CHICAGO | General Developments

[Baronvonellis]

In the Loyola Library the carpeting on the floor is absorbing the sound reflections. Yes, you are right the rows of books are absorbing alot of the sound reflections in the New York Library. I don't see anything to absorb the sound in the University of Chicago library.

[Nowhereman1280]

^^^ Neither of those are absorbing any more sound than a complete wood floor is going to absorb. That's not exactly shag carpet in the Loyola hall. Also, one measly row of books isn't going to absorb anything in a hall of that size, especially with all their hard spines facing outwards.

Despite crappy carpeting and one row of books, both of those halls are essentially stone caves with tables and chairs in them while the Jahn is a glass dome with wood floors, there isn't going to be much of a difference in acoustics between them.

Also, don't forget the fact that the ceiling in the Jahn structure isn't exactly a perfectly smooth consistent dome. After looking closer I think the complex latticework holding it up might actually make the acoustics in here far better than either of my examples. Such a complex pattern of spaces and shapes will confuse any echoes and dissipate the sound. Acoustics is as much about diffusing sound as it is about absorbing the sound energy.

[orulz]

Whatever happened with the proposal for a mixed use building at the corner of Archer and Wentworth? As I recall, that was supposed to be developed into a 5 or 6 story hotel with ground floor retail. But then the city was going to take the property by eminent domain to build a library. But then there was some potential for a partnership to include the library as the retail space in the mixed use project.

This came up in January in this thread but was not mentioned again. See the original post by the urban politician in this same thread.

[Chicagoguy]

Hey I was driving around today for work and passed by this construction site on Broadway just north of Hollywood Ave. Does anyone know what that is suppose to be? Right now its a big 4 story skeleton, but it reminds me almost exactly of how the Trader Joe's on Diversey looked when it was under construction so I am curious!

[Baronvonellis]

Nowhereman forgive me but you don't seem to have much of an understanding of how acoustics work in rooms. I'm a recording engineer and what you are saying doesn't make much sense. So why are talking about things you don't seem to understand?

If you study acoustics you should know that a bookshelf is a perfect natural diffusor. The metal panes on a glass ceiling aren't going to do anything to diffuse the sound.

Have you ever listened to a room with hardwood floors vs. a room with carpeting? I can't stand hardwood floors because they echo so much. Just putting a cheap area rug on the floor will dramatically cut down on echo. Hell being surrounded by glass is about the worst material you could have to try and reduce echos.

[spyguy]

Not only is Starbucks planning a large flagship next to Prada, but the building housing Jilly's might be torn down for another retail box

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Chicagoguy

Hey I was driving around today for work and passed by this construction site on Broadway just north of Hollywood Ave. Does anyone know what that is suppose to be? Right now its a big 4 story skeleton, but it reminds me almost exactly of how the Trader Joe's on Diversey looked when it was under construction so I am curious!

^ I thought and I thought and....I'm baffled. I don't know what development this could be

[zolk]

Originally Posted by Chicagoguy

Hey I was driving around today for work and passed by this construction site on Broadway just north of Hollywood Ave. Does anyone know what that is suppose to be? Right now its a big 4 story skeleton, but it reminds me almost exactly of how the Trader Joe's on Diversey looked when it was under construction so I am curious!

Supposedly it's a three story medical building with parking on the first level, according to a post on Edgewater Community Buzz.

[Hayward]

Originally Posted by spyguy

Not only is Starbucks planning a large flagship next to Prada, but the building housing Jilly's might be torn down for another retail box

What a horrible design. I basically look right down on this building. I like the older building there, and think the proposed structure is bland. I would also be pissed if Jilly's was booted. I've never been to Jilly's, but I like the music coming from there and Back Room that I can sometimes hear as well as the smell of food that fills up my apartment.

This is frustrating. I don't want my block to fill up with ugly architecture and we certainly have some eligible replacements or reclads like that dump parking garage Frogbar is in. It looks like a war remnant. Why can't they do something really impressive? I understand the need for more modern retail space, but not with this piece of junk. The proposed Starbucks next door is a step in the right direction, and I'm ok with that design. But it's important to note that Oak and Rush has become an important corner. The architecture should reflect that, or at least keep some of the history. At least there's still the Prada building.

[Chicagoguy]

Originally Posted by zolk

Supposedly it's a three story medical building with parking on the first level, according to a post on Edgewater Community Buzz.

Thanks for the info. I wish I could find a rendering or something? Sounds like it could be an interesting addition to the area and definitely bring in a little more business which is never a bad thing.

