AGNORA’s oversized LowE insulated units contribute to Chicago’s WMS Boathouse training facility

Exterior shot of WMS Boathouse at Clark Park, Chicago featuring Interior shot of rowing team training in gym facility in front of Oversized, daylighting insulated glass units.

Oversized, daylighting insulated glass units for the WMS Boathouse at Clark Park, Chicago.

Architectural Record journalist Clifford A. Pearson writes about Studio Gang Architect’s latest project by the Chicago River. He mentions the city’s goal to make this river a public asset and the result is “an energetic building turns structure and materials into a graceful expression of the activity it houses”. AGNORA is proud to have supplied daylighting insulated glass units for this public amenity. Oversize IGU’s in both shapes and rectangles used high performance solar control coated glass from Saint Gobain Glass. It gives desired functionality and fits well into the architects’ design vision.

An excerpt from the article “A rower crouches with her knees tucked below her fists, then dips her oars in the water and pulls back. The lines of the oars sketch an elegant V in the air, which is repeated over and over as the slender boat cuts through the water. Jeanne Gang thought about such movement when she started designing the WMS Boathouse at Clark Park in Chicago. She looked at Eadweard Muybridge’s famous stop-motion photographs of rowers, eventually translating the dynamic lines of the oars into her building’s distinctive sawtooth roofs and the exposed trusses that support them. The 22,600-square-foot boathouse, which cost $8.8 million to construct, continues to demonstrate Gang’s interest in the Chicago River and her commitment to turning the much-abused waterway into a public amenity.” Read more.

About the WMS Boathouse

The WMS Boathouse at Clark Park, was opened on 19 October 2013. This is now the home of the Chicago Rowing Foundation (CRF) which, with its focus on youth rowing and adaptive rowing programmes, satisfies the project brief in widening participation and drawing Chicago’s population towards its freshened-up river. The boathouse’s saw-tooth roof pays homage to the city’s industrial past: a 22,620 square-foot rowing factory.