University Honored for Community Impact, Design and Construction Excellence

CHICAGO, Ill. – The University of Chicago’s Campus North Residential Commons, located in Illinois, has won three awards from the Design-Build Institute of America, including the first Chairman’s Award for Community Impact and Social Responsibility. Following a competitive judging process, the university’s first major Design-Build project was one of two recipients of this new honor and also won awards for merit and excellence in design.

The Chairman’s Award for Community Impact and Social Responsibility was created this year to “reward Design-Build teams which have shown extraordinary commitment to triple bottom-line success—economic, environmental and social—and which have clearly improved the communities they’ve engaged,” said DBIA CEO and Executive Director Lisa Washington.

Washington also commented that the UChicago team, led by design-builder Mortenson Construction and architect Studio Gang, “went above and beyond” to engage the Hyde Park and Chicago communities. Chicago residents performed 39.87 percent of the workforce hours; and minority- and women-owned businesses received 43.96 percent of the construction dollars paid to date.

The Campus North residence hall opened in fall 2016, a full year ahead of the university’s original plan due to the efficiencies of the Design-Build process. The 400,000-square-foot residence hall is composed of four buildings, ranging in height from a single-story dining commons to a 15-story residential tower with a student reading room at the top. The buildings overlap, forming a new portal at the corner of the university that is complemented by plazas, walkways, courtyards and retail. The portal welcomes both students and the community to campus, inviting them to enjoy these new amenities.

Photos courtesy of Tom Harris Photography.