The Meadow at the Old Chicago Post Office

Honor Award

General Design

Chicago, Illinois, United States
Hoerr Schaudt
Client: The 601W Companies

An Awe-Inspiring Green Rooftop in the Middle of the City

The Old Chicago Post Office Meadow transformed an unused space into the nation’s largest private rooftop garden atop a modern workplace.

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Site Plan

A colorful tapestry of garden rooms and recreation spaces create an environment that responds to the historic character of the building.

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Design Approach / Art Deco Style

Circulation patterns align with the structural grid of the building, echoing its Art Deco style, and working with structural reinforcement limits.

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Urban Open Space Need

With 10,000+ tenants, the building is the size of a small community, and the richly planted rooftop operates as the primary park space for the area.

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Seasonality

With four perennial plant palettes, bloom times were carefully choreographed to provide seasonal interest year-round.

Image Credit: Scott Shigley
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High Performance Landscape

The Meadow functions as a verdant catalyst incorporating sustainable attributes across one of the largest rooftop environments in the country

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Roof Loading Capacity & Innovative Green Roof Soil Solutions

An ultra-lightweight soil mix was engineered to provide 6-in of growing depth while having the weight of 4-in of typical green roof soil media.

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Over 3.5 Acres of Biodiversity

Biodiversity reigns at the Meadow; with 40,000+ plants from more than 50 unique species, this patch of nature serves as an oasis in the urban area.

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Sustainable Impact through Adaptive Reuse

The Meadow shows how green roofs play a role towards a more sustainable future by repurposing a vacant building into a vibrant mixed-use environment.

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Pollinator Garden and Habitat Value

In addition to housing birds and grasshoppers, the Meadow’s 3 bee colonies operate as pollinators for the garden and produce honey for the building.

Image Credit: Dave Burk (top left), Scott Shigley (bottom left), N/A Landscape Architect (middle and right)
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Nature as Filter

The Meadow will sequester thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere annually by preventing stormwater from becoming polluted runoff.

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Duality in Perception

From above, the roof is a colorful tapestry set within bold geometric lines; within, patterns disappear, and you’re immersed in a textural landscape.

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Human Connections in Nature

The Meadow is a diverse, human focused space woven into an ever-changing, biophilic landscape serving tenants and hosting Chicago events.

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Abundant Amenities

The year-round heated pavilion and bar overlooks a quarter-mile walking path, basketball court, pickle ball courts, and an expansive landscape.

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A Model for Future Historic Building Repositioning

The success story of The Meadow will continue to inspire for years with how we can reposition and reinvigorate obsolete structures for future use.

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“

Leads with beauty and intention with horticulture but is anchored within a bold framework.

”

- 2023 Awards Jury

Project Credits

Harry Skydell, 601W Companies, Owner and Project Developer

Kyle DeLuna, JLL, Building Operator and Property Management

Sheryl Schulze, Gensler, Architect

Brian Whiting, Telos, Leasing Agent

Kevin Goad, Columbia Green, Soil Supplier

Jonathan Sladek, WSP, Structural Engineer

Jonathan Lewis, Wiss, Janney, Elstner, MEP & Waterproofing

Dennis Hill, BEAR Construction, General Contractor

Christy Webber, Christy Webber Landscape, Landscape Contractor

Dan Feick, FRS Design, Irrigation Design

Project Statement

The most sustainable building is the one that’s already built. This statement rings true through the repositioning efforts at the iconic Old Chicago Post Office. Leveraging the building’s vast roof area as an asset, the Meadow has become the nation’s largest private rooftop garden enabling the space to become a park unto itself. Tenants actively and passively use the space daily to connect with nature amidst an urban backdrop; weddings, conferences, and community events are hosted atop the building year-round. Designed with sustainability in mind, the rooftop uses innovative soil mixes, stormwater filtration, with 40K+ plants, bee colonies, and more to provide a formerly desolate urban area with 3.5 acres of new, richly planted green space.

