Tag: tour

Open House Chicago 2011 rocked

You can see Adler Planetarium from the Sky Park at MDA City Apartments, 63 E Lake Street. 

The Chicago Architecture Foundation arranged with building owners and tenants to give the public access to awesome spaces this past weekend, on Saturday and Sunday. Aside from frustration with the interface and design problems with the website, I thoroughly enjoyed each site I visited. View a list of all the sites that were open.

I checked out:

Inside the Christian Scientist chapel at 55 E Wacker Drive. 

The Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architects. And it’s actually going to be built. 

There used to be homes here

This is a testament to the destructive power of urban highways, be they tunneled, trenched, or elevated.

While biking through Chicago’s west side on Monday along the Congress branch of the Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line, my friend Tony remarked subtly on the “neighborhood” that lines the Eisenhower expressway (you call them highways or freeways):

There used to be homes on the other side of the street.

Indeed, there were homes across from the homes, like a typical neighborhood in any city. Or something useful and interesting for the neighborhood across the street that wasn’t 12 lanes of fast-moving automobiles and a rapid transit line, with all the noise, pollution, and crashes that comes with it.

Let’s not ever let this happen again; no more highways through neighborhoods.

Olgivanna Lloyd Wright had the right idea

According to my tour guide at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, it was Frank Lloyd Wright’s third wife, Olgivanna, who suggested that he open a studio in a warmer state as a place to spend winter. (His winter studio is in Spring Green, Wisconsin.)

Looking north at the studio (left) and dorms (above).

Our wonderful tour guide. She graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

See more photos of my Thanksgiving trip to Arizona, including to the Grand Canyon National Park.

A map of buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park

I would like to hear feedback on the design of this map I made for school. It shows the location of buildings in Oak Park, Illinois, by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The map is accurate; the building listing is from Oak Park Tourist. Feel free to print out the map and go on your own walking tour!

I created this map based on data provided to me by my GIS for Planners class instructors. Also in the assignment they gave limited background on who is commissioning the map, who will use the map, and the information it should describe and display. As the class has progressed, the assignments have become more open ended.

However, in making maps, there are always certain elements you cannot do without. Map makers include a scale bar, north arrow, and source information so that their map appears trustworthy. A legend is most often required, but many times maps can be designed intuitively so that users do not require a legend. I have attempted to design this map like that: I excluded a legend. Map users should be able to discern that the black and gray lines represent streets and also that the larger map with the gray background is a zoomed in portion of the smaller map.

I have posted other maps to my Flickr that you can also browse, some I made because of assignments, and others for personal interest and practice.