Studio Gang

At last week’s Design Awards we celebrated our expansion of Kresge College at the University of California, Santa Cruz! The expansion was a recipient of an Honor Award, the highest honor given at the AIA San Francisco Design Awards.

The new academic center and trio of new residential buildings were designed to reinvigorate the Kresge campus as a vital, experimental environment for education. These buildings help restore the campus’ integrity and community spirit while simultaneously opening it up to embrace students of all abilities, the incredible natural ecology of its site, and the larger university community beyond.

Thank you to the jury for recognizing the Kresge College expansion, and our partners for helping create a project that supports the College’s current needs and future goals!

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Our design for Tom Lee Park addresses the question—how can Memphis’ riverfront become a place where everyone can play, relax, learn, connect, and grow?

Completing the first segment of our Memphis Riverfront Concept, Tom Lee Park transforms a historically inaccessible waterfront into a signature civic destination for Memphians. Designed in collaboration with , the park is reimagined with year-round public use as its primary purpose, revealing the potential for a multifaceted landscape offering memorable riverfront experiences for visitors of all ages.



📸: , , Alex Shansky

Jeanne’s new book is here! As reusing and adapting our existing buildings becomes ever-more critical to combatting climate change, The Art of Architectural Grafting proposes a fresh concept for bringing new life to older structures, inspired by the regenerative abilities of plants.

Horticultural grafters connect two separate plants—one old and one new—so they can grow and function as one, producing a thriving plant with useful and desirable qualities. In The Art of Architectural Grafting, Jeanne applies the sensibility and principles of this approach to architects and architecture at multiple scales. Using Studio Gang projects as examples, she lays out how we can “upcycle” our existing buildings and urban lands, expanding on their original capacity through strategic additions to create new utility and beauty for communities while minimizing carbon footprint.

Organized into seven chapters, the book moves between the botanical and the architectural to form a unique dialogue between them. Spliced between the chapters are short essays that reflect on the personal experiences that have shaped Jeanne’s environmental ethos and fascination with the natural world. The illustrations comprise original sketches and hand drawings, as well as photographs, architectural drawings and diagrams, and historical images drawn from Jeanne’s research.

Published by in both English and French, with graphic design by , the book is available worldwide at the link in our bio and coming soon to a bookstore near you!

Since opening in 2014, the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership has become a lively hub for dialogue and learning at Kalamazoo College ().

As the world’s first purpose-built structure dedicated to developing and sustaining leaders in the fields of human rights and social justice, the architecture foregoes the usual hierarchies of front/back and inside/out. Instead, it sets up a welcoming intersection designed to bring people together across boundaries—from international LGBTQ+ activists, to advocates for immigrant rights, to local students and community residents—for conversations and action aimed at creating a more just world.

Wood masonry, a vernacular, sustainable construction technique, was revived for the building’s high-performance façade. The exterior walls’ carbon footprint was significantly lowered by using locally sourced and minimally processed northern white cedar, which is naturally rot- and insect-resistant. The cooperative construction process also reinforced the Center’s ethos of collective action—mobilizing a diverse labor force and community to build its envelope.

See more of the Arcus Center at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s () upcoming exhibition, Acquired! Shaping the National Design Collection, which opens March 16th in New York.



📸: Image 1, 6, 7 Steve Hall © Hall + Merrick Photographers, Image 2: © Nic Lehoux, Image 5: Matt Flynn © Smithsonian Institution, Image 8: © Iwan Baan

starts next week! If you’re heading to Austin, be sure to stop by our panel, Building Resilient Public Spaces in a Time of Crisis, on March 13th from 10-11am.

Jeanne Gang, Founding Partner of Studio Gang, will be in conversation with Sean Decatur, President of , and Eric Klinenberg, Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the Social Sciences at , to discuss the multiple dimensions of designing, building, and activating public spaces for community resilience.

Follow the link in bio for more. See you there!

Looking back at one of our favorite moments from last year—bringing together Studio Gang friends and family in Paris to explore our exhibition and get crafty at Galerie Archilib! We opened a window into our creative world and design process, inviting kids of all ages to stop by and make their own diorama with help from Jeanne and our team.

The exhibition, Dimensions de la découverte (Dimensions of Discovery), included models, images, and diorama scenes of fourteen Studio Gang projects that expand the definition of “learning space.” Housed in repurposed wine crates, the dioramas were a highlight of the show, and it was so much fun to share the joy of making architecture with our guests.

