Dear AT,
I'm supposed to come out and visit Chicago (and Minneapolis) for the first time next week (February 16- 27). I'm from Sacramento, California so I don't know Chicago cold. Now I scroll through your site almost every day and really don't see much about the weather. Does the weather not affect you all? It was recently -35 degrees and I see not a peep. I'm so curious about how the cold plays a part in your day to day lives and your design choices. (Industrial strength coat racks?)
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My friends from the Midwest tell me it's part of life and you all just bundle up and go on with your lives but the bitter cold must impact many design choices, not to mention how you interact and live. What's the scoop?
-Beth
Dear Beth,
It's quite possible that because the weather is ALL anyone talks about when it gets this cold, I think AT has continued to steer the focus toward what happens in our homes, not outside. That said, though, the winter months are a tricky time to:
1) find places for snowy boots and shoes when you come home to a small apartment,
2) find storage and easy access for all of the gloves, scarves, bulky coats, and thick sweaters we wear on a daily basis,
3) enjoy home and catch up on "projects"...being inside more doesn't always equal being productive. Many people just get frustrated and stir crazy.
The bitter weather certainly affects people at home when it involves heating issues and cost, window insulation, leaking radiators, shoveling snow, or anything else that one might be responsible for (or if not responsible for, then impacted by).
BUT, we hadn't exactly thought about it in terms of how it affects design choices - on the inside. We like to think our apartment's style transfers easily from season to season, and the only things affected by what's happening outside are what we're wearing and how many blankets we're using.
We do think your question is an interesting one, and there are probably a slew of related issues and ideas lingering out there. We wonder what all the other AT-ers have to say. Thoughts?? Does the winter weather really affect your interior design choices?
(First page, photo via Flickr, Michael Meskis' photostream. This page, photo via Flickr, FrancesDre's photostream)
We live in a 115 year old townhome in Minneapolis. We would have liked to keep the original windows, they were very cool, but it wasn't worth the energy we were losing and the general draftiness of the house.
It is a brick building, and we would love to have exposed brick walls in the living room, but it is an outside wall, so we tore out the old plaster walls to put in insulation and drywall. We have to keep warm.
Here in Minneapolis, we also put a lot of thought into our bus and train shelters. The new train shelters are some of the most interesting and overlooked art in the city, but they all had to be designed around one important thing, push button electric heaters.
The other thing I've noticed, and I don't know if this happens elsewhere, is that people in apartments use the common spaces more in the winter for personal belongings. Specifically, they leave wet shoes and boots in the hallways of their buildings.
I agree with the editors, that it's just a fact of life and we go on. It doesn't affect my design choices for my own home, but I have been using my increased time inside to knock out a number of home projects. I'm lucky to have a lot of natural light in my place, so I think I'm a little less susceptible to winter depression.
I do notice it affecting choices for businesses, though. For example, many bars, restaurants and businesses put up temporary outer-doors (sorry, can't think of a better way to describe them), creating foyers to reduce the impact of cold and wind on the interior. And architecturally speaking, Chicago is the city of revolving doors on just about every office building.
There is a saying in Chicago, "There are only two seasons: Winter and Construction." Unfortunately, this is almost mostly true!!
As an architect I can say that there are MANY things about the weather that impact the way we design buildings, and Heather had a good start. Among other things are worrying about snow load (Oswego, NY is definitely dealing with this now,) the effect of freeze-thaw cyles on buildings, seriously compromising the building cladding, especially on older terra cotta and masonry clad buildings. There is also the issue of falling ice - heed the "falling ice" warnings and contrary to your instincts, walk at the curb edge, not closer to the building. Even I have remind myself.
And, another issue that was discussed in today's Chicago Tribune, the difficulty of keeping the heating and cooling of interior spaces balanced in times of temperature extremes. Most buildings rely heavily on being fully populated, counting on body heat. In fact, most office buildings are in a cooling mode even in the coldest weather at some time during the day (though this usually involves just introducing outside are to temper the air being delivered.) The difficulty is over weekends when the buildings are empty. It can take hours/days to heat up or cool down a building after a building with no air. Sorry, I don't know how to do an active link to the below, but if you go to the Chicago Tribune and go to the business section, you should be able to find the article.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-0702120025feb12,0,2784691.column?coll=chi-business-hed
So, this is just a hint at how weather impacts the design of buildings.
All this being said, here's my advise on braving the cold . . . and cold should be anticipated and we have a major storm coming tonight/tomorrow.
1. FORGET FASHION!! I mean it, forget fashion. Dress for the weather, otherwise you put yourself in a physically dangerous position. If you need to be fashionable, plan to dress appropriately for the weather and carry your dress clothes seperately. I dress for the weather to get to work, then change at the office into business wear. (Though last week was so rough, and I was SO cold that I never did change out of my outside dress.)
