DS+R's Rubenstein Forum Unveiled

John Hill

3. June 2016

Image: Diller Scofidio + Renfro, courtesy of University of Chicago

The preliminary, approved design by Diller Scofidio + Renfro for the David M. Rubenstein Forum, a new hub for convening and scholarly collaboration, has been unveiled by the University of Chicago.

New York's DS+R was selected in October 2015 to design the 90,000-square-foot building that will be located at the southeast corner of Woodlawn Avenue and 60th Street. This block overlooks the Midway Plaisance and is about a half-mile east of the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. Both DS+R and TWBTA are finalists in the bid to design the Obama Presidential Center, which will also be located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.

Like the Logan Center completed in 2012, the Rubenstein Forum is comprised of horizontal and vertical massings. The two-story base includes the University Room, the building's largest meeting space, while the 165-foot-tall tower consists of metting rooms and informal areas that can combine for symposia, conferences and meetings. Two rooms project from the tower: near the base is the Presentation Hall, a 285-seat auditorium that faces north and the rest of campus, while at the top is the multipurpose Lake View Room, which fittingly faces east toward Lake Michigan.

Image: Diller Scofidio + Renfro, courtesy of University of Chicago

Per University of Chicago Executive Vice President David Fithian in an announcement, "Too often events hosted by the University are held in other parts of Chicago." The Rubenstein Forum will help the university in "convening groups on campus and in organizing meetings and events for guests from around the world."

According to DS+R's Elizabeth Diller, "We composed the tower as a stack of ‘neighborhoods’ with meeting and communal spaces of all sizes—both formal and informal, calm and animated, focused and diffuse. The building prompts its varied populations to cross paths with one another where possible to enhance intellectual exchange. The lower floors of the Rubenstein Forum are porous and dynamic with connections to the campus and the community in all directions. As one climbs the building, there is a progressive retreat from the everyday to more contemplative spaces with dramatic views of Chicago and Lake Michigan."

Neither a construction start date nor a targeted completion date was included in the university's announcement.