Projects

The ​“Wild Reef” exhibit at the John G. Shedd Aquarium features the various animals, fish, coral and people of the Philippine coral reef — the world’s richest aquatic ecosystem. The $47 million, 27,500 square foot exhibit was completed after seven years of planning, design and construction. Habitats total more than 750,000 gallons of saltwater and feature over 450 species of coral, 2,500 different species of fish, over 30 sharks and live coral. The exhibit also educates visitors about life on Apo Island, a traditional Philippines fishing village.

Schuler Shook worked closely with the architect, exhibit designer, engineers and Aquarium Fishes, Facilities and Special Events staffs to design, specify, focus and program lighting and control systems that meet all of the aesthetic, integration, code, maintenance and budget requirements of the project. The lighting systems in the public areas are dynamic and enhance the colorful signage, interactive displays and exhibitry. The tank lighting is resistant to the corrosive saltwater, but also sympathetic to the color temperature and color rendering needs of the various fish and coral.

As part of the renovation of the Allerton Building, the Art Institute of Chicago commissioned lighting designs for Fullerton Hall and the Prints and Drawings Study Room. The hall’s main feature is a leaded stained glass dome that was originally installed by Louis Comfort Tiffany Studios in 1898. 

The dome exhibits a variation of glorious, warm colors that are cleverly lit by Schuler Shook’s design. Its dense and colorful characteristics provide the elegant room with an enchanting visual element, but posed a challenge for designers in delivering the adequate illumination levels for the auditorium. Additional sconces were provided to supplement the light emitted by the dome’s stained glass. 

After completion of the Nature Museum project in Chicago, architect and museum technical staff realized a need for an adjusted lighting scheme within the 2,700 SF exhibition space. Schuler Shook’s lighting designers faced challenges such as butterfly dormancy and inactivity during the exhibit’s most crucial viewing hours.

Now lighted with a combination of daylight and electric light, the exhibition area serves as a safe haven for scores of butterfly species and a wondrous space for museum visitors to interact with them.

The lighting design for the Block Museum incorporates careful integration of natural lighting as well as a flexible system for electric lighting. Natural light is controlled by low-transmission glass on the front wall, as well as light control shades. 

Lighting for the Print, Drawing, and Photography Study Center includes full-range intensity control and is carefully filtered to eliminate ultraviolet wavelengths. In the Auditorium, the lighting is designed to provide appropriate environments for lectures, symposia, concerts and film exhibition.

The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art is located on the University of Chicago’s Hyde Park campus. The museum showcases special exhibits and a permanent collection of more than 10,000 objects, including paintings by the Chicago Imagists and artifacts from ancient China, the Medieval era, and Renaissance Europe. University students play an active role in the maintenance and preservation of the museum.

In order to simplify the focusing process for students, Schuler Shook provided a reference matrix that explained how much light would be provided by various combinations of lamps, mounting positions, and light-blocking screens. This has been a useful tool when the museum focuses the lighting for new exhibits, particularly when artifacts cannot be exposed to too much light.

As a part of the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, Breasted Hall serves as a space for the institute’s events and lectures, as well as lectures and admissions tours. A renovation to the 1931 hall was conducted to restore the historic space and improve lighting and accessibility. The room now complies with UChicago’s ADA+ standards.

The 27,000 SF Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA) houses Loyola’s Martin D’Arcy Collection, along with other local and international exhibitions. Schuler Shook provided lighting design services for all of the museum’s galleries, which included integrating recessed tracks and sleek track-heads into a visually quiet ceiling. Also included in the scope was the design of the gift shop, which exhibited refined sloped shelves that were internally illuminated to present the merchandise.

The building’s two main lobbies lead to different parts of the building. The east lobby leads to the museum’s galleries and gift shop, and the north lobby leads to the offices and classrooms elsewhere in the building. Both lobbies were illuminated to characterize the spaces they precede.

The north lobby depicts a more formal environment with dark panelized wood walls, a vaulted ceiling, a lounge area, and an information display. Schuler Shook’s lighting design for this space accentuates the architecture, reveals the materials, and introduces decorative sconces to provide a visually comfortable environment that is conducive to socializing.

The Mapparium, a three-story stained-glass globe found in the heart of The Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston, has been a popular attraction for over 60 years. It was originally lit in 1935 with 300 60-watt lamps attached to the frame on the outside of the globe.

Schuler Shook designed a lighting scheme that uses 206 LED color-mixing fixtures to illuminate the white walls of the enclosing room while saving energy, reducing heat, and providing the option of programming and storing color sequences to create stunning effects on the globe. The LED fixtures and all associated wiring were meticulously installed along the outer bronze framework to avoid fixture and wiring shadows.

This unique, three-dimensional perspective is enhanced by A World of Ideas, an artful and penetrating multimedia presentation, which gives visitors insights into how our world is connected and shaped by ideas.

This exhibit takes visitors on Malala’s journey from her home in the Swat Valley of Pakistan to her tireless global crusade for the right of all girls to have an education, despite harsh Taliban threats and repressive retaliation. The immersive show tells her inspiring story of perseverance and courage in the face of life-threatening opposition and eventual triumph as the youngest person to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

The lighting for the Minnesota Childrens’ Museum was designed to respond to the architectural environments within this active setting. The whimsical architectural design of the lobby is reinforced within the use of custom and decorative fixtures as dramatic elements. The black box design of the gallery spaces requires the use of 
flexible and easily controllable lighting systems resulting in a more theatrical design approach. Throughout the space the lighting supports the architecture designed to relate to children of any age. Lighting control systems allow for flexibility and input of external signals to control and modulate the lighting.

Schuler Shook collaborated with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the design team on this significant historic restoration. We designed new electric lighting for the Tiffany stained-glass dome and assisted with the chandeliers and sconces, which were fully re-created from historic photos. Our goal was to simulate the original look and feel of the lighting using modern LED technologies.

Prior to this project, the Tiffany dome had an opaque cover, added during a previous renovation. This opaque cover was removed, restoring the dome to its original design allowing natural light to illuminate the dome during the day with LED lighting simulating sunlight after dark.