• Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

  • Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

    Steve Hall, Hall+Merrick Photographers

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Education

Wheeler Kearns Architects complete Chicago’s Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School expansion

The design expresses the building’s unique identity, celebrating its religious and cultural heritage, while providing an innovative and sustainable learning environment

by Georgina Johnston 19 February 2021 Sustainable Buildings

Located in the Lakeview neighbourhood, the school and adjacent synagogue had shared the same facilities, including an entrance, since 1948. The project reorients the school towards a newly-constructed plaza, loggia and vestibule, offering a new secure and welcoming entrance. Inside, there is a focus on visibility and connection, with transparent glass walls, open spaces, and plentiful daylight creating a welcoming and intuitive environment. 

The building also has a small footprint, with interventions such as an insulated cavity wall to minimise thermal shorting, a solar array producing power for the building, deep overhangs that shield the generous glazing at the ground floor, and the use of recycled, renewable, low VOC materials.

Jewish principles and ideas are incorporated into the design itself; for example, the light-colored brick wraps the exterior just as the tallit (prayer shawl) helps one to create a sacred space for reflection, learning, and prayer. The heart of the addition is a curved masonry and glass sacred space, the Makom Rina, or ‘Place of Joy’. The 12 exposed curved masonry walls represent the 12 original tribes of Israel, with the wythes of brick angled to create a pattern that evokes the star of David. Interior head joints are raked open so that participants can place prayers into the joints between the units, like in the ancient western wall of Jerusalem.  


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