We are excited to announce we have been selected to lead the John Crerar Library Renovation Project. This opportunity was a direct outgrowth of our collaboration with the university in planning their New Research Building. That study included some initial concepts for repurposing the John Crerar Library as a hub for computation and data science at the crossroads of the physical sciences, the School of Medicine and the humanities and social sciences.
Designed in the early 1980s by Hugh Stubbins & Associates, in association with Chicago-based Loebl Schlossman & Hackl, the John Crerar Library will continue to be the university’s science library on the Hyde Park campus. However, through consolidation of the library’s physical collection, this adaptive reuse project will also provide a new home for the Department of Computer Science and Computation Institute on the upper two levels of the building. These renovated, football field-sized floors will include research space for faculty, graduate students, and postdocs, organized around a Research Commons that includes an internal stair to interconnect the floors. The highly opaque top floor will be dramatically transformed through the introduction of new, expansive windows into the existing limestone-clad facades. The project is expected to begin construction this summer, with occupancy of the renovated areas planned for the summer of 2018.
Related:
John Crerar Library Renovation
University to Create Computer and Data Science Hub in John Crerar Library
Sandrine Héroux, Sophie McKenzie, and Emily Chowdhury are each members of our in-house Fabrication team. Their day-to-day work centers on a simple question: what changes when design becomes something people can physically test?
These women challenge the notion of fabrication as a support service, framing it instead as an essential component of architectural authorship, a way to test ideas, share agency, and widen the boundaries of what architectural practice can include.
In our most recent blog, they discuss their individual paths in architecture and reflect on their experience using fabrication as a tool for fostering shared agency, community engagement and broadening the role of the architect. Link in bio!
#designalways #artofmaking #architecture #madamearchitect #womeninfabrication #fabrication #bostonarchitecture #bostonfabrication #archdaily #archisource