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Zach Mortice

@zachmortice

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Chicago design critic and journalist.
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Omnes is featured in the September issue of @landarchmag! In “Growing Where You’re Planted,” journalist and critic @zachmortice chronicles our origins and evolution as a design studio. We often describe @omnesstudio as a national firm working regionally, and Zach’s story captures so clearly what that means. We’re incredibly excited to see the work given this kind of space in LAM and honored to share the issue with some practitioners we truly admire, including @topophyla @designdemandslabor @playce_studio_ltd and this month’s “cover girl” @designworkshop! Stay tuned for highlights from some of the projects featured in the story, and read the full piece now at www.landscapearchitecturemagazine.org – link in bio! #landscapearchitecture #urbandesign #planning #asla #septemberissue
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‘The campus is a reflection of Obama’s presidency: possessed by the urge to retreat into aphorisms of hope and change,’ writes @zachmortice on the recently inaugurated Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, Illinois, United States designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. The Obama Presidential Center covers a campus of over 19 acre, on land that was formerly part of the publicly owned Jackson Park, features a 70m-tall granite museum tower, public plaza, library branch and basketball court. Designed to last 500 years, the project cost $850 million, funded entirely by billionaires including Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Marc Benioff – with no public money. The museum's exhibition floors cost $30 to visit, making it the most expensive presidential library. ‘The OPC is a mirror to Obama's victory lap and the ensuing demobilisation of his own activist base,’ writes Mortice. The campus’ opening has accelerated gentrification. Median home prices in the area have multiplied 4.6 times since 2016, and South Shore has become the city’s most evicted neighbourhood. ‘There's no universe where people can benefit from the centre if they can't afford to live next to it,’ says community organiser Dixon Romeo. Read the full building study, featuring exclusive images for the AR, at the link in our bio. 📸 @angiemcmonigal for The Architectural Review
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Thank you again @dwellmagazine for featuring our house (@preservationfutures ) ! Architect @keeferdunnarchitect and @preservationfutures Photos by @_lyndonfrench_ Article (link in bio) by @zachmortice Wall color is @sherwinwilliams Agate Green, island cabinet color is Raging Sea. Fireplace by @stuv_america
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‘The early utopian, neo‑anarchist vision of a democratic, unmediated internet is very dead,’ writes @zachmortice in the AR Public issue keynote. ‘Today, public space is where people act out fractious and often violent fantasies developed online,’ writes Mortice, ‘Digital media narratives create micro‑cultures and worldviews that might come from somewhere identifiable on a map or not, but once metastasised, they sit close to each other in the real world.’ As boundaries collapse between digital and physical public space, Mortice argues that resistance to far-right narratives much be practised on the ground. Read Mortice’s keynote essay in the AR public issue, at the link in our bio. 📸 1: © @jonrafman / Courtesy the artist and @spruethmagers, 2: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times / Getty, 3: Protect The 1st
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Thank you @zachmortice & @aiachicago for the lovely profile of Lawson House in "Affordable Housing for the Long Haul" 💚 Follow the link in our bio to read the entire article which also features projects by @waremalcomb and canopy_chicago 💚 〰️ It's been a banner year for Lawson House! This project was 16 years in the making and owes everything to the team’s tenacity. Farr Associates started working with Peter and Jackie Holsten in 2009 and together rode out more than a decade of funding rejection. Only by the Holstens working every angle (legislatures, councils, neighbors, friends, bankers, agencies, etc.) did the planets align. The resulting project is an enduring window on history and how development can help working, underserved people pursue a better life. 〰️ Do you have a story to share about Lawson House?! 📝 Tap into the bio link to fill out a short form. 〰️ 📸 interiors: @rossfloyd 📸 aerial: @couchfirefilms #HistoricPreservation #AffordableHousing #Farrchitecture #PeopleSavingPlacesForPeople @usgbc @hhcd.nfp
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We felt at home! The amazing students from my grad seminar presented their paper topics on #OperationBreakthrough in the exhibition they helped to research. Big thanks to the @thenphm for making it all possible and to @zachmortice for his invaluable comments.
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NYRA is coming to the Windy City! Read all about it in the Chicago Tribune. “Chicago’s built environment will be the focus of a forthcoming magazine called the Chicago Review of Architecture, slated to come out sometime next year with [Kate] Wagner and fellow local architecture critics Anjulie Rao and Zach Mortice serving as editorial advisers. An offshoot of the New York Review of Architecture, the Chicago magazine plans to have just a single issue for now that will feature ‘erudite, humorous and hyperlocal writing on the built (and unbuilt) environment,’ according to a recent announcement from the parent publication.” CHiRA is the newest special issue from NYRA and is funded in part by the Graham Foundation. It will be produced in collaboration with the Chicago Architecture Biennial.
