Wilson Station is a major station on the Chicago Transit Authority Red Line, with more than two million passengers each year, and as part of this 1 billion dollar revitalization the station will become a transfer station to the express purple line. One of the main street-level entrances to the station is through the Gerber building — a contributing historical structure to Chicago’s Uptown Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Though constrained by physical space, both infrastructural and architectural, the new headhouse begs to act as a beacon to the Wilson neighborhood and a visual representation of the areas rejuvenation. With maximum transparency on all head house entries an attempt is made to link the length of the site, from the historic Gerber building in the north through the site and Harry S Truman college and finally connecting to the shopping blocks on the South. The station becomes a key contributor to the success of the urban environment: respecting/ representing the rich heritage of the site, increasing service levels of modern infrastructure to allow for continued growth of the neighborhood, and linking and engaging all corners of the site.

CREDITS:

Client: Chicago Transit Authority (CTA)

Architecture + Engineering: HNTB

Design Team: Tyler Cukar, Belisario Barchi, Annya Ramirez, Alyssa Batlas, robert Pappachia