The Fixation, the Features, and the Fallacy
Picture a sunny day in what is usually a rainy and gray Chicago. It was the perfect opportunity to go out to West Loop. Chicago’s West Loop is home to an area called the Fulton Market district. I had already been here several times; this was a hot spot for many art galleries within the Chicago scene. This was supposed to be a science building being built for lab spaces, and I was curious to see if it was accessible to the public. To my dismay, the building in front of me looked slightly different from the pictures I had seen on Google search. I had seen a weird curvilinear banded top; this was just leveled flat at the top.
As I went in, two sets of left and righthand sided doors, greeted me twice. Eight doors for an entrance seemed overdone and strange. Entering the second door, I was faced with a huge café to the left, and in front, a posh lobby. Behind the café was a transparent bicycle storage room. Towards the far end of the lobby was a reception desk. I asked to see the property management representative. Looking around, this interior space was filled. Huge glass windows, that illuminated the space so well that it rendered the recessed fixture led lights into the windows of a ufo spacecraft experience. There was a weird rectangularly mounted glass fishtank like space, which I saw to be a fireplace. Surrounding it were a bunch of elongated and singular furniture which encircled the whole lobby. On the wall perpendicular to the glass windows, an concentrated series of plants were strewn excessively across the wall. Past the reception desk, there was an entrance gate that was key card activated, and an elevator. Although the space was immense, there was so much going on everywhere that it felt incredibly overwhelming and too overdone. This was on my mind, as I sat down with the property manager, who was willing to spend some time answering my questions about the building.
Fulton Labs is a building focused on renting out office and lab spaces to companies within the Life Sciences. Chicago, being the most “major city in the Midwest region in the States, was seen as a “possible destination that could slowly come to serve as a hotbed for career opportunities within the Life Sciences industry”. This is more reinforced by the fact, that there are numerous “funded academic institutions within or around Chicago” itself, and that those who had finished school and were trying to get into the field could start to have more opportunities in the startups and businesses that would soon come to rent out large spaces for research use in science and medical fields. This would then, in turn, encourage people to continue their careers within the Life Sciences more locally. As enough people were convinced to stay, there could be a real ecosystem that would come to fruition and rival its counterparts located in the west and east coasts. Prior to this sort of development, people would simply move out and “pick between going to the cities that provided more space and support for labs and offices on both coasts of the States. (San Francisco, in the West; Boston in the East)”.
This proposal for building up this industry in Chicago then really gained endorsement from “Trammel Crow, a Texas based development company, who then hired ESG Architects to come up with a design for buildings” I didn’t know this, but Fulton Labs is two different buildings for the same purpose in Chicago. There are “two campus buildings on two different streets, and together both buildings make up Fulton Labs”. Most of this I read online, and then re-confirmed through explanations by the property management representative, as well as the narrative of an employee of the first life science company that moved into these office spaces in Fulton Labs. He was with them throughout the whole process as they toured multiple times, and then agreed to move into the rental office spaces within the building.
What I felt in listening to this employee talk about the process of having chosen this building was so opposite what I kept hearing from the property management representative. During our whole conversation, she encouraged me to check out their website, and look up their amenities.
There were two buildings, and the amenities varied slightly with each building, though most of it was similar. I ended up visiting both locations, starting with 1375 W Fulton, and ending with 400 N Aberdeen. The distinction on the website was clear; on Google Maps, it was misleading and unclear, and I found even the accessibility going from one campus building to the other one was unexpectedly difficult as I walked from one campus to the other.
