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  #81  
Old Posted Nov 28, 2011, 9:58 PM
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This building and me go way back, in fact I was born in this building back when it was a maternity ward.
me too
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  #82  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2011, 8:17 AM
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In part because of the striated (poured? precast?) concrete visible on the exterior, I was curious whether the cantilevered arches are load-bearing (versus the floor slabs just supporting themselves). In case they're not, could that give NW ammunition to argue to diminish the historical importance of this work by claiming this distinctive element is a cosmetic flourish that could be added onto any building and that doesn't reflect the city's form-follows-function heritage. Actually to me that would make it more valuable because there's too much in the city that is rational and orthogonal, and we need to appreciate all the warm roundness that we got, besides the form being beautiful in its own right.
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  #83  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2011, 3:41 PM
Nowhereman1280 Nowhereman1280 is offline
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Just look at the building again for a second and ask that question once more. Do you really think those floorplates are just holding themselves up?

Yes those are load bearing arches and the striation patterns do not mean they aren't. In fact, all concrete in all buildings has that pattern because it is nearly impossible to pour concrete on an angle without horizontal striation patterns since it would just flow out of the forms if they were on an angle. I believe the concrete on Prentice is only half the story structurally. I believe there is a large curving I-Beam inside the bottoms of those arches just like the bottoms of the balconies at Marina City that ties the whole thing together. I'm not certain though and this could easily be verified as there are construction pictures around the internet somewhere.
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  #84  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2011, 3:48 PM
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I believe there is a large curving I-Beam inside the bottoms of those arches just like the bottoms of the balconies at Marina City that ties the whole thing together..
i don't know about any large embedded steel beams in the cantilevered arches of marina city's balconies, it's just a crapload of rebar in there. at least that's all i was able to see when they were ripping the arches open a couple years ago to repair/replace rusting rebar inside the arches.
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  #85  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2011, 4:00 PM
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^^^ Hmm, I could have sworn that the support of the balconies was augmented by curved steel members embedded along the bottom of the arches. Maybe I am wrong. If there is no steel, that just makes the engineering that much more impressive because the concrete is just so damn thin. They really pushed the limits of the materials that were available to them in these buildings.
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  #86  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2011, 4:02 PM
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If there is no steel, that just makes the engineering that much more impressive
there's a crapload of steel in MC's balcony arches, it's just in rebar form, not embedded beams, at least as far as i could tell from looking inside some of the opened up arches when they were doing rebar repair on them.

i have no idea what the engineers put in the canti arches over at prentice though. those are MUCH larger and support FAR more weight, so they may very well have used embedded steel members there.
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  #87  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2011, 5:16 PM
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I doubt it. The most important factor in the bearing capacity of steel is the area of its cross-section.

The second most important factor is the shape/orientation of the cross-section with regards to the forces acting upon it (This is why I-beams are typically oriented like an I and not like an H).

So, as long as you set the rebar up correctly inside the concrete, there's no need to use steel members. Even if you wanted to, it would be problematic, since the shape of the member wouldn't be conducive to a good interlocking bond between the steel and the concrete - there's not enough surface area on the steel. You'd get concrete spalling pretty quickly.

Conversely, you can't use exposed rebar to bear weight, because it has too much surface area - you'd get crazy corrosion and eventual failure.
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  #88  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2011, 6:56 PM
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I think I figured out where I got that idea from. I think the climbing forms they used to shape the balconies looked like a large curved steel member. I think I must have mixed that up in my mind to think they were putting steel into the concrete.
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  #89  
Old Posted Nov 30, 2011, 7:58 AM
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Originally Posted by Nowhereman1280 View Post
Just look at the building again for a second and ask that question once more. Do you really think those floorplates are just holding themselves up?

