We hadn’t stopped by the future home of the British School of Chicago in a while and were pleasantly surprised this morning to see how far construction has come. The new building at Halsted and Eastman, on the edge of Lincoln Park, is a great addition to a slice of Halsted that seems unsure of its identity as Cabrini-Green is transformed.
The best profile is from the south, where a wall of glass and an exposed steel frame face drivers headed north on Halsted. The Halsted Street side has a glass ground floor accented in deep blue. Above the first floor (by American definition, not British), the Halsted Street side angles back, a metallic gray facade dominated by a tall glass bay in its center, also trimmed in blue.
Architects Valerio Dewalt Train Associates designed the school to appear as if it’s “leaning into the future,” and there is a real sense of motion about the structure. The pronounced curve at the roofline is echoed at the top of the first floor and continued in beams that angle sharply to grade on the building’s north and south sides.
Completion is scheduled for early ’08.
