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Twirling Rotini and Green Indulgences in a River North parking garage. |
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[February 5, 2010] - Can sustainability distract from a multitude of sins? |
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You can't get much greener than the new parking garage at Kinzie and Clark. The Greenway Self Park proclaims its virtue in its very name. The design actually includes "educational plaques" scattered through the garage to enlighten its users on "how to live green." Developer Albert Friedman is reported to be seeking to patent the garage's design as a prototype for missionary work in other locales. The garage has its own pages on Facebook (a quiet get-away, just three fans), and Twitter, where it has nearly 700 followers while following nearly 2,000. It may be watching you this very minute, so stand straight and fly right.
The most interesting aspect of the Greenway, both functionally and visually, is found at the corner, where a series of six large wind turbines are stacked one above the other. They're designed by the Chicago firm When an article in Concrete in Products describes the Greenway as "designed not to look like a parking garage at all, the building is meant to blend into its relatively upscale surroundings," you wonder where you can get your hands on the kind of stuff they're smoking. For all its proclaimed morality, the Greenway Self Park is, in the final analysis, still another squat 285,000 square-foot behemoth pumping up the density of River North, turning more streets into sheer canyons and squeezing out the charm and human scale that made River North attractive in the first place. And while it may earn its indulgences through fervent good works, you still have to ask: how green can a building be when its reason for being is as a magnet to attract still more drivers burning up still more energy to bypass mass transit and minimize their time as a pedestrians in a city made for walking? Join a discussion on this story.
© 2010 Lynn Becker All rights reserved.
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