Thank you as well as our generous sponsors .expertise.paris .group for your support of this exhibition.

Follow the link in our bio for more on Studio Gang’s exhibitions.

📸: .lespagnol

Now under construction, the David Rubenstein Treehouse conference center will be Harvard University’s first building to employ mass-timber for its above-ground structure. With visible wood columns and beams, the design establishes a different kind of hub for convening: a low-carbon, biophilic destination that energizes conversation, collaboration, and the wider neighborhood through embracing its community and outdoor environment.

Targeting ILFI Living Building Challenge Core Green Building certification, as well as the pursuing the ILFI LBC Materials Petal, the Treehouse uses passive green strategies and state-of-the-art systems to combat carbon pollution and make the best use of earth’s resources. Sustainable systems include an operable self-shading façade, reducing overall energy demand while bringing natural light deep into the interior and rooftop PV panels, providing an on-site clean power source for the Treehouse’s all-electric systems.

Outside, the landscape design by brings a biodiverse landscape to the campus, creating an attractive habitat for wildlife, with bioswales that work in combination with a rooftop system to retain and reuse rainwater for irrigation, lowering the building’s overall water usage.

🔗 Link in bio to learn more!

For our recently completed expansion of Kresge College at the University of California, Santa Cruz, we designed four new buildings: the Kresge College Academic Center and three residence halls.

The Kresge College Academic Center serves as the terminus of the original street, and maintains a low profile by stepping down and fanning out as it negotiates the slope toward the ravine, employing a technique common to polypore fungi. This strategy allows the relatively large building to stay in scale with its neighbors at the upper street level while bringing natural light and fresh air to the lower floors. The building also emphasizes the site’s natural ecology—utilizing a newly accessible pedestrian bridge to lead the university community through the redwoods.

The three new residential buildings, meanwhile, respond to the pressing need for more student housing across Santa Cruz today by adding over 400 beds for students. Their designs softly bend, calibrated to frame intimate, naturalistic landscape spaces, and maintain as many redwood trees as possible. Extending the social space of the adjacent pedestrian street, the ground floor of each residential building is designed around shared amenities, including lounges and a new café, where students can come together in a visually open and welcoming environment.

To protect the biodiverse life of the forest, we employed bird-safe glass to with custom-designed fritting that features easter eggs of local wildlife—including the iconic banana slug that serves as UCSC’s mascot.

🔗 Learn more at the link in our bio!

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The Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation will officially open to the public on February 17, 2023! 🥳🥳🥳

At the time of urgent need for better public understanding of science and greater access to science education, our design for this latest addition to New York's historic American Museum of Natural History forms a fluid landscape that heightens visitors’ sense of discovery and wonder. Can’t wait to see you all there!

Excited to share that the new Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts will open on April 22, 2023! 🎉🎉🎉.

Our design revitalizes the museum’s existing structures and unites them with a “blossoming” central addition, creating a 133,000-square-foot building that embraces the surrounding city and park and establishes a bold new architectural identity for AMFA. The design creates intuitive connections between the reimagined galleries, art school, performing arts spaces and public gathering spaces while seamlessly linking to the 11-acre landscape, designed by , that extends the museum experience into the park.

We can’t wait to see you there! 🥳 🥳🥳

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"You can design your own career. The model for what an architect was supposed to be, it didn't exactly fit me the way it was set up. I followed what I was interested in--nature and materials and people and habitats. Architecture is just a medium for doing what I feel I need to do and want to do in my environment."

Did you catch Jeanne on PBS WTTW - Chicago PBS last night? She spoke with Kate Sullivan about growing up in nature, the trip to Paris that deepened her love of architecture, and building Aqua Tower, all over a vegetarian meal by Carrie Nahabedian / Brindille and a walk through Lincoln Park Zoo.

Watch the whole episode at https://to.pbs.org/3fUqvUQ, featuring archival footage by Spirit of Space and some project images by Tom Harris and Steve Hall+Nick Merrick Photographers.

To Dine For with Kate Sullivan | Jeanne Gang – Architect. Founder of Studio Gang. | Season 4 | Episode 402 Jeanne Gang shares her vision for the future of architecture at her favorite restaurant.

