RONAN ARCHITECTS
Our first stop today was the office of Ronan Architects, a first floor concrete loft located outside the Chicago city centre. The incredibly generous John Ronan talked to us about his fifteen year old practice and fielded questions about project procurement and how his practice operated. He walked us through walls full of drawings and desks full of models of recent competitions and projects including the Gary Comer Youth Centre, a ‘transformational’ project for a neighbourhood in South Chicago. John then took us across to Ronan Architects’ most well known project to date, the Poetry Foundation, only a couple of blocks away. His explanation of the seductive screen to the street, beautifully proportioned volumes, attention to detail and material execution were inspirational. 
KRUECK AND SEXTON
John kindly offered to accompany us to our next appointment with Krueck and Sexton. We met with Thomas Jacobs who gave us the practice history, an evolution from a small residential practice to a firm now undertaking major public and government commissions. Tom entertained us with his recent experience in renovating Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology where a single mullion detail was the subject of nine months of heated debate with the ‘Mies Police.’ We then cabbed it downtown to check out their Spertus Institute on Michigan Avenue. Yugene and Andreas gave us the full tour with special attention to the innovative facade which broke with the historic streetscape.
SMITH AND GILL
After burritos, chips and guacamole for lunch, it was time to up the scale. Our next meeting was with John Burcher on the 23rd floor of the 1960s SOM classic 111 West Monroe building. Smith and Gill specialise in the ‘super-tall’ tower and are the authors of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. They are also working on the future world’s tallest building the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, which will be one kilometre tall. When asked how high it was possible to go with the new technology, John just smiled and said ‘the sky’s the limit.’ With a long history working within Chicago practices, John regaled us with stories of SOM at its height, with over 5,000 staff and a tea lady pushing the trolley between the drafting desk offering ‘hot nuts at four!’. 
STRAWN SIERRALTA
Our final practice visit for the day was with husband-wife duo Brian and Karla of Strawn Sierralta. We were graciously invited into their home-office, a renovated one bedroom apartment in Bertrand Goldberg’s Marina Towers. Maintaining a small architectural practice together, Karla also teaches full time at IIT whilst Brian has a consultancy in design thinking and strategy. Needless to say, our young group felt many parallels with these guys and we swapped stories on their balcony and checked out the top floor laundry and roof top for 360 degree views of Chicago. 
CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE FOUNDATION TALK
Brian and Karla are also the co-presidents of the Chicago Architectural Club, and organised for the DST crew to speak about their own work to a local audience. The presentations were well-received (even though Ben cheated and went over time) and were followed by a lively and engaged ‘q and a’ session. This was also the first time we had really got to see each others work which gave us an insight into each others practices making for new discussions over dinner. After some serious burger action at the Little Goat Diner, Phil suggested a blues bar. What a brilliant way to spend our last night in Chicago. Entertained by the dulcet tones Charlie Love and his Silky Smooth Band alongside diva Shirley Johnson, we tapped, boogied and drank Jen-and-tonics into the wee hours of the morning. 