For nearly a century, the Field Center classroom at Field Park has been a hub in Oak Park’s Field Park, hosting programs for kids and adults and as the community grew over the years, it tried to keep up.
Since 1926, the Center was updated and retrofitted periodically, improved and modernized as best as possible. But lately the parks district realized the community had too many needs, and the building not enough life. The district envisioned a larger building with another classroom, with better accessibility, a stage and other amenities, something unique and something sustainable, something lasting—because in Oak Park, legacy often is as meaningful as design.
So in February the Park District of Oak Park announced an open competition for a new space. Any building designer could apply, and each design was judged by architects and community members. A total of 26 designs arrived, and in late summer one was chosen.
Patrick Brown, founder of Chicago design firm ORG Inc., snagged the nomination. For the park, it’s another new public building but for Brown, whose young firm hasn’t done many projects yet, the project represents a large, public display of his craft and vision. Just the win is a testament to the strength of his ideas.
“It’s a little surreal,” Brown said. “I couldn’t even tell you how many competitions I’ve done, and you rarely expect to win them, especially ones like this that are anonymous and open. I feel gratitude that they gave us this opportunity given we don’t have the substantial track record but I think they see the drive that I really want to make a special building and I think they want to make special buildings, too.”
Brown said this sort of open contest isn’t done much in the United States these days, though it’s still a popular tradition in other parts of the world.
Jan Arnold, executive director of the Park District, said the community wanted a building that fit the needs of the park users but also the values of the community. They wanted something new but something that would last. An open competition seemed like a good way to get an array of potential designs and, anyway, the last time they needed a Field Center classroom, that’s how they did it.
“The process was done the very first time they built those buildings in 1926,” Arnold said. “Frank Lloyd Wright did participate in that one and he did not win.”
Even in its second incarnation, it was a big get for Brown.
Beyond the aesthetics, the building had to be sustainable and Brown said he took that to heart. It’s easy enough to get time-controlled lights, low-flow toilets and low-energy bulbs to shave a few cents off an energy bill and market the design as green, but none of that window dressing suited Brown.
“I always have to kind of watch my tongue when I talk about this stuff,” he said. “Sustainability is just a buzzword and it’s too often a thing that gets applied after the fact. One of the most fundamental aspects of sustainability is the ongoing cost of maintaining it and replacing (the building). The longevity of the materials plays a huge impact over the sustainability of the building over the course of its life. … You have to thread that needle between what you can afford and also push back a little bit between what you can afford and the best possible building.”
Brown pitched rammed earth, a building material made of local soil, pressed into itself, usually with some mixture of gravel or clay added in and left to cure. The material is tough, plentiful and low impact and while the technique has been used for thousands of years and is gaining something of a renaissance, it’s still something of a novel material.
“What I thought was interesting about his design is, I didn’t understand what the material was until he made the presentation but the material is rammed earth which is innovative and sustainable,” Arnold said.
It is something old turned into something new, something stretching into the future with roots deep in local soil. It got the nod. Construction will begin next year and when the doors open, they will do so on an interior unlike anything else in Oak Park.
“It’s not like inside your house, when you have drywall or plaster or whatever you happen to have,” said Arnold. “The wall on the outside is what you’ll see on the inside. We don’t have the need for paint.”
Indeed, the walls look something like adobe—the color of the local soil and the whole building will be built into the park’s berm, almost emerging from the earth, an offering to human habitants, a gift.
“We hope it’ll give us another 100 years,” Arnold said.
Jesse Wright is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.