"Jeanne Gang reminds us that architecture is meant to serve a greater purpose, whether it’s connecting with surrounding communities, environments, or individuals...Since opening Studio Gang in 1997, Gang has speckled the skyline with her strikingly geometric, architectural façades." Cheers to 5️⃣ years on 's ! ⁠
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Photograph by Tom Harris of the Beloit College , completed in 2020, on the Rock River in Wisconsin. The building transforms a decommissioned power plant into a new center for student health and recreation. ⁠
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Read more at the link in our bio.

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One of our quarantine projects was to build a new gallery, event, and collaboration space inside our Wicker Park headquarters.

📢 We are excited to launch this space next Saturday, November 20, with the opening of a new exhibition! Titled , the show tells the story of Chicago’s Blue Tin Production—the first apparel manufacturing worker co-operative in America run by immigrant, refugee, and working-class women of color—and Studio Gang’s collaboration with them on the design of 63rd House, their new community space and manufacturing studio in Chicago Lawn.

Tickets available at https://bit.ly/30ijrwI (note that registration and vaccine are both required for entry)

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Featured in Sunday's The New York Times, our design for Tom Lee Park with SCAPE and Memphis River Parks Partnership is lauded as "at the forefront of the [city's] renaissance, using design to lift Memphis’s image in the eyes of its citizens and the outside world. In a city where the gap between rich and poor, white and Black, can seem to yawn as wide as the river, the architects behind the projects cite their ambition to bind Memphians together." ⁠
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Read what Jeanne and SCAPE Founding Principal Kate Orff consider key to the project's longevity, accessibility, and success at https://nyti.ms/30puk0i
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Will World-Class Architecture Bring Civic Pride Back to Memphis? Spurred by Herzog & de Meuron’s new art museum and a rethought waterfront park by Studio Gang, city leaders turn to design to make a downtown for “everyone.”

Our proposal with The Community Builders Inc. for a carbon-neutral mixed-use building in Downtown Chicago has won C40 Cities competition! Assemble Chicago will create 207 carbon-neutral residences for downtown workforce earning as little as minimum wage, revitalize Pritzker Park, and add community spaces and amenities to the Loop.

"Evolving Chicago's architectural traditions with 21st-century building technologies to address the urgent crises of housing inequality and climate change, our design establishes Studio Gang’s first fully affordable residential community within C40’s ambitious, carbon-neutral framework in the heart of downtown," said Jeanne. "With a vibrant base that connects to a rejuvenated Pritzker Park and an elegant exterior that harmonizes with Downtown's historical context, Assemble Chicago will create a new civic hub for all Chicagoans and provide a model for sustainable development for cities worldwide."

Congratulations to our whole team! DESIGNBRIDGE | A Diversified Collaborative of Architects and Designers, JAQ, Dbhms, Thornton Tomasetti, Engage Civil, site design group, ltd., Applied Ecological Services / RES, Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), Rush University College Of Nursing, and Calibrate Coaching.

More info at https://studiogang.com/now/studio-gang-and-the-community-builders-win-c40-cities-chicago-loop-competition

studiogang.com

"I was a huge admirer and friend of Art Gensler," remembers Jeanne. "He was deeply thoughtful about practice and his example made it OK for Architects to have a business plan. He shared his experience with running a practice with many, including me.
I am personally grateful for his support of Studio Gang’s design for California College of the Arts and his generosity for that institution. I think his positive impact on the San Francisco architecture landscape will be felt for a very long time."

It is with great sadness that we confirm the passing of our founder, M. Arthur Gensler Jr.

An architect and astute businessman who propelled a small practice into the largest and most admired firm in the industry, Art Gensler is widely credited with creating the blueprint for how many professional services firms organize and manage themselves today.

Art’s 65-year career as an architect is a remarkable story. His gift to the firm was not a vision for what it could be, but rather an ethos that allowed it to grow and prosper against all odds. That ethos was distinguished by a belief in collaboration, support of design education and career advancement, respect for individuals, dedication to clients, and endorsement of sustainable design.

A passionate founder of Gensler’s unique “one-firm firm” culture, Art embodied core values of mutual trust, respect, empathy, and team spirit and nurtured a collaborative culture that continues today.

Through his work, leadership, and efforts to advance the profession, Art touched the lives of thousands of people and communities. His legacy, influence, and inspiration will forever be felt throughout the industry and firm.

