“The Orthogenic School, which opened in 2014, is two blocks south of 61st. The first University building in that area in about 50 years, it was sold to Woodlawn leaders as an open and welcoming space for the community, then designed as a giant brick wall. Which is one reason (among many) that further University expansion still gets a frosty reception in Woodlawn.”
@DunBoyer this statement is a bit confusing. First of all, I can’t find any reference to controversy about the O-School so can you please post that information. Second, the O-school is a school - for minor children. With special needs. The idea that it would be an “open and welcoming” space for the community seems very odd, to put it mildly. Security procedures for any primary or secondary school are going to be very tight for any regular ed. program - when dealing with IEPs, spectrum disorders, and emotional wellness issues, those procedures receive extra emphasis. Simply put, community members at large are not going to be able to utilize the space. Their children, of course, might be via admission to the program. Is that what you were referring to? Did the unversity promise slots that didn’t transpire?
@HydeSnark at #12 - a small point here, but based on the article you linked to, the university’s statement seems to be in the context of justifying why they were planning to locate the charter school on 63rd, not that they are using building projects in the area to justify self-serving additional expansion. If the ban was lifted because people in the community figured that a new school in the area is a good thing, what is the problem there, exactly?
The article implies that they won’t be transitioning International House or Stony Island back to graduate housing. If they replace those dorms with the new one, a decade of dorm-building on a massive scale will only have increased university-owned undergraduate housing by a few hundred beds. To get to the point where they are housing a substantial majority of undergraduates in on-campus dorms, they pretty much have to build a large new dorm without taking existing dorms out of service. They haven’t done that in over a generation.
Of course, if they leave I-House and Stony in the mix, they will have a huge quality gap between the new dorms and those ones. One of the reasons Harvard’s and Yale’s housing systems work so well is that it really doesn’t matter which house or college you wind up in. All of them are more or less equally great. That just wouldn’t be true at Chicago.
Quoted: “The University stressed the openness of the building, and emphasized that community residents would have access to the complex’s dining hall. Manifretti (architect)also noted the interaction between the street and the dorm, particularly the setback between the sidewalk and ground floor apartments and landscaping.”
This is new and interesting. I am not sure I can walk in Campus North Baker Dinning Commons right now and eat with the students (Disclaimer: I have no intention of doing that ). Presumably this new policy at Woodlawn Residential Commons will ease the tension between the Woodlawn community and the ever bigger footprint of U of C into Woodlawn.
It’s great that they are intending for community residents to have access to the dining hall. However, keep in mind that an “open” concept for the building itself is a design attribute in order to make the large structure fit into the surrounding landscape (ie appear less imposing or out-of-place) - it’s not a statement that residents will be able to access parts of the res. hall itself or any secure courtyard or garden area. Didn’t follow the O-Center issue that @DunBoyer posted about earlier on but suspect that the reporting might have been messed up on that. A building can look “open” and “welcoming” but not allow you access.
There already IS a tunnel. Part of the old myths of the place. One urban legend was that a student was murdered down there in the 60’s. In reality it transports heat from the steam plant at 61st and Blackstone to some of the campus buildings. It’s very likely completely shut off from curious student meanderings.
However UChicago COULD take a lesson from the United Terminal at O’Hare with their tunnel from Concourse B to C, complete with weird lights and the ever-present “The Moving Walkway is now ending” notice. When first built, it also had goofy music. Perhaps the Music Dept. could assign a composition project for someone’s BA thesis.
U Rochester has an extensive tunnel system for students to use. Chicago cold is much worse than Rochester cold (yes, I have lived in both), esp on the Midway.
All these new developments will increase the population of Woodlawn and make the Green line more safe… now if only the city of Chicago would extend the Green line to the Metra…
If the steam tunnels are inaccessable to students, that is a change from the past (and the students have become less persistent). We explored all of them in the 1980s. They were creepy as hell, and the rat skeletons didn’t help.
@ihs76 -10 with 30+ mph sustained gusts is cold anywhere. All of the UorR campus building design reminds me of the wind tunnels recently created at North.
). Presumably this new policy at Woodlawn Residential Commons will ease the tension between the Woodlawn community and the ever bigger footprint of U of C into Woodlawn.