A four-story, 17,000-square-foot addition to the kindergarten- to eighth-grade Erie Elementary School’s existing quarters in a former Catholic school in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood.

As many American architects know too well, public schools in the U.S. lose out big-time on the scale of invention compared to their European and Asian counterparts.

In the romantic version of the story, creative genius endures poverty in pursuit of a higher calling.

Though little more than 10 miles to the south, Grand Crossing is worlds away from Downtown Chicago.