This will be the David M. Rubenstein Forum at the University of Chicago. ( DSRNY rendering)

We have a winner for Most Unique Construction Project in Chicago right now.

The David M. Rubenstein Forum is being built by the University of Chicago on its Hyde Park campus. **Most of the campus may be in Hyde Park, but this particular project is south of the Midway Plaisance, placing it in the Woodlawn neighborhood. Sorry, my mistake.** It’s part Jenga tower, part shipping container park. There’s a lot of concrete, a ton of glass, and when it’s finished, it will have lots of ways for U of C students to utilize it.

The school describes it, in part, this way:

The ground floor includes the main lobby and a restaurant, with stairs leading to the building’s largest multipurpose event space, capable of accommodating groups up to 600. Immediately above the base is a 285-seat auditorium. The top floor of the tower features a flat-floor multipurpose space, which can accommodate meetings of 75 and other events.

The Rubenstein Forum is a collaboration between design architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro out of NYC, and Chicago’s own Brininstool + Lynch. On the build is Turner Construction. I’m grateful to them for the Facebook photo of the tower cranes included in the photo gallery. (The bird joke is theirs, not mine.) I didn’t get down to Hyde Park when they were still in the air.

If you click on all those links I’ve provided above, not only will you find everything you need to know about the Rubenstein Forum, but you’ll also see a ton of great renderings, plus some stellar drone footage.