Updated 12/1/15 with information about the cafe.
Updated 12/21/15 with information about the landscape architects.
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UChicago image
The William Eckhardt Research Center, announced in 2010, has opened on schedule. The building was designed by HOK and lighting master Jamie Carpenter (who did the “Light Bridges” pedestrian crossings over the Midway, and is noted for the lobby of 7 WTC in New York). Perhaps the most significant aspect to the building, in terms of overall campus planning, is the phenomenal northward extension of the so-called “Science Quad” (previously just the “Crerar Quad”). A full third of the North Sciences Quadrangle is paved–which is more than I would like and means less lawn for students to relax or sunbathe on–but nonetheless the new quad enriches the campus and makes the west side of S. Ellis Avenue, the location of the medical campus and most science buildings, feel much more, well, campus-y–which in turn integrates it better with the main quadrangle system extending south of the Regenstein Library to 59th Street. Improved integration of sciences with humanities/social sciences in the built environment translates, it is hoped, to an improvement in the lives of science students and in the stature of the sciences at Chicago. The design firm behind the North Sciences Quad is Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA), arguably the most successful landscape architecture firm in the country.
The quad has a lot of large limestone blocks. An article on the Facilities website helpfully explains this design choice: “[C]ampus landscape designers desired to give the landscape some weight of its own, lest the buildings dominate the experience of being in the quad.” The blocks’ “scale – both as individual stones and as a long seam of stones running throughout the site – puts the landscape on equal footing with the surrounding buildings.” It is a clever solution to the problem posed by having such a tall and massive ensemble of buildings (especially Eckhardt).
The construction of the quad is an engineering feat, since a great deal of it is actually on top of the Eckhardt’s two basement levels. The design also has a sustainability component: an underground storm water retention system will be used for irrigation. These photos from the Facilities website plus a screenshot from a mapping website show a bit of what went into this effort:
Another way in which the architects and the University’s planners tried to deal with the problem posed by such a imposing cluster of buildings was in the design of Eckhardt itself. The two below-grade floors I mentioned, which are very large and deep, are important because without so much below-ground space the building would had to have been even taller. Furthermore, the building’s reflective glass creates a sense of being open to the broader campus, especially on the east side of the building which is emphatically mirror-like, a tableau for displaying the neo-Gothic limestone buildings back at the viewer. The exterior of the first floor of the building facing Ellis and 57th Street also has modest concrete strips which harmonize with the surrounding limestone, and help to foster a more human scale. The building’s glassiness is site-specific for another reason, too. It deliberately parallels and enhances the effect of the Joe Mansueto Library. These two glass buildings come together with Walter Netsch’s highly abstracted Brutalist-Gothic Regenstein Library and Henry Moore’s monumental “Nuclear Energy” to form a strikingly severe, yet beautiful, stretch of campus that feels like an essay on materiality. To look at this corridor is to reflect on the the meaning of glass, limestone, and weight itself. The Modernist and sleek contemporary glass designs put together feel more futuristic than the 21st-century buildings would by themselves (as the directors of Divergent noticed). But it is not a naive futurism; it is a seeming promise to approach the future confidently and expectantly–but not forgetting the grimness of human endeavor, and the power imperfectly wielded by the American university.
The interior the building is of course fairly bland and corporate, as would be expected in a modern, highly functional science building. But here too care is taken to “open” the building to the rest of the campus by taking advantage of the exterior glass walls, as you can see in some of the photos below. A cafe promises to be a popular student hangout (especially in the colder months, when the quad is not so inviting).
Lastly, the building obviously is very high-tech. I don’t really know or understand much about the technology and equipment that students and researchers will be using, but this video explains some of it. Clearly, having the best facilities and equipment is necessary for a school’s science program to be considered top-rate. The $215 million price tag of the building reflects the expensive science equipment needed for the University to be a destination in physics (and molecular engineering!); it’s an important investment, and the only real downside was increasing the University’s debt load. The 1940s limestone monolith which Eckhardt replaced was undistinguished.
The Campus Review 