As for tearing the older building on Rush down I think it should be gutted and completed restored. With Starbucks, Scoop NYC, and Ted Baker all being brand new store fronts I think it is important to pressure a little of "yesteryear" at Oak and Rush. Just gut rehab the building and make it beautiful again!

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Nowhereman forgive me but you don't seem to have much of an understanding of how acoustics work in rooms. I'm a recording engineer and what you are saying doesn't make much sense. So why are talking about things you don't seem to understand?

If you study acoustics you should know that a bookshelf is a perfect natural diffusor. The metal panes on a glass ceiling aren't going to do anything to diffuse the sound.

Have you ever listened to a room with hardwood floors vs. a room with carpeting? I can't stand hardwood floors because they echo so much. Just putting a cheap area rug on the floor will dramatically cut down on echo. Hell being surrounded by glass is about the worst material you could have to try and reduce echos.

I don't believe you work as a recording engineer if you think a shelf of books works as a "diffuser". A soft surface like stack of paper (i.e. books) does not diffuse sound, it absorbs it. A complex, yet hard, surface like the lattice work diffuses sound because it splits the wave up into a million little pieces and sends one in each direction meaning the actual echo heard by the originator of the sound is but a fraction of the sound energy remaining.

Yes a hardwood floor absorbs less than carpet, but that's not my point. My point is that a hardwood floor absorbs much more than a single row of built in book shelfs where none of the paper is exposed except the hard spines of the books. And a wood floor is a FAR better dampener than a stone like the majority of surfaces in both examples.

I actually do know what I'm talking about because I'm a musician and worked as an appraiser of professional AV equipment for a couple years. No one installs carpet in a studio and expects that to make a major difference, everyone installs it because its slightly better than wood or concrete and instead relies on acoustic foam to actually do all the work. I know enough from what I learned doing that to know the difference between diffusing sound and dampening it which you don't apparently understand. No one attempts to diffuse sound in a studio because it will still get into the mics somewhere as background noise, they only dampen sound in a studio. However diffusion can work perfectly fine in other spaces where you don't need dead quiet.

I suggest you read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_(acoustics)

Does the pattern of those diffusers look familiar to you? Yep that's right, appropriately spaced blockages such as the lattice are perfect ways to break up and diffuse echoes.

[the urban politician]

Hey guys, what are those ugly buildings with surface parking on the SW corner of Division and Wells? Is that public/section 8 housing? Just curious.

I thought Spyguy said a while back that there is a redevelopment plan for that site

[george]

5-11
The Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago

http://www.gensleron.com/cities/2010...f-chicago.html

Demolition under way

[migueltorres]

Chicago to Get One of Six Starbucks Flagship Stores

the new building to be erected at 1003 North Rush will, indeed, become a new Starbucks. And not just any Starbucks — a flagship Starbucks, modeled on the Olive/Summit store in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

This will make the new Rush Street Chicago Starbucks (which we’ll call Rush/Oak III until Starbucks comes up with its own official name next year) one of only six flagships in the world. The others are in New York, Seattle (two), Los Angeles, and Paris.

source here

[emathias]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Hey guys, what are those ugly buildings with surface parking on the SW corner of Division and Wells? Is that public/section 8 housing? Just curious.

I thought Spyguy said a while back that there is a redevelopment plan for that site

It's Atrium Village, what passed for luxury living in its day. Now it's more like relatively affordable for the area. I'm not sure if they accept Section 8 or not, but even if they do it's not their entire source of income.

[Baronvonellis]

Nowhereman, i've been a fulltime professional recording engineer for 5 years and have worked in million dollar studios. What kind of AV equipment have you appraised? In million dollar control rooms they very much use both absorbers and diffusors. You don't want a space to be totally dead, you want some reverb in the room. Diffusors act to make the reflection even and smooth.

The fact is that carpeting does deaden the sound reflections coming from the floor. Which in a large room like a library is usually the closest surface to your ear. The other reflections coming for the other walls will be much quieter.

In the picture on Wikipedia the spacing of a diffusor relates to the wavelength of sound. If you want to diffuse speech you need it spaced a couple inches apart. The metal panels in the University of Chicago library look to be several feet apart so that is much to far. That would only act to diffuse very low bass frequencies well below human speech.

Check out this diffusor.
http://www.rpg-europe.co.uk/products...sor/index.html
This looks almost exactly like books on a bookshelf. The spines of books work perfectly for diffusing sound if you can't afford a professionally made diffusor. They also act to absorb sound so that it why it is so dead in a library.

