Projects

After nearly 70 years, the lighting of the clock tower at the Minneapolis Municipal Building was restored to the original design intent. Using the architect’s drawings as a guide, the glass and the support structure was restored to look as it did when the building was built in the early 1900’s. Minneapolis Architects Long and Keys designed the Municipal Building as a landmark structure, drawing on neo-Romanesque themes of Boston architect H.H.

Richardson. The tower is the crowning jewel of the building, with four clock faces that measure 24 feet in diameter. It is the largest four-faced, chiming clock in the world. The tower also serves as a symbol of great city of Minneapolis.

Using a technique taken from theatrical lighting, Schuler Shook used a ​“bounce drop” – a highly reflective curtain hung behind each clock face. A bank of highly efficient LED floodlights illuminate the drop, and the reflected light provides an even wash of light that back-lights the clock face, without shadows from support structure.

The glowing glass silhouettes the clock hands, allowing citizens to read the time-of-day from miles away.

Alexander Calder’s steel stabile ​“Flamingo” was the first work of art commissioned under the General Service Administration’s Art in Architecture Program in 1974. The sculpture’s vermilion color and 53-foot tall organic form serves as a counterfoil to the surrounding three prominent Mies Van der Rohe federal office buildings in Chicago’s Federal Plaza. In its initial installation, it was not lighted for viewing after dark.

The lighting of the ​“Flamingo” was implemented as part of a program to improve the plaza and increase security. The primary challenge was to illuminate as many surfaces and facets as possible using a reasonable quantity of fixtures. All lighting fixtures are buried in the plaza pavers and are identical: PAR38 adjustable uplights with positive locking mechanisms. Schuler Shook performed site testing to test and select the incident lighting angles, source color, and fixture locations and quantities. All of the lighting emanates from the plaza, shining up on the sculpture, which reinforces the weightless nature of the sculpture and suggests that the sculpture floats above the plaza, barely touching the ground.

The initial renovation project won an IALD Award of Merit and an IES International Illumination Design Award. IALD judges remarked that, ​“The graceful and beautiful pattern of the form comes alive…”

The original design used 150 watt halogen PAR lamps with spot and flood distributions. In the second renovation of the plaza, Schuler Shook replaced the lights with more energy efficient ceramic metal halide.

The 333 West Wacker building is a post-modern office tower well-known for its distinctive green glass façade that curves along the Chicago River. This 1983 structure has two separate entry lobbies connected by three elevator lobbies. Pre-renovation, the lobby had dark ceilings, walls, and floors. Spaces felt dim and imbalanced — particularly when compared to the bright, daylit windows beyond. The primary goal of the renovation was to transform the lobbies of this timeless classic into a bright, inviting entry.

Schuler Shook, Perkins+Will and the owner worked together to identify new fixture locations and types that respond better to the dark stone of the lobby. The new lobby lighting features compact fluorescent downlights that bathe the walls with light. Wall panels are polished, so fixtures have regressed lamps in order to minimize reflections in the panels. Floor and ceiling tiles are now white to increase overall light levels and the perception of brightness.

Schuler Shook provided architectural lighting design services for a four-story glass box processing center with a mostly open office floor plan. Demountable partitions were used extensively in the project so the lighting system had to be flexible enough to accommodate the reconfiguring of the space.

The control system allowed each fixture to have an individual address so that when walls changed position lighting control zones could be reconfigured to provide discrete control for the newly enclosed space. The project was first designed with fluorescent fixtures for budget reasons, but during the bidding phase the owner decided that the upgrade to all LED was worth the additional cost. 
 

Schuler Shook designed the lighting for the restoration of House chamber and skylight. Accent lighting and uplights enhance the historic gathering space while carefully located luminaires light the hall and provide illumination suitable for video.

Hyde Park Bank has long been recognized as an integral part of the historic community of Hyde Park. Over the years, the space had become impersonal, dark and was not providing the welcoming environment that the Bank wanted to offer its clientele. Through architectural and lighting revisions, the Bank hoped to create a modern, flexible workspace that complemented, rather than obscured, the past. Florian Architects was enlisted to restore the banking hall while introducing a contemporary aspect, more in keeping with a 21st century financial institution.

The renovation included the restoration of three monumental existing chandeliers that contribute to the ambiance, and ambient lighting, of the banking hall. Terra-cotta reliefs and bronze shields detailed by focal lighting make a striking impact. 

Located on Goose Island in the heart of Chicago, UI LABS’ new Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute (DMDII) is the product of a collaborative initiative among government agencies, key universities, and industry partners. 

DMDII is a comprehensively equipped technology hub, seamlessly blending the manufacturing areas with adjacent open office and support spaces. The 94,000 SF facility is organized around themes of openness, transparency, industrial might, and environmentally friendly strategies, linking together a manufacturing floor, classrooms, a lecture hall, and flexible work spaces to foster collaboration and spur innovation. 

Lighting and architecture are integrated in a minimal, timeless aesthetic for this high-rise building. The law firm’s Chicago headquarters occupies 27 floors (672,000 SF), and our designers created lighting solutions throughout for private attorney offices, open secretarial stations, the conference center, reception areas, elevator lobbies and corridors.

Schuler Shook provided lighting design and theatre planning services for the 450-seat Tower Auditorium in this Global Communications Hub in Charlotte. The room is designed for video production and teleconferencing as well as live lecture and assembly.

Working closely with the architects at Perkins+Will, we created a seating layout and appropriate lighting of the onstage presenter and the audience that works well for those in the room and for those experiencing the room through the bank’s Knowledge Channel video broadcasts.