Honor Award
Desi gn — Inst i t u t i on a l Desi gn
Reed Hilderbrand
project name.
location.
An Open Door: Poetry Foundation
Chicago, Illinois
When Harriet Monroe founded Poetry magazine in 1912,
she envisioned an “Open Door” that would integrate
poetry into the fabric of American culture. The Poetry
Foundation’s new headquarters gives expression to this
vision. The project was conceived as a single volume
that is part building, part garden, fully interwoven with
the urban fabric. The perimeter enclosure begins as the
building’s thermal envelope and emerges as a scrim-like
garden wall that envelops the courtyard. This enclosure
opens at the northeast corner, allowing the garden to
reach out to the street and to invite the public in. Within
the confines of the scrim, both volumes, interior and
exterior, read as equivalent spaces.
The project complies with LEED Silver and integrates a
number of sustainable design strategies and
energy-efficient systems. The expression of the garden,
however, does not revolve around revealing its own green
practices. Instead, it uses simple modest means to realize
meaningful returns.
2013 Boston Society of Landscape Architects Fieldbook
57