So, define “high-rise studio…”

Preservation folks will recognize the buildings in the back there as the cause du jour. The Century Building (front, Holabird and Roche, 1915) and its taller sibling, the Consumers (behind, Mundie & Jensen, 1913), were typical of the commercial buildings constructed along State Street as it enjoyed renewed status as the city’s main retail thoroughfare. The two aren’t particularly distinguished, but they’re almost perfect representatives of the type, with tall retail storefronts, convenience offices on the second and third floors, and repetitive lease space from there to the attics. The Century is almost unique in its neo-Gothic styling for its time–relentlessly vertical, as opposed to the more stolid Consumers, which is strictly Burnham-esque mercantile classicism.

Unfortunately for the two buildings, they’re immediately adjacent to the Dirksen Federal Building and Courthouse. The GSA purchased them in other early 2000s and vacated them, seeing their proximity as a security risk. The two have sat, empty, ever since, with all the deterioration from a lack of occupancy that you’d expect. Preservation Chicago named the two to their 2023 “Most Endangered” list despite plenty of interest in converting their relatively small lease spans and floor plates into apartments.

The federal government made no secret of its plan to demolish the two, which would actually open up a more significant security issue. The City of Chicago, in response last year, landmarked the two back in April, 2024, essentially forcing the GSA’s hand. They responded with a Request for Proposals that comes with a handful of onerous restrictions, including a ban on residential programs, which they see as potentially providing bad actors with open views of the courthouse offices and loading operations on Quincy Street.

OK, fair enough, but what if…you could convince the GSA to design its way around those issues? That’s the premise of our spring studio–provide hotel and short-term apartment accommodation in the two buildings while taking the security concerns seriously. Last week, we met on site with Ken DeMuth of Pappageorge Haymes, one of the city’s leading designers in converting this era of skyscrapers into residential uses, as well as Mark Kuberski of Central Building and Preservation and Rachel Will of Wiss, Janney, Elstner–two of Chicago’s most knowledgeable preservation engineers, especially when it comes to the terra cotta cladding that (barely) covers the two towers.

Not surprisingly, the GSA was not enthusiastic about students touring the buildings, but Ken got us into the Pittsfield Building, where residential conversion plans have been ongoing, so we got to see first hand what a vacated office building of (about) the same era presents in terms of spaces and details–including a bucket-list level visit to the mechanical penthouse in the peak of the tower, which would provide any rooftop apartment with a ready-made conversation pit:

We’ll see what this group comes up with, but we’re hoping to show that there’s room for cleverness in addressing the real security issues here, and to be part of the conversation about how important saving even these, ‘vernacular commercial’ structures will be to maintaining the Loop’s sense of history.

Watch this space…