The design of Daley College Manufacturing Technology and Engineering Center, Chicago, challenges two of our society’s misconceptions and tries to rectify them in its own way. The first is that manufacturing jobs are poor career choices and can be dull and low tech. The second is that junior colleges are less desirable higher education institutions.
The Manufacturing Technology and Engineering Center at Richard J. Daley College is designed to attract young people to the manufacturing sector
Architect Juan Gabriel Moreno, AIA, president, JGMA, Chicago, feels strongly about both those issues and adds in concerns about opportunities for people of color. “A lot of people don’t know this,” he says, “but I started out in a community college, and there are certain stereotypes about taking that path. Everything from people saying, it’s just a continuation of high school to you’re just not smart enough to get into a four-year college. Ridiculous comments. Many times, there are other factors—financial factors, life factors or sometimes people are just in a different place in their journey. That was my case. So, there were a lot of personal emotions that went into this project for me.”
Photos: Tom Rossiter
Daley College is in the West Lawn neighborhood near Midway Airport, which is a predominantly working-class Latino neighborhood. The manufacturing center is an addition that bridges a major through street and creates a campus out of what was a one-building college. Just by its addition, it raises the profile of the school within the community it serves.
But the design does so much more than that. The long façade of saw-toothed triangular panels is carved away to reveal the manufacturing equipment through the windows. The equipment itself is raised on a platform to make it more visible, and as people drive by on 76th Street, they can see everything going on inside.
“I’m a big proponent of understanding procession,” says Moreno. “If you take that façade, where cars passing on 76th Street run parallel to the façade, it’s difficult to grasp the full composition. When you create three dimensionality on a façade and it’s all moving in a different way immediately, you don’t need to read the whole composition. It’s kind of crescendo from one direction to the other, ultimately leading you to the building entry.”
“Architecture is storytelling,” he says. “There’s a plot to every building of where are the ideas and what it’s trying to say. It’s not just get to the last chapter. There’s so much more to digest.”
The bright yellow of the overpass represents the use of caution colors in manufacturing and draws the community’s eyes to the facility even more dramatically. The hope is that while young people drive past the school and see the dramatic reveal of the manufacturing equipment, their interest will be piqued. They’ll investigate the possibility of careers in manufacturing.
Even the material selection celebrates the manufacturing industry. Metal panels, glass and exposed steel all speak to a more industrial aesthetic but also one that reads as high-tech. The paneling (Formawall by CENTRIA, Moon Township, Pa.) especially gives the building a contemporary feel, and the varied angles and shapes and three-dimensionality showcase a design philosophy that is forward looking, and not representative of a historically grimy manufacturing sector. That is a thing of the past; this is a building of the future.
The school itself is a beacon in the middle of the community. It’s a resource and a stepping stone to help people advance themselves and change their family’s fortunes. A good manufacturing job can help pull a family out of poverty and put them on the path to a strong middle-class existence. It can be not only life changing but generational changing.
For Moreno, the Manufacturing Center addition helps achieve that. It has a look of a modern STEM building at a major university. “When we talk about the architecture of the building,” he says, “you can see it is of a contemporary nature that is common for universities. It proudly announces that it’s here, and there’s no doubt that when people go by, they see there’s been an investment in their community.”
Architecture can help solve complicated societal problems and the Daley College Manufacturing Technology and Engineering Center boldly attacks both a lack of acceptance for manufacturing positions and a lack of opportunity underserved communities. And it does so with drama.
“One of the things that’s most important to me in these communities of color, these disadvantaged communities,” says Moreno, “is that they deserve the best. Not more expensive versions, but architecture on an international caliber so they can be inspired.”
