Engineering Campus in Downtown Chicago

by Anton Jerabek

To begin the design process, I determined that the site would be Chicago due to its similar river running through the city and rich architectural history. I began by laying out the basic volumes needed to accommodate the program. I stacked the two volumes because I wanted to have views of the river from two differing vantage points. The cantilevered top mass allowed for a shaded public space beneath. I then divided the bottom mass and shifted them to intersect with one another and create depth. The voided space taken from the bottom mass rendered a grandiose entrance to the campus with views of the river and surrounding city. Extrusions were then taken from the volumes to create spaces with southern natural daylighting, while creating a contrast between materialities and connecting the campus to its surrounding environment.
I used Rhino for the 3D modeling software and then took the vector exports into illustrator, where I edited line weights, added shading, annotations, and brief descriptions.