Sit­u­at­ed between the east and west bound lanes of the Eisen­how­er Express­way, the Illi­nois Med­ical Dis­trict sta­tion is well posi­tioned to become a gate­way to the City, Unit­ed Cen­ter (home of the Chica­go Bulls and Black­hawks), Mal­com X Col­lege, and the grow­ing med­ical dis­trict. Built in 1958, the min­i­mal sta­tion spans a quar­ter-of-a-mile between cross­ing over­pass­es. Long slop­ing pas­sage­ways, nar­row plat­forms, min­i­mal street pres­ence have defined the CTA’s For­est Park branch station’s for decades. 

A pro­pos­al for the sta­tion envi­sions con­straints as oppor­tu­ni­ties – the nar­row site, busy con­text, and iso­lat­ed nature prove to be a tough con­struc­tion envi­ron­ment let alone a com­fort­able space for pas­sen­gers to wait for a train. A pre-cast con­crete tube envelopes pas­sen­gers in a unique­ly tuned skin that reduces and dis­pers­es adja­cent high­way noise. A pat­tern of punched open­ings allows day­light to illu­mi­nate the plat­form while pro­vid­ing framed views to the sky. The col­umn-less struc­ture removes clut­ter from the plat­form, open­ing up views and access for passengers.

The tubu­lar form ris­es from plat­form lev­el to form the main sta­tion­house at Ogden Avenue. This move cre­ates a focal point for the neigh­bor­hood and a flu­id expres­sion of the move­ment of peo­ple from the plat­form to street lev­el. To the west the form con­tin­ues, thread­ing its way around and up to Ogden Avenue. This rev­o­lu­tion­ary design offers respite for pas­sen­gers in a harsh envi­ron­ment while pre­sent­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties for con­structabil­i­ty and archi­tec­tur­al vision for Chicago’s mass tran­sit system.

Client: Chica­go Tran­sit Author­i­ty
Pro­gram: New train sta­tion with at grade facil­i­ties
Size: 600 ft. plat­form, 2,200 sqft sta­tion hous­es and 800 sqft pub­lic space
Cost: $12,650,000

Col­lab­o­ra­tive Part­ners:
Con­cord Group (Cost Esti­mat­ing)
Glo­be­trot­ters Engi­neer­ing (Elec­tri­cal, Plumb­ing, and Civ­il Engi­neer)
Good­friend Magrud­er Struc­ture (Struc­tur­al Engi­neer)
Jacobs/​Ryan Land­scape Archi­tects (Land­scape Archi­tect)
Thresh­old Acoustics (Acousti­cal Engineer)