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2025 marks the centenary of the opening of Northerly Island, a human-made peninsula and park located on Chicago’s Lake Michigan lakefront. Over its existence, it has played multiple roles, from the former site of the Century of Progress World’s Fair and Meigs Field airport to a recreational area, concert venue, and park. To commemorate this significant date, we asked architects, landscape architects, urban designers, planners, historians, journalists, photographers, educators, artists, and advocates—all residents of Chicago—to share their thoughts, memories, and visions for this unique place in the city. • • • Link in bio. • • • Image: Panoramic View of the Century of Progress, World’s Fair 1933, 1933. John I. Monroe collection of exposition postcards, Newberry Library. • • • #mascontext #northerlyisland #chicago
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PennPraxis Open Call: We are excited to announce the third and final Open Call for Case Studies in Design, a collective writing project that creates opportunities for community and design leaders to think together about ways to catalyze transformational design, planning, and place-keeping from the ground up. We will learn from ambitious projects designed in community and share experience through a public library of case studies and a culminating summit in January 2027. Applications for year 3 are open until December 1, 2025. We will support case study writers in with an award of $50,000 per author or team. Apply or let others know about this opportunity to stimulate culture-shifting dialogue! For inspiration, here’s a look at some of the winning projects from year 2: 1. A collage of images from cohort 2 case studies-in-progress. 2. Lutz Leichsenring and Dr. Andreina Seijas are studying Clubcommission Berlin and the role of community-driven Nightlife in shaping adaptive urban regeneration. Pictured are participants in a Free Open Air Initiative event on the banks for the Spree River. (Image credit: Jason Krüger) 3. Farasha Zaman, Ruhul Abdin and Kazi Arefin are examining Machan, a community center in the informal settlement of Korail, Dhaka, Bangladesh, the design for which was facilitated by Paraa in collaboration with residents through a years-long participatory process. (Image credit: Paraa) 4. Zach Mortice and author team Karol Yáñez Soria and Itzel Julieta Fuentes Morales are developing complimentary analysis of the Utopias, a network of major parks and community spaces in Iztapalapa, Mexico City.(Image credit: Aldo Diaz) 5. Danilo Palazzo and Vikas Mehta are studying the historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati, OH, whose regeneration was driven by a complex network of community organizations, local interest groups, and individual activists with varied goals and perspectives. (Image credit: Vikas Mehta) #CommunityEngagement #DesignInnovation #CaseStudies #PennPraxis #TransformativeDesign
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ICYMI: Last week, Josh chatted with @zachmortice about his experience growing up in Columbus’s schools as part of a larger article about BCSC’s renovations of their architecturally famous schools. Columbus, in general, shaped our views and how we practice architecture here at Aggregate—check out the article at the link in our stories! . . . #architecture #chicago #chitecture #chiarchitecture #chicagoarchitecture #aggregatestudio #housing #design #designer #archilovers #aiachicago #chicagoarch #residentialdesign #smallbusiness #commercialdesign #columbusin #columbusindiana
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Chicago Review of Architecture reviews architecture in Chicago. We are pleased to share that we have received a grant from the Graham Foundation for a Chicago Review of Architecture. Working with editorial advisors Zach Mortice, Anjulie Rao, and Kate Wagner and in collaboration with the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Chicago Review of Architecture (ChiRA) will be a special project from New York Review of Architecture that seeks to generate erudite, humorous, and hyperlocal writing on the built (and unbuilt) environment. Thank you for the support, and we are honored to be included among so many other organizations we admire.
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INTRODUCING THE 2025 GRANTEES—this year’s Graham Foundation grants include: —an exhibition on fungi as anarchist designers curated by anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing and architect Feifei Zhou (@feisgram) at @nieuweinstituut opening in Nov —a special edition of @NYReviewofArch on Chicago’s architecture with local editors @zachmortice, Anjulie Rao @anjulieee and @kategwagner —multimedia theatrical performance created by artist Aria Dean (@lol_prosciutto) at @performanyc in Nov —the @serpentineuk summer pavilion by Marina Tabassum on view through Oct —a publication of drawings and renderings created by Black architects and architectural designers by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture @nmaahc —a zine documenting freely accessible urban spaces by SPACE FOR FREE —the upcoming research and exhibition cycle “Homelands” at @storefrontnyc, starting this fall These projects are among 39 new grants to organizations—including exhibitions, publications, and public programs—that advance interdisciplinary ideas on architecture and design and highlight the work of both established and emerging practitioners worldwide. Explore the full list on our profile and at grahamfoundation.org
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