Yes those are load bearing arches and the striation patterns do not mean they aren't. In fact, all concrete in all buildings has that pattern because it is nearly impossible to pour concrete on an angle without horizontal striation patterns since it would just flow out of the forms if they were on an angle. I believe the concrete on Prentice is only half the story structurally. I believe there is a large curving I-Beam inside the bottoms of those arches just like the bottoms of the balconies at Marina City that ties the whole thing together. I'm not certain though and this could easily be verified as there are construction pictures around the internet somewhere.
You yourself doubted that concrete cantilevered arches could hold up the building, because you assumed there were I-beams, and then you just discovered there aren't.

Those cantilevered arches are at such shallow angles -- and have rarely been repeated in the half-century since -- that it's reasonable to think that (and ask, not assume, whether) they have a limited contribution to supporting 7+ occupied floors above them, so the floorplates' own cantilevering (rigidity) would seem it might play a significant role.

Also, the striations point you're not understanding is that the lateral forces of the arch (with the 7+ story building above it) would have to be borne by rebar (or whatever is being used to fuse together the horizontal layers of the concrete). Normally concrete's best structural use is to take a compression force (or whatever the proper engineering term is), and in this case rather than using concrete to take on the horizontal forces of the arch, it's something else, such as rebar. I have barely any idea what rebar or concretework technology was like a half-century ago compared to today. So, this is why it's reasonable to ask (not assume, just ask) about the striations.

What might be helpful is say a comment from ardecila about this - it's a question about trying to connect together 2 distinct structural members, in the same vein as his comments above about the problems of bonding I-beams with concrete.
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  #90  
Old Posted Nov 30, 2011, 2:57 PM
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^^^ Not sure what you are saying. All I was saying is it is pretty obvious that those floorplates aren't supporting their own weight. Obviously they carry some load, but, regardless of the composition (steel I Beam or not), the arches are clearly carrying most of the weight.

The horizontal striations have no bearing on this as all reinforced concrete structures have various striations in them. So does brick, hell brick has a "striation" around every single brick. That doesn't mean it is any weaker.
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  #91  
Old Posted Jul 6, 2012, 3:52 AM
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Usually I try to find the beauty in everything... but I just can't do it for this building.
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  #92  
Old Posted Jul 6, 2012, 4:29 AM
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Usually I try to find the beauty in everything... but I just can't do it for this building.
Thanks for the contribution.
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  #93  
Old Posted Jul 22, 2012, 4:02 PM
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7-20

A keeper

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  #94  
Old Posted Jul 26, 2012, 4:28 PM
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Gehry using his powers for good

It's going to be a lot harder to avoid this issue now.

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....hospital-.html

Gehry, Gang and other leading architects urge Emanuel to save old Prentice Women's Hospital
Blair Kamin July 26, 2012


Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry and Chicago architect Jeanne Gang are among more than 60 prominent architects, educators and historic preservationists who on Wednesday urged Mayor Rahm Emanuel to save architect Bertrand Goldberg's old Prentice Women's Hospital and grant city landmark status to the threatened structure.

...The signers include other prominent American architects, such as Malcolm Holzman of New York and Tod Williams and Billie Tsien of New York. Williams and Tsien just completed the new Barnes Foundation building in Philadelphia. Their Logan Center for the Arts will open in October at the University of Chicago.

Other Chicago architects who signed the letter include Joe Antunovich, David Brininstool, Dirk Denison, John Eifler, Philip Enquist, Doug Farr, Geoff Goldberg (Bertrand Goldberg's son), Phil Hamp, Donald Hackl, Gunny Harboe, Thomas Kerwin, Jackie Koo, Leonard Koroski, Ronald Krueck, Brian Lee, Dirk Lohan, Brad Lynch, Jeffery McCarthy, John Ronan, Ken Schroeder, Mark Sexton, Richard Tomlinson, Joe Valerio, John Vinci, Dan Wheeler, Ross Wimer and David Woodhouse.

Leading educators also signed, among them Donna Robertson, former dean of the architecture school at the Illinois Institute of Technology; Bob Somol, director of the school of architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago; Charles Waldheim, chair of landscape architecture at Harvard's graduate school of design and Sarah Whiting, dean of Rice University's architecture school.
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  #95  
Old Posted Aug 10, 2012, 9:26 PM
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Landmark for Many Is Opportunity for University


August 3, 2012

By STEVEN YACCINO

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/04/us...cago.html?_r=2

Quote:
.....

