Functional building design solutions downtown Chicago
I returned from Vietnam in late 2018, inspired by what Southeast Asia had to offer & motivated to share its best parts. That’s when opportunity struck. A few weeks after I arrived in Chicago the building next to Loyola’s DowntownGold Coast campus, that I long admired for its mid century modern charm, had place massive ‘For Sale’ signs on their exterior windows. 21 E Chestnut is a 163 unit, 23 story skyscraper roughly 250 feet tall. My first instinct was to take a long look at the building in an effort to preserve it in my mind. The more I looked, the more I drew similarities to a fascinating mall concept I had seen in downtown Ho Chi Minh (you can see the Vietnam structure in the pictures below as well as the original look of 21 e chestnut). Right away I contacted the building with a consulting offer to pivot the building in a more functional direction. To my genuine surprise (they said it was because they loved my passion when I pitched them), the building accepted the 2.5 month contract offer.
Project:
21 E Chestnut
Position:
Innovation Consultant
Discipline:
Infrastructure
Duration:
January 2019 - March 2019
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The scope of work included CAD renderings & design of the future building, renovation budgetary projections, future revenue projections for depreciating the renovation budget, as well as marketing concepts to ensure traction at the mall upon opening (they wanted a big crowd on the first day). While in the end they chose to sell the building instead of proceeding with the renovation, this project likely had the most potential of any project I had worked on to date. Working though so many different aspects of business from regulatory, to finance, to design, as well as so many others gave me, what felt like years of experience, in just a couple months.