The Architecture and Planning firm, Krueck Sexton Partners, is the featured December architect of the month on Bob Clark Beyond, and for a good reason. Since founding the company, Ron Krueck and Mark Sexton have made it their mission to contribute to Chicago’s architectural legacy. They make their mark on the city through transformative structures and by inspiring the next generation of young architects to learn and contribute to innovative discoveries.
The company’s first project in 1981, A Steel and Glass House, was the first sign of how it operates with a different people-centric mindset. The firm works to uncover a project's potential by creating value and impact for the client and beyond.
A Steel and Glass House is a personal and comfortable space tailored to the client’s wants of a light-filled, single-family home on an urban renewal site three blocks from a public housing project. At the time of its development, postmodernism was the most prominent architectural style. Still, the firm traded that trend in favor of the client’s vision for a house in the middle of a city that offered the same amenities as a suburban home. As a result of its boldness and breakthroughs for the era, the house won several awards, including the AIA National Honor Award, the National Building Award for Innovative Structural Steel, and the National Architectural Design Award.
Source: Krueck Sexton Partners
One of my favorite projects by Krueck Sexton Partners is the Grogan Dove FBI Federal Building in Miramar, Florida. The twenty-acre site was originally part of the Everglades and had 1,000 federal employees working comfortably in an environment where 59% of the original wetlands had been restored after the project’s completion.
Source: Krueck Sexton Partners
Clayco is dedicated to improving the communities around us, which is why companies like Krueck Sexton Partners align so well with our shared goal of creating structures rooted in humanistic value. 1313 Moorman, located next to one of Chicago’s networks of elevated transit tracks, was considered undevelopable – but Krueck Sexton Partners took that as a challenge. The structure is proposed as an adaptable mixed-use building catering to young professionals and neighborhood artists in Wicker Park. It uses the city’s unique transit scheme and incorporates a park over the tracks' infrastructure, turning it into a vibrant public space. 1313 Moorman is a catalyst for creativity and could spark a development strategy for similar sites.
Source: Krueck Sexton Partners
The Tower at North Franklin is another incredible, iconographic building with the goal of providing flexibility in leasing layouts and world-class amenities. It incorporates elements of nature to foster a connection between the people inside the building and the environment outside its walls through many terraces and improved access to daylight.
Source: Krueck Sexton Partners
Krueck and Sexton transformed the Loyola Academy Performing Arts Center to improve creativity and connection in Chicago’s neighborhoods. The center is being restructured to accommodate larger audiences with an added balcony, fly tower, and a welcoming outdoor space to host extracurricular activities and social gatherings.
Source: Krueck Sexton Partners
The firm facilitated connections with U.S. Embassies in Papua New Guinea, Paris, and Nairobi. As a frequent traveler with our strong Clayco base in Chicago, it’s great to see how Krueck Sexton Partners transform cityscapes worldwide by approaching work in a spirit of openness and possibility.
Read more about Krueck Sexton Partners here.