Designed by the Chicago architect Bertrand Goldberg, whose Marina City towers are among this city’s most iconic structures, the 1975 building has been left largely vacant since the hospital moved to a new location five years ago. Since then, tension over what to do with the property has been mounting.

- Northwestern University, which now owns the land the building stands on, has long talked of plans to raze it and replace it with a new medical research center that the school says would bring millions of dollars in federal money and thousands of new jobs to the city. But while some Chicagoans regard the building as an eyesore and would be just as happy to see it go, others, including many in the design community, are horrified at the prospect. They consider it a rare example of intriguing, imaginative design and bold engineering from a time in the Modernist era that was dominated by anonymous boxes.

- Last week, more than 60 prominent architects from Chicago and elsewhere signed a letter to the mayor urging the city to give the site protected landmark status. “Chicago’s global reputation as a nurturer of bold and innovative architecture will wither if the city cannot preserve its most important achievements,” the letter warned. Al Cubbage, a spokesman for Northwestern, said the university has been open about its plan to tear down the building for more than 15 years. While the women’s hospital moved to another location in 2007, the building’s final tenant, a psychiatric institute, finished its lease only last year, freeing up the site for demolition.

- “We feel like the building is infinitely reusable because of the way it’s designed,” said Christina Morris, from the Chicago office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, referring to the column-free, clover-shaped floor plan. The trust put the building on its list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places last year. Northwestern is not interested. Its medical research has doubled over the last decade, drawing $300 million a year in federal money, Mr. Cubbage said. The university contends that a new center, which it hopes to build in the next couple of years, will allow it to bring in an additional $200 million in research funds each year, creating more than 2,000 new jobs in the city.

- The university hired its own outside consultants to complete a study of whether repurposing the Prentice building as a research facility would work. Released in May 2011, it determined that the old structure does not have adequate space or technical standards the university needs to be competitive. “You can’t do 21st-century medical research in a building designed in the 1970s for a completely different purpose,” Mr. Cubbage said. “It simply isn’t feasible.” City officials, meanwhile, have been silent on the issue. The Commission on Chicago Landmarks, which makes the first recommendation for historic protection, has continued to table the conflict, saying discussions are continuing.

.....



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  #96  
Old Posted Aug 13, 2012, 5:22 PM
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  #97  
Old Posted Sep 20, 2012, 5:54 PM
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COMPETITION TO DESIGN NEW MEDICAL RESEARCH FACILITY

Leading architects invited to come up with inspired design for building on former Prentice site.

EVANSTON, Ill. --- To achieve an inspired design that Northwestern University, the city of Chicago and the neighborhood can be proud of, the University announced today that, pending approval to demolish the original Prentice Women’s Hospital building, it will conduct a design competition, starting in 2013, for a new biomedical research facility.

http://www.northwestern.edu/newscent...-prentice.html
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  #98  
Old Posted Sep 20, 2012, 6:07 PM
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I really hope someone submits the current design into the competition.
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  #99  
Old Posted Sep 20, 2012, 6:34 PM
untitledreality untitledreality is offline
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COMPETITION TO DESIGN NEW MEDICAL RESEARCH FACILITY

Leading architects invited to come up with inspired design for building on former Prentice site.

EVANSTON, Ill. --- To achieve an inspired design that Northwestern University, the city of Chicago and the neighborhood can be proud of, the University announced today that, pending approval to demolish the original Prentice Women’s Hospital building, it will conduct a design competition, starting in 2013, for a new biomedical research facility.

http://www.northwestern.edu/newscent...-prentice.html
Just a cheap (and offensive) ploy to try and buy off preservationists and the global architecture community. The issue of preservation is never a comparison to what is and what will be. Each building stands on its own merit.
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  #100  
Old Posted Sep 20, 2012, 6:40 PM
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I really hope someone submits the current design into the competition.
+1
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