Guest blogger: Landon Bone Baker Architects. Landon Bone Baker Architects were the lead architects for both SRO projects. Residential hotels constructed in Chicago between 1880 and 1930 served as an indispensable component of the city’s housing stock, offering an affordable housing option in prime locations. These single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels served a critical role in housing a large segment of the city’s middle- and working-class residents, and many continue to do so

In early spring, Historecycle donned a hardhat and steel-toed shoes and returned to Chicago’s Glessner House to witness the crowning touches of the geothermal well drilling on site. Joggers in the adjacent Chicago Women’s Park, where trees were just turning green, were oblivious to another type of greening happening next door. In Glessner House’s courtyard, on the other side of the brick wall that separates the park from the building, four holes were being bored through bedro

The first thing that meets your eye when you enter Plant Chicago is an aquaponics tank and rows of kale, lettuce, and other vegetables sprouting in water. Look closer into the tank and you’ll see tilapia and perch swimming around. Among a myriad of other pursuits, the people at Plant Chicago are raising greens fertilized by, of all things, fish waste. In 2019 Plant Chicago took up residence in a two-story, south side building that operated as a firehouse from 1908 to 1978. T

Take a grand old city library with a domed exterior and palatial marble rotunda inside. In the mid-1950’s, expand the landmark with an addition behind the 1898 building. Then, in 2010, top off the addition’s sturdy roof deck with the icing on the cake: a 33,000-square-foot green roof plus an array of 132 solar panels. Result: a big bang for your energy-savings buck. The Central Library is one of Milwaukee’s showcase buildings for green infrastructure. Its green roof is an in

Chicago’s West Town has been experiencing a boom. Not only are humans moving in, but bees are as well. This spring, for example, saw the installation of five active beehives on the roof of the building that the company The Roof Crop calls home. The solid 1928 two-story, industrial structure, originally meant to house taxicabs, is one of the first in the city to be topped by an urban farm. The Roof Crop crew moved in in 2015, after tearing out the original roof and installing

Colorful. Comfortable. Inviting. Not adjectives that describe your typical vocational school building. What was originally a nondescript brick hardware equipment factory built in 1908 on Chicago’s southwest side was gutted, cleaned up, and transformed into a modern training center. The goal of Chicago Center for Arts and Technology (CHICAT ) , which opened in 2017, is to connect technology, art, and the community. To get to class, CHICAT students – low-income adults and teena

Light defines Frank Lloyd Wright’s Beth Sholom synagogue in the Philadelphia suburb of Elkins Park. Even on a rainy day the inside of this temple seems bright. Daylight streams through its transparent ceiling, as if from the heavens, into the “house of peace” (Beth Sholom in English) . The pyramid-shaped structure, built high on a hill in the 1950s, is a National Historic Landmark, so changes to the temple pose a challenge. (Most of Wright’s original brown Naugahyde seats ha

Time is of the essence for firefighters. In old firehouses like the one at 1700 W. 95th St. on Chicago’s South Side, firemen would sleep upstairs and, at the alarm bell, zip down the fire pole, rev up the fire truck on the ground floor, and zoom out to extinguish the flames. Now that Optimo Hats , a manufacturer of luxury men’s hats, has moved their headquarters into the 1915 firehouse, things have slowed down a bit. The handful of hat craftsmen who work there can peek throu

Downed too many St. George’s Green Chile Pepper vodkas at Obed and Isaac’s in Peoria, Illinois? No problem--you can pray for sobriety without leaving the premises, which started out as a Presbyterian church. The 1889 building, a city landmark that’s also on the National Register of Historic Places, was salvaged by the Conn’s Hospitality Group, a family business that specializes in renovating older buildings. The church, also known as the Cornerstone Building, reopened in 20

Acrophobes and the faint of heart need not apply. All others will be delighted to discover that the alpha male of skyscrapers, the Empire State Building, has reinvented itself as a supergreen structure. A top-to-bottom, four-year renovation of the historic landmark began in 2009, with the chief goal of maximizing energy savings. Like King Kong, construction workers clambered around the storied 102-story building, barely noticed by the stream of office workers and visitors tha