RENEWING THE ROOKERY 

URBAN PLANNING U2

D.BALDREE

INTRODUCTION

The Rookery's an old and impressive piece of Chicago history that has withstood the test of time with its incredibly refreshing design of utilizing sunlight to the degree that it does. Designed by Daniel Burnham and John Root in 1888, this building is located in the heart of Chicago at 209 S Lasalle. 

But that doesn't mean it can't be improved. In our class Urban Planning, we learned about how energy functions through big scales like a power grid, and smaller ones where we saw how electricity flows through a circuit. Having met with multiple FE guests in one go, I believe an impressive number of 9 this unit (all in one FE by the way), from the organizations Whitney, DIRTT, Corporate Concepts and Clune. It's a lot to summarize, but they're all involved in things like design process, renewable tactics, and constructing. 

With this knowledge, we took one final walk around Chicago for this unit. We visited multiple historical buildings after having a list composed for us. I decided to go with the Rookery, as it was mentioned in my reading of "Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson. The challenge for this project was to think of alternative energy sources to implement into these spaces and find a reasonably possible design to implement into this building. Without further ado, enjoy.

HISTORY OF THE ROOKERY

Before we really get into it, I want to provide a little bit more background on the history of the Rookery and why it's compelled me to pursue it over the other options.

The Rookery was made during a period of time where Chicago’s population was rapidly growing, with a population increase two times of what it was at the beginning of 1880 by the end of 1889. Large factories were being built and pulling numbers in from all over the states into Chicago. Burnham himself wanted to take on the challenge of building something taller than what originally was “allowed” to be built. The challenge came from the horrible and uncertain foundation that caused taller buildings to sink into the ground. 

I’ve known about this building for a while now. Having read the book “Devil in the White City”, the process of the building is significant to our architectural understanding of the buildings we have in place today here in Chicago. The name itself is captivating enough that it deterred me away from other buildings available for this action project. The Rookery. It’s fun to say, fun to think about, and in no way feels as if it fits its name. It sounds like a building meant to be by a harbor, but instead it’s centered in Downtown with an incredibly formal feeling to it. After doing additional research on the design process behind the building, the design of the building begins to make some more sense as to why it's structured the way it is.

The Rookery has unclear origins as to where its name comes from, but the one that makes most visual sense to me is that it originated from the crows that once lived inside the walls, “paralleled by the politicians who roosted there”, poking fun at their corrupted wickedness, which politicians weren’t keen on keeping if that’s what it meant. This was during the time where the Rookery served once as the city hall thanks to the Chicago Fire.

THE LAYOUT

The Rookery utilizes spiraling staircases in a magical and compelling way, complemented by the engravings that highlight the fantasy-like energy of building, with a masterfully crafted glass ceiling meant to . The lighting seems to be intentionally subtle, as if only intended to be just enough to allow the golden engravings of the place to shine through to captivate visitors.

The Rookery by James Caulfield, date unknown.

The Rookery by James Caulfield, date unknown.

NOW WE'RE REDESIGNING THE ROOKERY

Considering it isn’t mentioned anywhere on the official website or a good ol’ google search, it’s safe to assume that they’re on the Chicago power grid. Now, the Chicago power grid uses 7% natural gas energy, 30% coal-fired energy, 54% nuclear energy, and last but surprisingly not least 10% renewable energies. 

Making an assumption based on what I’ve seen in the building during my visit, it’s fairly minimalistic when it comes to what it needs to power. The strategic design of utilizing sunlight for the atmosphere as often as possible allows it to be less focused on powering lights in the building. The office spaces in the building are occupied by what I vaguely remember as law firms, maybe some kind of small jewelry store, and a Potbelly’s. The building itself is small in comparison to other giants in the city, making it require significantly less power than something like the Willis tower.

So now how do we go about improving upon a design that seems to utilize a fairly eco-friendly structure? Firstly, we can look at a list of what exactly takes up the most energy in most households. According to an article on visualcapitalist.com on what exactly consumes the most energy in a household, we get a rough idea of where the majority of this energy is being distributed. At a whopping 47%, cooling and heating takes up the majority of the electricity used in the building. So now the goal seems to be that we’ve got to figure out how to maximize the cooling and heating efficiency in the building to minimize the energy cost of it. 