Learn about Art’s life and legacy at gensler.com/art-gensler-legacy

is our proposal with The Community Builders-CT, for a carbon-neutral tower that adds 207 apartments for Loop workforce earning as little as minimum wage alongside new community-collaborative spaces and a revitalized Pritzker Park to downtown Chicago. The City of Chicago is now seeking public input on all the C40 Cities proposals for the downtown site. These projects rely on community input to thrive! Please fill out the public survey today! https://bit.ly/3eLSO7a

Our team includes DESIGNBRIDGE | A Diversified Collaborative of Architects and Designers, JAQ, Dbhms, Thornton Tomasetti, Engage Civil, site design group, ltd., Applied Ecological Services, Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), Rush University College Of Nursing, and Calibrate Coaching.

C40 Reinventing Cities Chicago Loop Site RFP Survey Take this survey powered by surveymonkey.com. Create your own surveys for free.

Remembering Design Principal Margaret Cavenagh's deeply personal and funny interview on Madame Architect two years ago: https://www.madamearchitect.org/interviews/2019/11/6/margaret-cavenagh

Forward Motion: the Year Past in Design, Business, and Care Roundtable exploring the immeasurable impact the year has had on working women - designers, business owners, caregivers - and what's next.

https://vimeo.com/498152393

"The greenest buildings are those that already exist." Why don't we talk more about reuse? We believe architects can be advocates, assessing what can be reused and working to incorporate elements with high embedded carbon rather than starting fresh. We are especially proud of our , which transforms an obsolete building type (a decommissioned power plant) into a highly functional and sustainable building for Beloit College students, reinventing the coal-burning ⚡️plant as a calorie-burning one.

So many people came together to make this project a reality, including:
Angus-Young, associate architect, electrical engineer, plumbing engineer, fire protection engineer, structural engineer, LEED consultant, commissioning consultant
RH Batterman - Batterman, civil engineer
Dbhms, lighting and mechanical/environmental engineer
Applied Ecological Services, landscape architect
Threshold Acoustics LLC, acoustics and A/V consultant
3st / Span, signage, wayfinding consultant
Ramaker - Architecture + Engineering, pool consultant
Hastings+Chivetta Architects, athletic & recreation design consultant
True North Consulting Group, IT consultant
Dharam Consulting, cost consultant

Film by Spirit of Space.

Beloit Powerhouse Jeanne Gang talks about the newly-completed Beloit College Powerhouse and how it fits into a larger body of work on re-use for Studio Gang. (c) Spirit of Space

Today marks the 5️⃣ year anniversary of the opening of Writers Theatre, an award-winning cultural destination just outside Chicago in Glencoe, IL. 🎉 Founded in the back room of a bookstore in 1992, Writers Theatre had been operating out of the Women’s Library Club of Glencoe when we came onboard, but they were limited by their 108-person capacity and the building's disrepair. Bricks from the original, neo-Georgian building were carefully saved and re-used on-site as an acoustic screen in the larger performance space to foster the intimate acoustic experience for which the theater is known. ⁠
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In the five years since the theater opened, they have sold out nearly every show, expanded their repertoire to utilize both 250-seat thrust and 99-seat black box theaters and found innovative new uses for the stadium seating in the lobby, which acts as both an ad-hoc performance venue and a community gathering space, opening in fair weather onto the adjacent Women’s Library Club Park.⁠
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Read more about the features of the building at https://bit.ly/3tF3ivK. Photo by Steve Hall (c) Hall + Merrick. Special shoutout to our acoustic and theater consultants who helped us figure out how to achieve this: Auerbach Po***ck Friedlander and Threshold Acoustics.

Tune in this Thursday at 10:42 PM Central Time to catch Jeanne giving a little tour of some of our Chicago projects as part of / hosted by Cultural Services | French Embassy in the US and INSTITUT FRANÇAIS. 🇫🇷 RSVP at the link below and see the full program at https://nightofideas.org. 🇫🇷

Night of Ideas Closing the distance – Virtual Event in USA on January 28, 2021 Night of Ideas: Closing the Distance Featuring United States Jan 28, 2021 Night of ideas is a 24-hour virtual marathon event featuring philosophical debate and artistic performances produced in 75 countries around the world. It is coordinated by the Institut Français, Paris and co-produced by the C...