JAMES R. THOMPSON CENTER
CHICAGO PRIZE 2021
CHICAGO ARCHITECTURAL CLUB CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE CENTER
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COMMITTEE’S RECOGNITION
GATEWAY TO THE CITY FOR THE CITY The vision for the original Thompson Center imagined a place for the people that used transit and civic service to unite Illinoisans. The future builds on that vision by becoming a Gateway serving two primary audiences; Chicago’s communities and those that are visiting. Reimagining the CTA station, a new public terminal pavilion and express travel to O’Hare and Midway positions the Thompson Center as the central welcome moment for downtown and beyond. More critical than leveraging the site’s excellent location and convenient access to transit is programming the facility to serve the people of Chicago. Pairing public programs like community innovation offices, childcare, workforce training and housing with retail, services and transit creates a balanced ecosystem that unites diverse groups of locals and visitors in one central location. Physically opening the building up welcomes people inward, revealing an open air market and clarifies wayfinding for unfamiliar users. The new community programs are connected by shared levels and bridges that promote interactions and create new vantage points to see both inward to the architecture and outward to the city. Visibility through the layered subterranean experience creates an intuitive connection between use and user. Recladding the envelope and reducing the enclosed area lessens operating costs, while PV, natural ventilation, biophilic design and daylighting enhance wellness and performance. The terminal pavilion focuses on honoring and enhancing Jahn’s layering of space and people, a place where locals and visitors cross paths, attracted by the public services, a market, transit and architectural history.
Entry as submitted by: Taokai Ma, Sarah Hitchcock, Tyler Meyr, Lamar Johnson, John Andrews, Robert Konzelmann, Nicholas Richards, Jonny Noble, Shuying Wu
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PROPOSAL FOR THE JAMES R. THOMPSON CENTER
Entry as submitted by: ANONYMOUS
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UNLOCKING POTENTIAL: THE THOMPSON CENTER DESIGN COMPETITION Bright, open, iconic. The Thompson Center remains a building with serious potential to become a major 21st century hub and destination, known throughout Chicago and beyond. To honor the building and its impact not only on Chicago’s built environment but in its rich architectural history, we’ve proposed three key interventions to make the Thompson Center everything it can be. Celebrate the atrium. The Center wouldn’t be known worldwide without what makes it unmistakably unique: its dramatic, cylindrical atrium. We opened up the building to highlight and project the atrium so that it shines from a distance. To intrigue nearby pedestrians, we elevated the form with a gently sloping ramp that wraps up its glassy enclosure, rewarding those who reach the top with a garden lookout and restaurant. Journey through the building. We peeled back the exterior wall closer to the atrium and created a curving, veil-like wall that drapes on the building’s northeast side. In doing so, we open up the plaza for a more engaging and pleasant pedestrian experience. The new, slimmer volume would be converted to mixed-use, with a boutique hotel taking up the bottom floors and a combination of market-rate and affordable residences occupying the upper floors. Respite along Lake Street. To draw passersby and tourists to the Center, we pulled in the east exterior wall and integrated a hardscape concept that works harmoniously with the building’s architecture, improving the urban experience from all angles. The result is not only visually interesting, but also programmatically relevant.
Entry as submitted by: Katie Lambert, Michal Ciurej, Cody Bailey, Jackson Bochat, Piotr Bronkowski, Michael Fitzgerald, Hannah Galkin, Yong In, Dijo Mathews, Sean Miller, Donovan Sandoval, Matthew Schapen, Alaina Spiers
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THOMPSON SQUARE The Thompson Square is as much an architectural competition entry as it is an homage to Helmet Jahn. The design and graphic representation of this project recall Jahn’s history in Chicago as well as his unique style in an age of computer imagery. The central idea in this entry is to bring the Chicago Central Library currently housed in the Harold Washington Library Center on State Street to the Thompson Center and in doing so reinvest in this building as a public space open to all. The central atrium of the Thompson Center is an incredible interior space unmatched in size and brilliance and few public uses would be capable of occupying a building of this size. Existing public transportation lines and the addition of an 80-floor mixed use tower would give the city an urban indoor gathering space which could be utilized year-round. The addition of a tower along the Lake Street façade preserves the integrity of the central atrium and respect Jahn’s primary elevation design as well as recall his own competition entry for the Harold Washington Library which if built would also have spanned the CTA line over Van Buren Street. The proposed plan to sell and perhaps demolish this incredible building is an awful prospect. This project attempts to not only save the Thompson Center but increase its relevance as a destination as a library as many other cities have begun to see that the libraries of tomorrow are so much more than only books but community centers.