A good while ago, I was introduced to the idea of “mud cement.” The execution of mud cement has proven to be in many ways more eco-friendly than regular cement, providing better insulation and cooling for buildings than regular concrete cement can hold up to. Ideally, it would make more sense to replace the insulation in the walls of the building that are easily “accessible.” There are of course disadvantages to having mud cement acting as a substitute for concrete cement. Mud cement is still, well, mud. Mud stays strengthened when it stays dry, making it a necessity that it stays as insulation within a wall, rather than exposed to sources of water that could deteriorate the material. Chicago’s got a handful of rainy days around the start of fall and throughout the spring, so making sure the exterior protecting the mud insulation is fortified would make this an optimal design. 

Another disadvantage of having mud as insulation would be the pricing of replacing the insulation for the building. Of course, this is only a slight disadvantage that I believe would pay itself over time considering that it’s saving money on the most expensive user of energy in the building.

As for the energy itself, the last thing I would want to do is taint the design of the Rookery, as I do have some sense of respect for Burnham and Root, so we’ll be staying away from obnoxiously large and obnoxious alternative energy sources. 

First up on the list would be solar panels as an alternative energy source. I chose this thanks to the flat surfaced roof that didn’t get much attention due to it being away from pedestrian eyes. Everybody’s fairly familiar with solar panels and their eco-friendly nature of attracting power from the great old sun. Given this isn’t designed to be a replacement for the energy system as a whole. If you look at the image, there’s already a problem indicated on the idea of placing solar panels: this building is being towered over by skyscrapers from every direction. 

"Roofing For The Iconic Rookery Building" by the Knickbocker Roofing and Paving Co., date unknown.

Next up would be biomass energy as an alternative. There’s a good amount of open space in the building itself that can allow for a biomass generator. Now biomass is an alternative energy source that creates power by burning natural resources, like plants or wood. Like every alternative energy source, there’s advantages and disadvantages. In this scenario, biofuel is surprisingly eco-friendly despite the fact that the idea of burning something to produce energy sounds quite unhealthy for the environment. Luckily, the idea of “burning” biofuel doesn’t always mean setting biomass on fire to produce energy, there are chemical processes that allow for less blazing approaches. Here is a list of alternative ways of “burning” biomass energy, along with another research article talking about the more specific advantages/disadvantages of biomass energy. A short summary in regards to the disadvantages to taking up biomass energy would be related primarily to the cost, as it can quickly add up in terms of purchasing from a supplier. I believe this is more related to integrating it as a sole power source, which is not my intention as I don’t believe it would make sense to do so. The goal is cost-efficiency and renewable. 

On the other hand, the advantages of using a biomass energy source would be that it’s fairly easy to be your own provider. As mentioned before, there was a good amount of open space available to be molded into something else entirely. Investing in an aquarium/interior garden within these spaces provides the vegetation and plant life to provide a good source of energy fuel. If the art of condensing these materials into solid biofuel is learned to some efficient degree, then you’re saving money on energy and purchasing fuel from sellers. You’ve now also got an amazing addition to a spectacular building that’ll pull in tourists, considering that the Rookery is pretty dead center in Downtown. Businesses buying out the space in the building pull in more customers, meaning that the building itself has a more reliable income from these rented spaces, which may mean more higher paying businesses will invest to get in on the foot traffic with their own rented spaces. It’s all hypothetical, but it does sound like it would essentially pay off whatever costs it would accumulate.

We’ve gone over two different types of alternative energy sources that could be plausibly applied to the building. Choosing one shouldn’t be too difficult as the commercial value of biomass energy sounds a lot more intriguing than solar panels that most likely wouldn’t pay back their costs due to the fact that they’re in an awkward spot. Aquariums and gardens are also pretty and could compliment the building itself if the right interior designer was assigned the job. 

CONCLUSION AFTER A LONG JOURNEY

Congratulations, you did it. You've read through 1650 words today, or maybe not. I won't be mad if you skimmed through it unless you're the teacher, who I've kind of sentenced to this fate of making sure that my grammar is on point and correct. This project was only worth 50 points by the way, and I managed to write another chapter's worth of information on something I could've done in 600. Anyways, the action project and unit was pretty fun. Electricity is a nice thing to understand because you're not left in this state of absolute mystery onto what's going on when you get your finger shocked by touching a door handle, or a power outage. Fun little things like that are always a good topic to bring up with friends that aren't in the know about it. That's all for this action project and conclusion, thank you for reading.