The property management representative shared with me that within Chicago, there was a a competition, or a “war” as she explained it, for buildings to have and to offer the most wide ranging selection of “amenities”. The West Loop area itself has increasingly become the “hottest” development market. Highrise apartments would easily fill people here, as it was newer and just as good as being in the Loop. Being that housing was coming here, it would make sense to have a company close by, so future employees would be able to live in proximity to the company. In between the two buildings, there was the train station, as well as the fulton market itself, which held entertainment areas such as bars, live music venues, coffee, and restaurants. In spite of that, people often still drove around to get lunch or otherwise, because public transit and the streets in between the two are not cleanly articulated in a way where you could easily traverse back and forth. I couldn’t help but question why both buildings were built so close to each other, within the same area, and yet unexpectedly not very permissive of physical connection between the two. Why did they put so much emphasis on both buildings being in the west loop if they were going to mostly feel separate? Both buildings did have contrasting interiors and architecture. However, being that there was some time to plan both of these buildings, as well as differing deadlines for completion in between the two buildings, I could not understand why they insisted on two buildings of a similar purpose concentrated within a single area. I questioned how effective or useful it was to have two faciltiies from the same company built within such a narrow pocket of Chicago. Granted, they were rental spaces, but I kept wanting to grapple other possibilities as it related to site.
“Buildings in the Loop was falling out of appeal,” the representative explained to me. It was difficult and more expensive to demo older buildings. The Loop was becoming bland, and losing some relevance. This building would be different. It was 24 hour access. They had bike rental programs, as well as indoor gym facilities on designated floors. The spaces in the buildings were pet friendly. The insides were installed with digitally programmed “view glass” windows, which would optimize the amount of sunlight coming into the space, and minimize dust and discomfort. There were nice furniture, plants, even rooftop views which would encourage breaks. Seamless comfort and convenience would encourage the best and maximum amount of production . Companies that began to move in came to a point where they had to decide the architectural firms who would help them design their office experience in a way that could best meet their own needs within a space- for example, requesting specific furnishings which could “enhance and encourage wellbeing and productivity in said space” For this task, some people stuck with ESG, some requested other architectural firms. Such customization and acccessibility to options beyond the firm that was assigned was interesting, but seemed like a tease to the other possibilities within the context of the building. Why couldn’t tenants discuss or have input in outside possibilities choices as it related to what amenities or features they would want to have in the space? Why was everything so controlled even in its selection across the two buildings? All these options felt like a limited sampling for an issue that was in actuality, much more deeper and complex.
As I reflected on my experience with this building project, I kept asking myself about the concept of amenities. I just couldn’t get over how obsessed both buildings had been filled with an multitude of features. “A competition in the market for amenities,” the representative had said. “Who can offer the most, and how can it be presented to compel prospective companies to becomes tenants in the building?”.
This fixation on having as many possible and up to date features within the architectural process just seems to feed into a fallacy that every client can only be satisfied only when they add the most features as possible within a building and standardize it to a point where no other company can compete and have just as much as them. Where did we get this assumption that leaving a space more open and emptier is offering less to clients and consequently, “poor” and “mediocre” ? The gesture of providing features looks impressive upon first glance, but upon closer look, I couldn’t help wonder if they were just imposing as many possible amenities and additions to the building without thinking outside the box as to what could possibly be more beneficial and different to offer to them. How about a different sort of scientific space? What of having conversations and thinking through a different type of possibility of usage that might not have been initially considered or thought possible within the architecture?
In asking these types of questions, I am not trying to suggest that having too many amenities is problematic. My concern is more so about this weird obsession to standardize or limit having a surplus quantity of amenities just to “outrun the competition” , and not because they want to carefully consider how they can rethink or try appealing differently to the needs of the clients in a way that could feel fresh and unusual, and in turn, slowly start shifting our attitudes towards architecture.
There is just a blatant dissonance in how having many strangely assumed set of amenities are offered consistently to great lengths.Simply offering many features or components doesn’t mean that approach is what every client deserves within a space. There is room for dialogue about
how a space could offer qualities in different ways that were not initially thought or cared to be considered, even if it meant doing away and not adding on more features on the building itself.
To start to figure out an impetus in the competition of amenities, and features as a whole took shape, I first turned to the history of Trammell Crow. I read a biographical narrative about Trammell Crow himself. Something that stood out immediately for context was that he (Crow) became very conscious of “not having enough”. Crow wrote, “We learned things that people never know. We learned desire, “benefits of unity”, as well as “how to do without”
Also notable was that Crow was very “ambitious and determined to work, study, learn, and achieve, even more so becuase of the fact he hadn’t been successful in pursuing college”. Trammel Crow was described in this book as a “imaginative,” “innovative,” and “self-reliantin his approach” towards building his developmental empire.