Entry as submitted by: RYAN CHESTER
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THE THOMPSON SPIRE When the Thompson Center was built in 1985 it was a radical design, in appearance and program. Over 35 years later is it under threat of demolition. The magnificent atrium has been cited as energy hungry while the glazing does not meet modern standards and was already victim of budget cuts when being built. The proposal’s main objectives are to preserve the atrium while improving the overall energy efficiency and maximize plot usage by transforming the building into a tower. The atrium is transformed into a semi-outdoor space, the office spaces towards it receive an insulated (glass) façade. The biggest transformation is the addition of about 1.4M square feet across 62 floors with CLT-concrete composite slabs that rest on a transfer frame above the existing building. The curved shape of the existing building extends to a height of over 1000 ft. The transfer frame is supported by the exterior CLT-façade columns and CLT-reinforced existing columns. The transfer frame at what is now roof level holds the partially open sky lobby of a hotel, accessed by the extended existing elevators. The glass façade between the new CLTgrid covers the old façade turning it into a double façade. New elevator cores next to the existing main core provide access to apartment levels on the upper floors and an extra set of elevators accesses a sky lounge at the top from where visitors can proceed to an observation deck in the tip.
Entry as submitted by: Arnd Dewald
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JURY SELECTED HONORABLE MENTION
THERE’S SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE! “Civic” means more than government, and the Thompson Center’s established civic role deserves to be consecrated even as governmental workers depart. Rather than settle for generic, homogeneous “public space,” so often devoid of specificity and character, we propose to pack the Center with a host of activities and spaces – spaces comprising a diversity of qualities reflecting the broad cross-section of interests of the people of Chicago. These new programs advance inclusivity. People from all walks of life feel that they belong here, can do something they like – there’s something for everyone – and the Center now truly performs as a social hub. Different cultural groups and interests have the opportunity to link to related programs: the South Side Community Art Center to a muraldriven space, or the Siskel Film Center to a cinema, or Deeply Rooted to a performance stage, as examples. How to bring such a rich diversity of events to this site? The Thompson Center is one in a line of “strong volume” projects in a city generally focused on exterior forms and surfaces. The Center’s atrium is the perfect repository for this mix of programs & spaces, embodying the multiplicity and messiness of a democratic, equity-driven society to which we aspire. Support and service spaces – these programs’ “back of house” – occupy the building’s floor plates. The ability of these uses to live cheek-by-jowl, loosely packed, retaining their autonomy but with a common purpose, gives the Thompson Center a second life as a relevant civic monument.
Entry as submitted by: DSH // architecture Chava Danielson, Eric Haas, Tim Jordan, Bohan Charlie Lang, Xixi Luo
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JURY SELECTED WINNER
PUBLIC POOL The Thompson Center is an essential component of Chicago’s public sphere – its central atrium volume is one of the great civic spaces in the city because of its connection to transit, pedways, and the Loop. Architecturally, the Thompson Center has never been ideally suited to its use. While its civic ambitions were realized, the building’s excessive glazing and high heat loads made conditions very uncomfortable for occupants. When the Center first opened, employees would wear swimsuits to the office. This foreshadows what the building should always have been – a waterpark. Instead of resisting the environmental effects of its architecture, the Thompson Center should embrace these greenhouse-like qualities and become an indoor waterpark set in a garden. The public nature of the Atrium is preserved, maintaining access to active retail at Ground Level, the CTA Blue Line, and Pedway tunnels. Ticketed access is added in section, where the Concourse Level is converted to host the Atrium Pool, Splash Scape, and Auditorium Pool, which opens to the Plaza with a new skylight. Office space above Ground Level becomes a Hotel, which actively engages the Atrium with slides and activity climbing vertically from the pools. Two monumental waterfalls complete the experience for park-revelers and the public. Green features spill out to the Plaza, while a public Roof Park pulls nature into the sky. Public Pool extends the use of the Thompson Center by adopting a program that is accessible to a greater demographic of Chicago residents, and becomes a destination that is completely unmatched in Chicagoland or any urban center in North America.
Entry as submitted by: David Rader, Jerry Johnson, Ryan Monteleagre, Matt Zelensek
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ASSEMBLING THE ATRIUM :: A PROPOSAL FOR POPULATING THE PEOPLE’S PALACE To capture the true potential of The Thompson Center, we must reimagine the building’s two most iconic and arguably problematic features – its massive single-pane southern-facing curved façade and its 17-story circular atrium. Despite sustainable aspirations and symbolic narratives, both elements fail to render the existing structure the energy-efficient social center that Jahn aspired for it to be. Pursuant of the original architectural agenda, we first remove the principal façade’s vertical glazing and then repurpose the demolished glass as aggregate in a new multi-dimensional surface that platforms instead of reflects the city. The new surface, which moves organically from the plaza into the atrium, acts as a scaffold for new programs to fill the building’s void and literally bring civic activity into its center. A new Neighborhood Forum, comprised of contemporary meeting spaces dedicated and personalized to each of Chicago’s 77 unique neighborhoods, flank the 17-stories of the rotunda. The north, south and west facades are stacked with dwelling units to both capitalize on the valuable real estate and the existing floor plans which easily allow for a doubly loaded corridor layout. Drawing on Chicago’s long history of celebrating green spaces as public good, which dates to Burnham’s Plan, a new year-round space for the Chicago Vertical Gardens (CVG) occupies the Thompson Center’s core. A partnership between the Chicago Park District and Chicago Botanic Garden, CVG would become a new spectacular green amenity situated at the city’s center attracting residents and tourists alike – a People’s Palace like no other.
Entry as submitted by: DAAM - Elyse Agnello, Alex Shelly
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