IBM Engineering Innovation Award
Strawn Sierralta honored in a multi-city design competition hosted by the History Channel
Architects in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles were invited to envision their cities in 100 years. Strawn Sierralta leveraged Chicago's geographic location and architectural legacy to invent an array of floating skyscrapers on Lake Michigan that will produce 75% of all the energy for of Chicago’s 9 million residents.
“The Chicago Architecture Foundation is the place where the discussion of Chicago’s past present and future happens. Our mission is to advance public interest and education in architecture and design. We just never talked about the future in terms of 100 years.”
MULTI-CITY COMPETITION
The History Channel invited "young and forward-looking designers" from the nation's largest cities to forecast their city's future.
Three rounds of competition took place, starting with 10 teams in New York City, then moving to Chicago where 8 studios competed, and ending in Los Angeles with the final 8 firms facing off.
For the Chicago leg of the competition, Strawn Sierralta was honored with the IBM Engineering Innovation Award, Valerio Dewalt Train was given the Infiniti Design Award, and UrbanLab was named the City Winner.
“All three cities have a very different but storied relationship with architecture, and those relationships are going to grow in dramatically different ways. New York is going to have one kind of future, and Chicago, because of its location in the Midwest and next to Lake Michigan, will go a different way than Los Angeles, which has a very tenuous future, being on a fault line and being a major world port. ”
PUBLIC EXHIBITION
Lt. Governor Pat Quinn praised the efforts of the competing teams as "the type of innovative architectural design that has been Chicago’s legacy to the world".
The eight Chicago teams were judged by a jury composed of Ned Cramer (Editor-In-Chief Architect Magazine), Lori Healey (Commissioner of Planning and Development City of Chicago), Diane Legge Kemp (AIA Representative), Joseph Rosa (Curator of Architecture at the Chicago Art Institute), and Leslie Shepherd (Chief Architect of the Unites States General Services Administration).
ONE WEEK DESIGN CHARRETTE
Our 13 member team included engineers, architects, an artist, model makers, a graphic designer, an industrial designer and urban planners to make it all happen in one short week.
The team's "Lake Effect" proposal imagined a Chicago in 100 years that leverages its geographic location to become a source of renewable hydrogen-based energy with mile-high, skyscrapers floating on Lake Michigan. The city that invented the skyscraper would re-imagine its purpose.
Learn more about Lake Effect
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