These values I think support my understanding of the history behind why Trammel Crow’s company would have been interested in staying true to some of those values- encouraging a new type of industry to emerge from scientists who would start to build something from the ground up that could then contend with other hubs within that industry. A lot of these companies that they are supporting the building constructions, are also ones which are starting out and slowly starting to guide the life science ecosystem here. There is a hope that those who will pursue their studies within the field can be retained here to build something new and different. West Loop, which is slowly also incereasing in popularity, and emerging as an alternative to the outdated, downtown Loop just also seems oddly fitting to the narrative and vision Crow held. There is definitely overlap in his vision as well as his company’s support of the proposal to help push for a realization of a space that wasn’t particularly given support or consideration beforehand in Chicago. I would argue Trammel Crow’s own vision extends to how they decided on architects and thus envisioned this to be their own. These were envisoned as centers filled with endless amounts of additive features that would then promote and bring on their own growth, influence, and momentum from the spaces that were created through Crow’s company.
I also noticed parallels from the conversation I had with property management at Fulton Labs embedded within Lange’s account. Lange claims that, skyscrapers “proliferated under increasing social conditions in areas of urban density, growing businesses and technology.” Over time, buildings that appeared throughout cities like Chicago, New York, Buffalo, and St. Louis- were geared towards “industry” over “artistry”.
From this industrial focus came about an urgency for “distinction” as development continued throughout. This distinction could be resolved from what Lange describes as a “competition of superlatives” - How could buildings be “framed in such a way as to garner publicity and appeal to the best tenants possible”? Lange reveals one way was through descriptive words of -est as it referred to specific qualities: tall(est), friendli(est), green(est) buildings. Lange also goes on to say that this same competition of superlatives is “very much just present” within architecture today.
Lange’s claims about the competition of superlatives doesn’t fall too far from the rhetoric I heard in my conversation at Fulton Labs. I was struck at seeing a very conscious set of decisions beginning from being embedded within the “hottest” neighborhood with the most financial potential. With it, came along a need to offer the “widest” selection of new and specific amenities, ones that buildings situated in downtown, could only dream of competing against as they tinkered with their struggle of bringing in new developments. Rather than focusing on coming up with unique additions or even discarding certain features, there is still insufficient discourse towards an approach that would ask what features would be best beneficial and considerate to the clients, and beyond just a standardized, near premediated set of necessary amenities within a space. We deliberately assume all additions and features can successsfully translate across buildings that may not necessarily even find these to be addressing the right set of desires. Lange largely refers to this being problematic as it relates with skyscrapers, however I am convinced that, as our world has increased in population and development that has only been expedited with technological advances, this competition of superlatives would be more prevalent than ever, extending even across architectural spaces that are not skyscrapers. Distinction seems constantly at stake, as capitalistic structures continuously engage competition and establish hierarchies amongst one another.
Architects Pavla Melková and Miroslav Cikán, push for an understanding and care in the “process of reciprocity” within the vernacular of architectural discourse. Reciprocity, being that mutual understanding and awareness of what is “brought to the environment, but just as equally, what is also taken away” as a result. Architects should actively been exploring what sort of relationships are entered, and what are the consequences depending on what relationships were formed. There are many different types of reciprocal relations to be considered, ranging from “respect, love, joy, and empathy,” More specifically, I was convinced by connection as a sort of reciprocal relationship.
