Business piece discusses the need for better design beyond downtown.
"Affordable housing that doesn't look like the usual” headlined an excellent May 9 Crain's story about Landon Bone Baker Architects winning two Driehaus Awards for Architectural Excellence In Community Design at this year’s Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards.
Landon Bone’s latest work is exemplary of the quality of architecture we hoped would be inspired when the awards were established some 25 years ago.
Few may remember, but in the mid-'90s there was little building in the city’s moderate and low-income communities. What had been built — either housing, clinics or schools — were predominantly federally-financed institutional buildings. They were infamously known for cheap construction costs and indifference to the reflection of or impact on surrounding areas.
When we initiated the Driehaus Awards our intentions were to assert that the built environments of neighborhoods are as important as that of the city center. That urban design, which nurtures and enhances, is not necessarily a matter of money but of thought and respect.
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