TWO BRANDS, ONE CONTEMPORARY SPACE

The publishing world isn’t always the glamorous and chic one portrayed in the movies: the crisp white offices and skyline views in The Devil Wears Prada certainly did not represent the offices that housed Chicago’s Condé Nast branch and their recently-acquired Pitchfork properties. Condé’s sales teams sat in the Hancock Tower’s 35th floor perimeter offices where no natural light entered, making for a dreary and dark setting. The Pitchfork brand was at home for years in a Logan Square residential property. While the homey feeling was perfect for their laid-back style in the contemporary music journalism and festival business, its design team was working out of the garage.The Condé group decided to bring all of its Chicago teams together under one roof, soliciting the expertise of GREC Architects to design a new home for them on the 21st floor of the Merchandise Mart. Led by Project DesignerLiz Potokar, LEED AP; Director of Interiors and Project Manager Michael Berger; and Project Designer Cameron Laabs, LEED AP, GREC technical designer, the team worked closely with the client to solve major challenges of integrating these different groups.