“Connecting is the essential moment of forming and experiencing the space of architecture, whether that be physical or meaningful” . The moment of the experience of architecture, is swift and lasting on how we come to understand our own context. I think this connection can be changed when we shift our approach towards incorporation of architectural features. It doesn’t matter how many or how much new elements can be implemented within the architecture if it doesn’t resonate with or even challenge the client to reconsider their own assumed biases of what is most necessary within a space for themselves. Reciprocity demands that there is more conversation and dialogue to actually form a connection between that of the architect and the client so that they may explore or be exposed to different types of features and possibilities in their relationship with the buildings they will inhabit. When there is too much standardization of universal needs and features, it compromises the other types of connections we could potentially create between us and the architecture. Once again, there is a necessity for reconsideration towards something like, but not just limited to “amenities”. Why are amenities about adding in more components to an already huge space? Why can’t the amenity itself be about intentionally subtracting components and seeing how that shifts the exprience or connection we have to the architecture? Or what about calling into question whether the amenities that are being placed within the spaces necessarily supports or improves upon the architecture we are trying to construct?
Within thinking about imaginative spaces, and their possibilities under a different set of considerations and connections, Marc Augé’s exploration of non provides an interesting assertion. Marc Augé, a French anthropologist, claims that people spend an “overabundance of time” within “soulless, impersonal places, i.e. motorways, airports, cash machines, digital products”. This problem, he argues, is a direct result from what he coins as the “supermodernity”, and the late-capitalist experience. Augé is pointing out that the current ways in how our physical experiences are configured, as humans within the “non places” needs to be more critically questioned. As the “non places” develop and permeate throughout our world, architecture cannot be completely devoid of responsibilty in either partaking/reaffirming those narratives, or in standing up and challenging and trying for alternative approaches in the process of how we change architecture to work more cohesively with our current conditions. Though Augé does have a fair point, sometimes non places aren’t necessarily negative, or problematic in moderation. We could be more imaginative in asking ourselves what are the non places that we currently have within our own buildings, and what spaces are acceptable in staying that way, and what spaces may benefit from changing and not being understood as a non place. Nonplaces can still be acceptable if there is some level of intention behind them, and kind of played with or challenged in location as it relates to the buildings themselves? Perhaps we could look at gaining a better understanding of how other people react, and come to terms with the non place, and how they behave accordingly within such spaces?
Senosiaian also echoes my claim in his metaphor of a zoo. He mentions that within the initial stages of constructing a zoo, there is a lot of “research carried out in regards to species lives and behavior in the wild, so that designers may better be equipped to understand how to best emulate artificial capacity to play similar role”. He claims that this is pretty ironic, because we have a better “understanding of spatial behavior as it pertains to wildlife than we do about ourselves”. Architecture, he argues, isn’t just about “providing basic physiological needs, but equally about contributing to the mental well being of inhabitatants. Senosiain claims that while physiological needs, such as sleep, rest, and wash are consistent across time, psychological needs have much more variation due to aspects such as social class, culture, and invidual differences” He proposes that by “knowing the ecology of a place” where the building will materialize, and by attempting at a deeper “understanding of of individual psyche as they relate to cultural worldview”, we will hopefully have environments that are more “apt and comfortable to ourselves”. Senosiain, who is an architect himself, is aware of the notion that current discourse in architecture is not enough in tune with trying to innovate and reimagine the human experience. How can these set of competing desires and interests be negotiated within a space in such a way that they provide a different relationship or understanding or attitude to what we care and expect from our architecture. I don’t agree with Senosiain fully; spatial behavioral in humans is probably being carefully researched and understood. However, these fields of study such as sociology, anthropology, and psychology have not yet reached a point where there’s enough collaboration or assimilation in thought to actively be challenged through those types of discourse. Architecture seems more focused on a series of motives and conversations depedent upon curation more so than about a sort of improvisation, or experimentation that could lead to different conclusions.
