Columbia to build media center in
South Loop
By Marie Balice Ward
Columbia College Chicago is continuing its ongoing growth spurt by building a media production center on State Street between 16th and 17th Streets.
After a national search,
the college chose local architect Jeanne Gang, head of
Studio/Gang/Architects at 1212 N. Ashland Ave., to design the structure.
Gang recently designed an 82-story building on Columbus Drive and a
1.25- million square foot residential complex in India and is
brainstorming ideas for Chicago's proposed Olympic Village structures.Gang presented her firm’s plans for the new center at a recent meeting of the Greater South Loop Association. “Light is the material of media,” she said. “So light is prominent in the architectural design of the media production center. We are expressing the function of the building through its architecture.”
“Working with Studio/Gang, we have designed an environmentally friendly building with a colorful, distinctive, and significantly transparent façade that will be an asset to the emerging neighborhood,” stated Alicia Berg, Columbia College Chicago’s vice president for campus environment.
“Jeanne Gang and her team have worked with the Columbia team to keep design elements consistent with the fresh, creative approach that is the hallmark of Columbia College.”
Berg added that the design will meet functional and technical needs, raise awareness of the college, and address the pedestrian experience and the emerging neighborhood character. It also will incorporate the best green building practices available through Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.
The façade and main entrance on State Street will be made of glass, some of which will be colored, and feature a two-story atrium walkway. A green roof will prevent water from entering sewers while reducing the building’s heat level and acoustically insulating the building, Gang added.
“Columbia College Chicago is very excited to be in the midst of planning and fundraising for the media production center, the college’s first new construction project,” said the college’s School of Media Arts Dean Doreen Bartoni. “The center will provide students with a state-of-the-art professional production facility, serving undergraduate and graduate students in the film/video, interactive multi media, and television departments and enabling graduates to build a portfolio of finished films or games/simulations."
The College’s main film building, she explained, will remain at 1104 S. Wabash Ave. to help accommodate the 2,000 students in Columbia’s film programs.
“This new center will provide incredible opportunities for students to learn protocols used on a set," Berg said. "In addition, game design students will be able to produce finished products.
Columbia emphasizes high standards on the educational value of games, while the mission of the game design program is to alter the culture of the times.”
The 38,000 square foot center will stand 30 feet high and include two sound stages, a studio, an animation lab, four classrooms, and space for production design and costumes. The center also will provide docking space for a remote media production truck and VIP parking. The building’s glass-encased lobby will hold the Famous Players-Lasky Arch, a 25-foot terra cotta structure formerly sited at 1327 S. Wabash Ave. Bartoni added that the media production center will be available for community meetings.
Columbia needs to obtain a zoning change from M1-2 (industrial) to DS-5 (service) before beginning construction, which tentatively is scheduled to start in winter 2009, with completion in spring 2010.
The college has hired W.E. O’Neil Construction, which built the Crown Fountain at Millennium Park, the Illinois Institute of Technology State Street Dormitories, Robert Morris College, and the DePaul Student Center. For the Columbia project, W.E. O’Neil will offer five apprentice construction jobs to students at the Dawson Technology Institute of Kennedy-King College, 3900 S. State St.
At the Greater South Loop Association meeting, Columbia College
personnel noted they offer about 50 scholarships per year of up to
$6,000 each, renewable annually to students who qualify. Berg added that
Columbia is earmarking some of these awards for residents of the 3rd
Ward. Award recipients are assigned a college or community mentor to
assist their transition to college life. To learn more about the
scholarship program, call (312) 344-7130 or log on to
www.colum.edu/apply.