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by Baronvonellis

Nowhereman, i've been a fulltime professional recording engineer for 5 years and have worked in million dollar studios. What kind of AV equipment have you appraised? In million dollar control rooms they very much use both absorbers and diffusors. You don't want a space to be totally dead, you want some reverb in the room. Diffusors act to make the reflection even and smooth.

The fact is that carpeting does deaden the sound reflections coming from the floor. Which in a large room like a library is usually the closest surface to your ear. The other reflections coming for the other walls will be much quieter.

In the picture on Wikipedia the spacing of a diffusor relates to the wavelength of sound. If you want to diffuse speech you need it spaced a couple inches apart. The metal panels in the University of Chicago library look to be several feet apart so that is much to far. That would only act to diffuse very low bass frequencies well below human speech.

Check out this diffusor.
http://www.rpg-europe.co.uk/products...sor/index.html
This looks almost exactly like books on a bookshelf. The spines of books work perfectly for diffusing sound if you can't afford a professionally made diffusor. They also act to absorb sound so that it why it is so dead in a library.

I appraised leased and repossessed equipment ranging from nearly new 128 Channel SSL mixers to ancient Studer A-800 eight track decks to legendary and rare studio gear like AKG C12s and the most gloriously mint condition Ampeg B-15 I've ever seen in my life (granted I've only seen a few of them). Anyhow I was working on the top of the line stuff as our major client was GE Capital who does a massive amount of leasing to hollywood movie studios and the recording industry in general. Our claim to fame was repo-ing Teddy Reilly's studio when he failed to pay loans and dragging away the equipment that was used to invent the nu-jack sound. Point is we weren't just working for the local music shop telling kids their fender PA isn't worth shit, we were working on lots of equipment that were as big as $50 million worth of pro quality gear.

The company I work for actually built and assembled the scoreboard/video thingy (forget what its called) that hangs in the middle of United Center right now as well. My boss was kind of an AV wizard who also tried his hand is production and produced a few episodes of NOVA including the "Back to Chernobyl" episode.

I understand that the spacing between the lattice isn't optimal, but the spacing between the glass and the lattice as well as the convex shape of the dome will do a lot to dissipate sound.

My point isn't so much that I can prove anything about the acoustics of this room as it is that whoever the OP was can't back up what they are saying. They were saying "golly this room looks like it will be noisy" without even having been in the room and without any understanding of what acoustic tuning might have been included that they cannot see. Those ventilation pillars could contain an advanced noise cancellation system for all we know. Denizen was talking out of his ass and making stuff up that he couldn't prove simply to try to rip on Jahn for whatever reason. Same goes for the chair issue. How the hell does Denizen know they are uncomfortable? His entire argument was based on "gee that looks noisy and those chairs look uncomfortable, so they must be"...

[spyguy]

Originally Posted by Hayward

What a horrible design. I basically look right down on this building. I like the older building there, and think the proposed structure is bland. I would also be pissed if Jilly's was booted. I've never been to Jilly's, but I like the music coming from there and Back Room that I can sometimes hear as well as the smell of food that fills up my apartment.

This is frustrating. I don't want my block to fill up with ugly architecture and we certainly have some eligible replacements or reclads like that dump parking garage Frogbar is in. It looks like a war remnant. Why can't they do something really impressive? I understand the need for more modern retail space, but not with this piece of junk. The proposed Starbucks next door is a step in the right direction, and I'm ok with that design. But it's important to note that Oak and Rush has become an important corner. The architecture should reflect that, or at least keep some of the history. At least there's still the Prada building.

I think I should just keep stressing that these are mostly conceptual plans. The final design will likely depend ultimately on the tenant, so I don't think we'll end up with something so bland. The point of posting the rendering was to highlight the transformation happening on Rush and the fact that handsome commercial buildings in this area are not safe from demolition.

But on everything else, I agree. This area is very hot now, but unfortunately the types of designs we're seeing are very timid (lululemon, Bhldn, even the Starbucks building could be quite a bit taller). I can't wait until the Esquire is replaced by something equally exciting I just hope buildings like Prada are saved.

And yes, the Oak Bank on the NW corner has always bothered me. It's about time that space went upscale and became more inviting.

[harryc]

[ardecila]

Ah, clip tracks for a metal rainscreen system.

I spent several weeks recently detailing a metal rainscreen wall... I was hoping to never see it again.