DISTILLED FARMHOUSE Compelled by sentimentality and the knowledge that the former owners (a farm family) would be retained to work the land, a Chicago couple commissioned architect Margaret McCurry to convert a 26-acre (11-hectare) farm in Galien, Michigan, into an expanded family compound while preserving as much as was practical of the original farmhouse. — Published 2012.0411
	THE STORY OF SAARINEN'S JOHN DEERE HEADQUARTERS Carefully tucking away "the car's fat shine" was integral to the definitive Deere & Company Administrative Center in Moline, Illinois, later renamed Deere & Company World Headquarters. The exemplar for all subsequent corporate estates, it brought together landscape, site plan, and architecture into an elegant and commanding solution. Deere definitively proved the corporate value of the high-image, high-style suburban headquarters. — Published 2011.1207
	AIA'S BEST NEW BUILDINGS FROM CHICAGO A glass dome rises from a lawn on the University of Chicago campus. The ellipsoidal structure by Murphy/Jahn — a counterpoint in form and materials to the eclectic buildings around it — is a refined tip of the iceberg for the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library. — Published 2011.1207
	LEED FOR EXISTING BUILDINGS The Empire State Building made headlines recently for achieving LEED Gold certification following a major green retrofit project that will reduce the skyscraper's energy consumption by more than 38 percent. The building's electric chiller plant was rebuilt, electric meters were installed at the tenant level, and all 6,514 window units were removed, refurbished to improve their energy efficiency, and reinstalled. — Published 2011.1012
	STUDY IN ENGINEERING Architecture as a teaching tool is a very old idea. Think about those cathedrals whose stained glass and sculpture indoctrinated their congregations on the lessons of Christianity. And when Thomas Jefferson was planning the University of Virginia, it is said that he intended the architecture to function partially as text; he had designed the pavilions along the great lawn in different architectural styles to instruct students on Western architecture's greatest achievements. — Published 2011.0824
	AN EXCELLENT ADDITION Designing an appropriate addition to almost any National Historic Landmark should be seen as a challenge. When the landmark building is by Frank Lloyd Wright, the challenge acquires its own dimension in history. In their new addition to an American masterpiece of religious architecture — Wright's First Unitarian Society Meeting House in Madison, Wisconsin — The Kubala Washatko Architects has risen beautifully to such a challenge. — Published 2011.0525
	CENTER FOR NEIGHBORHOOD TECHNOLOGY The Center for Neighborhood Technology in Chicago, Illinois, moved into a former textile factory in 1987 and began its second renovation in 2000 to accommodate greater space needs. Designed by architect Jonathan Boyer (now a principal at Farr Associates), the new office space offers an exemplary model of sustainable adaptive reuse that takes advantage of environmentally responsible products and technologies not available in the 1980s. — Published 2011.0511
	MINNESOTA AIA AWARDS The house on Bert Hodus and Donna Brogan's farm takes design cues from a farm icon. With its south facade "warped" by design, the couple's new home evokes the graceful sag of many aging 19th- and 20th-century American barns. The Blair, Wisconsin, house is wrapped in rainscreen siding of locally harvested, rough-sawn white oak, evocative of the clients' own turn-of-the-20th-century red barn nearby. And the window and door openings are few and large. — Published 2011.0202
	RIPPLE EFFECT Your first reaction to seeing Aqua Tower as it commands the Chicago skyline might be, "What happened to that skyscraper?" It looks as if some of its concrete floor fins might have been worn away over years of exposure. Or perhaps some kind of pervasive organism has taken over a sleek glass tower, crawling all over its facade — the Blob meets Howard Roark's Enright Building. — Published 2011.0105
	AIA MICHIGAN AWARDS 2010 The Richmond Center for Visual Arts in Kalamazoo is striking, with building forms tied to its arts hub functions. Copper cladding, curving in two dimensions, wraps the lobby and front exhibit areas, setting off a large glazed facade section that allows natural light deep into the space. The lightness of the glass and copper, and of zinc that wraps the lecture areas, contrasts with the visual weight of the precast concrete panels cladding the rest of the building. — Published 2010.0811

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