Project Narrative

The Old Chicago Post Office story is the tale of how an iconic piece of architecture gained a second chance at life. Built in 1921, the 13-story structure occupies two city blocks with over 2.5 million SF space. Despite its size and recognition, the building fell victim to the modernization of the postal delivery system and closed. In 2016, developer 601W Companies purchased the building to revitalize it into a modern work environment. The surrounding neighborhood lacked the green space desired to support the influx of nearly 10,000 tenants who would occupy the building. Leveraging the building’s vast roof area, nearly four acres, the Meadow was born, becoming the nation’s largest private rooftop garden.

Benefit to Wider Community: Through its adaptive reuse, Chicago has gained a sizeable new urban employment center. The project serves as a highly visible example of how rooftop landscapes can be used to accommodate a wide variety of programs in an attractive and sustainable setting. While it serves primarily as an area of respite and nature for tenants, the space can be rented for events and has already hosted a variety of conferences, fundraisers, and weddings.

Sensitivity to Surrounding Aesthetics: The design of the rooftop was inspired by the building’s Art Deco style of architecture. Because of loading restrictions, the primary pathways were organized along major structural beams, setting the framework.

Sensitivity to Surrounding Ecological Systems: The Meadow is a highly viable patch of nature in an urban environment. This robust landscape of native and adapted perennials and grasses promotes connectivity through its role as a habitat. Sheltered by a continuous perimeter of 8-foot-tall parapet walls, the Meadow provides a semi-protected landscape that many bird and insect species now call home. Three bee colonies have been added to the roof, to help pollinate the Meadows.

Soil Innovation: The project’s greatest challenge was creating an immersive landscape while working within the loading constraints of the existing roof. The plants the design sought to utilize typically require a minimum of six to nine inches of soil depth which was not possible using traditional green roof soil mix. The design team worked with a green roof soil provider to create a new ultra-lightweight soil mix that would support the growth of larger perennials and grasses within the loading constraints of the existing roof. Because this was going to be the first application of the soil, and at such a large scale, the design team required the supplier to create and maintain a mockup on the roof for one growing season before construction.

Materials and Installation Methods: With over 40,000 individual plants, the project sought to reduce the carbon footprint of the plant growing and delivery process by treating the project site as a nursery. Instead of installing larger-sized plant material, most of the plants were sourced as small plugs inserted into a biodegradable erosion mat.

Water Management: The richly planted meadows serve as a giant sponge absorbing and filtering more than a quarter-million gallons of stormwater annually from entering the City’s strained storm sewer system. The roof intercepts and helps divert over 300K gallons of stormwater from entering the sewer system. As the largest above-grade green roof in Chicago, the Meadow illustrates how vegetated roofs can be attractive, functional, and an asset to development projects.

Products

Furniture
- Frame Table and Chair, Vondom
- Quartz Dining Table and Chair, Vondom
- Wall Street Table and Stool, Vondom
Irrigation
- Hunter Irrigation Products
Structures
- Custom Design and Fabrication
Soils
- Columbia Green Technologies/Midwest Trading Lightweight Proprietary Green Roof Media
Hardscape
- Ultraface Paver, Tectura by Wausau
- Custom Precast Concrete by Wausau
Lighting
- Pathway lighting, Sistemalux S.7262W-UNV-14
- Light Columns, Tech Lighting “Turbo Column” 700OCTUR-830-12-40-Z-UNV-2-S

Plant List

Eastern Bluestar
Dutch Chocolate Wild Indigo
Northwind Switch Grass
Summer Beauty Allium
Joe-Pye Weed
Eastern Bee Balm
Dark Towers Penstemon
Prairie Dropseed
Blue Ice Star Flower
Pow Wow White Coneflower
Russian Sage
Fall Aster
Sneezeweed
Autumn Moor Grass
Wrinkleleaf Goldenrod
Adam’s Needle
White Catmint