Sollohub, in relation to these themes I felt like added a different dimension for me to this argument, and that was in “urgency of the moment”. Why do we care so much about this now, and why is it something that needs to actively be in conversation in modern architecture? Sollohub raises an interesting view of the millenial as it relates to generational attitudes. He argues that milennials have really started to change and disrupt previous ideas of how to navigate, manage, and negotiate in response to all the changes and complications that are growing within the current world. Millenial behaviors and characteristics, he argues, are critical in this time, because they “encompass traits that weren’t as apparent in previous generations- traits such as tolerance, team orientation, and a self confidence and optimism in the face of being confronted with big challenges”. I think Sollohub wants to suggest that the future lies inherently within the millenial mindset. Sollohub sees this mindset as promising and uncharacteristic of the complacency and the departure from the discourse of architecture that was pervasive throughout. Although, I do agree that this millenial mindset has been beneficial in its own way in rethinking architecture, I think we must exercise caution in assuming that milenial behavior will always inform human behavior and attitude in a way that is positive. Sollohub himself acknowledges this sentiment; Mark Bauerlein, he notes, argues that digital aptitude, as well as our “overdepedence to technology rather hinders and infantalizes actual abilities, especially as it pertains to millenials” . Sollohub claims that the millenial confidence in part arises from technological prowess, which could be true, but doesn’t take into consideration that the same confidence built from digital dependence could also prove to be more fragile when faced with some resistance or setback.
All of these different types of sentiments, ranging from the development company founder’s biographical account, to Sollohub’s assesment of the millenial revolution, make it more apparent that the current status quo of the discourse in architecture, as well as the relationship between us as humans and the buildings themselves- have not reached a point of consensus. There is without question, a disconnect that has yet to be consistently confronted and discussed. When I am criticizing the amenities and the consistent obsession with assorted features, it is not meant out of distaste. It is more so about the fact that this idea of amenities is treated in a way of competition and some weird assumption that more quantitative features will automatically translate into making a space much more appealing and superior in comparison to their counterparts in other buildings. Not all features that are added/subtracted within a space are necessarily what’s fitting or best to integrate across all types of buildings and spaces as a whole. Everything starts out with a dialogue, and as more is questioned, and things keep being put in the spotlight, we as humans are prone to make more of a concerted effort to adress and make adjustments to what is the current norm. Fulton Labs was in a way, just a beginning exercise of coming to terms with recognition of a set of problems that have long accumulated, but have largely been unable to materialize into change from discourse. Buildings and architects who make arrogant claims that they have changed the standard, and realized a vision of a perfect space, are doomed to lose sight of the endless range of other possibilities and complications that have not been yet adequately confronted and challenged within the architectural discourse.
Augé Marc. Non-Places: Introduction to Supermodernity. London: Verso, 2008.
Ecker, Danny, Stephanie Goldberg, and John Pletz. “Life Sciences Hub Planned for Fulton Market.” Crain's Chicago Business. Crain Communications, January 10, 2020. https://www.chicagobusiness.com/commercial-real-estate/life-sciences-hub-planned-fulton-market.
Ewald, Willam Bragg. Trammell Crow: A Legacy in Real Estate Innovation. Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute, 2005.
“Fulton Labs. Where Science Is Alive.” Fulton Labs. Accessed May 14, 2022. https://fultonla bs.com/.
Kim, Connie. “Vanqua Bio Is the Latest Tenant to Join Fulton Labs Building.” The Real Deal Chicago, November 5, 2021. https://therealdeal.com/chicago/2021/11/05/biopharmaceutical-firms-expansion-to-fulton-market-shows-chicagos-fast-growing-life-sciences-industry/.
Koziarz, Jay. “Fulton Market Development Boom Creeps North, toward River West.” Curbed Chicago. Curbed Chicago, November 27, 2019. https://chicago.curbed.com/2019/11/27/20984510/fulton-market-development-construction-aberdeen-office.
Lange, Alexandra, and Jeremy M. Lange. Writing about Architecture: Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2012.
Melková, Pavla, Miroslav Cikán, and Martin Tharp. The Architecture of Reciprocity. Prague: KANT, 2020.
Senosiain, Javier. Bio-Architecture. Oxford: Architectural Press, 2003.
Sidransky, AJ. “Amenities Fill the Bill in Chicagoland - Living the High Life.” CooperatorNews Chicagoland, The Condo, HOA & Co-op Monthly. CooperatorNews Chicagoland, October 2016. https://chicago.cooperatornews.com/article/living-the-high-life.
Sollohub, Darius. Millennials in Architecture: Generations, Disruption, and the Legacy of a Profession. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2019.
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