[BVictor1]

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/reale...ouch-the-river

September 01, 2016
For 3,700-home South Loop project, architects aim to 'touch the river'

By Dennis Rodkin



For a weedy 14-acre tract of land along the South Branch of the Chicago River, architect Ralph Johnson has drawn up plans for a series of modern residential towers, public green spaces and a "soft," environmentally friendly connection with the river.

The developers of the property, a joint venture of CMK and Lendlease, expect to break ground on the project in mid-September, beginning the first of several buildings in a 3,700-unit residential community called Riverline.



"It's not a single building, it's a neighborhood, and that gives us room to do things that really make a difference in the way people live along the river," said Johnson, global design director at Perkins & Will who has designed Chicago buildings including the Boeing headquarters, O'Hare airport's international terminal and a trio of edgy condo towers north, west and south of the Loop.

Riverline's use of a naturalistic river edge in place of the customary stark seawalls—a fundamental piece of Perkins & Will's approach—will be visible in the first phase of work. All the project's green space, 5.8 acres, is part of the first phase, along with the first two buildings—a 452-unit apartment tower called Ancora and a 282-condominium building called Current. The green space includes parklike areas both north and south of the existing River City building, as well as more than half a mile of new riverwalk from Harrison Street to Roosevelt Road.

As Riverline develops over the course of years, the design of future buildings now on the boards may change. One pie-in-the-sky possibility is an 80-story tower made of wood instead of steel. Timber construction has captured the imagination of architects, including Johnson, who want to build tall buildings with lighter-weight, renewable resources in place of energy-intensive steel. Working with Cambridge University, Perkins & Will designed the wood tower for a site at the north end of Riverline, but Johnson said that at the moment it's largely an academic exercise. "A lot would have to happen for that to get built, but it was something we looked into," he said.