Stroke of Genius: Part of a mayor's push to make the Chicago River a public asset, an energetic building turns structure and materials into a graceful expression of the activity it houses.
A rower crouches with her knees tucked below her fists, then dips her oars in the water and pulls back. The lines of the oars sketch an elegant V in the air, which is repeated over and over as the slender boat cuts through the water. Jeanne Gang thought about such movement when she started designing the WMS Boathouse at Clark Park in Chicago.
A 9,100-square-foot pre-K-through-fifth-grade building and a 6,200-square-foot sixth-through-twelfth-grade building for a charter school serving native Hawaiians of all ages.
Since opening in 2005, Teikyo University Elementary School had outgrown its quarters in one of the university’s existing buildings. The school wanted to give each department its own space while keeping the atmosphere warm and intimate, despite the increase in size. The architects created a cedar-clad, reinforced-concrete schoolhouse with a rakish steel roof.