New Columbia College Media Production Center, Chicago

This new media center represents a break in tradition for Columbia College. This post from Lee Bey's Chicago has several nice images.

"Columbia College is an historically non-traditional arts college housed in series of traditional looking converted late 19th and early 20th century commercial buildings in the South Loop.

But suppose–just suppose–the 120-year-old college, whose graduates are an eclectic mix of artists, actors, journalists, dancers, filmmakers, music and television professionals, constructed a building of its own? What would that look like?

Many will find out today as the school and dignitaries cut the ribbon on the $21 million, Columbia College Media Production Center at 16th and State Street. It's first building the college has constructed.The 35,500 sq ft building combines the departments of Film & Video, Interactive Arts & Media and Television into state-of-the art shared and separate spaces that allow students across the disciplines to learn and interact. Students are taught everything from set design and construction to elaborate computer-animated motion capture. Classes officially began late last month."

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
• March 24–26: Cambridge, MA
• April 5–7, San Diego, CA

Bringing Sustainability and Urbanism Together

From Architecture Week by Daniel K. Slone, exploring the intersection between sustainable development and urban development:

It is not, however, intuitively obvious to everyone why high-density, extensively hardscaped projects would be good for the environment.

First, there are some adverse consequences that do accrue if density is merely clustered without appropriate design. Aggregate air and water (surface and groundwater) impacts may be more significant and harmful than smaller, dispersed impacts that are more easily diluted and absorbed.

Second, numerous projects are advanced as urbanist projects despite the fact that they do not meet the basic criteria for urbanist projects. Often the ways these projects have been diluted or hybridized means that they cannot deliver the hoped-for benefits of urbanism, including the environmental benefits. In some instances, projects pretending to be New Urbanism have been simply a pretty way to sprawl or to deliver density without parks or connected streets, and are designed in such a way that few social or environmental benefits occur.