2. DRESS IN LAYERS!! For the past two weeks I have been wearing a quasi-silk camisole, acotton blouse/shirt, a wool sweater, a wool blazer, panty hose, quasi-silk long pants, jeans, two pairs of socks, one nylon (thin), one wool (thick), snow sneakers, two wool scarves, one to cover my face, the other to keep the first one in place, a totally grungy, very old hat with an integral scarf (it's the best I have ever found and I will NOT give it up until I am too embarrassed to wear it anymore), a wool, almost full length coat, and leather gloves with thinsulate covered by wool mittens my late mother knitted for me. Trust me, even with all of this, you will be cold within minutes. Don't forget your tissues or your lip moisturizer!! Use the lip stuff before you go outside; have tissues for when you enter a bus/taxi/building. And, don't forget to hydrate . . . this is the one NEW tip that I have learned this year.
3. BE SMART. If you are just visiting, you probably won't be a slave to a questionable transit situation, relying probably more on cabs, etc. But on days of extreme weather trying to get cabs can be a challenge in itself. Again, dress warmly. Even a couple of minutes outside, if you are not dresses appropriately can be dangerous. It takes only a couple of minutes to be succeptible to frostbite.
4. ENJOY CHICAGO!!! It's a beautiful city, even in its most extreme state of weather issues. (You take and deal with what you get!) I moved back to Chicago 20 years ago, and you know what? There isn't a single day that I don't MARVEL at the beauty of Chicago. I wouldn't trade Chicago for almost anything. Have a great time!!
Magnolia
I'm currently living in an apartment with, I would swear, ZERO insulation. This has affected my design choices: I MUST have floor coverings! I had next to none in summer and now find myself getting ready to cover the ugly old tile in the bathroom with wall-to-wall FLOR tiles simply to save the pain of standing on that frigid floor in stocking feet. A simple cotton rug from the Target, though cute, just doesn't cut it. If this weren't a temporary home for me I'd invest in some serious draperies too, but good slippers and heavier floor coverings are better investments at the moment.
I'll keep my response short as I'm thoroughly tired of talking about the weather...
having just received my letter from ComEd notifying me that my electricity rate will rise about $20 a month I find myself frustrated with the apparent lack of good design aimed at relieving our energy addiction.
Couple this with last winter's gas price skyrocket and I find myself ever more drawn to sustainable architecture. Sadly though I'm a renter.
Perhaps if I were building a home I would now certainly consider solar panels on a green roof that collected rainwater. I would have a hyper-efficient heating system and a very well insulated home...etc...
As a renter all one can do is stop-gap any problem that arises. I have a poorly insulated apt, so I have plastic over my windows, blinds over that and heavy curtains to mitigate the seeping cold. I have floor coverings to minimize the heat loss... etc... But how I wish I could actually impliment some good design principals into my home...
Oh, how 'bout the anger-snow that's falling now... I just heard on Public Radio thta to travel down LSD- normally a 14 min trip is now up to 55 min and rising!!! ye-haw!
Here in chilly Montreal, it's all about having a vestibule as an air-lock between inside and outside, a big doormat to keep boot mess (water, salt, sand and asphalt grit) off the nice floors and plenty of storage for coats, mitts and hats (and a shovel) near the front door.
I've also chosen slightly heavier curtains in our principal rooms in an effort to keep drafts down, but I dunno if that helps.
In terms of our interior, I think the design choice most affected by the weather is what type of window treatments we choose. We use a lot of cellular blinds, because they insulate the window but don't keep the sun from coming in. Every little bit of solar gain helps!
Most of our windows are new double-panes, but where we have one original glass balcony door, we basically just have to seal it until Spring and hang heavy drapes over it. Later this year we'll be replacing it with an insulated reproduction.
I do notice that ceiling fans are pretty ubiquitous here--and with our high ceilings, we really need them in winter to keep pushing the warm air back down into the living space. Our living room doesn't have one and any time I get up on a ladder it feels like I'm in a toaster oven. I know we're losing heat by not having a fan in there, but talk about a design challenge! It's not easy to find a ceiling fan that doesn't look agressively faux-antique on one hand, and aggressively industrial on the other.
Now that I think about it, you really don't see ceiling fans used in average-height residential spaces in the shelter magazines, do you? If they show a place with ceiling fans, it's always either a loft (with industrial-style fans), a super-high atrium, or a home in a hot climate (usually with some kind of palm-frond-looking thing). Is this an indication that the popularity of ceiling fans in the midwest is a regional quirk, or are they just so unstylish that the kind of spaces that get featured in magazines would never be so uncool as to have them?
(Side note: If anyone's found a ceiling fan that has a multi-light fixture but doens't look like it belongs in Ye Olde Victorian Show Home, please share!)
Chicagoans -
If somebody were going to visit your city for a fun trip, which month(s) would you recommend as the best time to visit? My husband and I are thinking of going to Chicago for 5-6 days later this year to see architecture, museums, etc. I've read online that early Fall is great because it is warm but not hot, fairly dry, and the kiddos are back in school thus reducing wait-time for popular attractions.
Thanks for any feedback!
I recall reading an article about how little design contends with - or ignores - normal winter issues. I've lived in far colder and snowier climates where it barely fazed the locals (of course, I know someone from north of the artic circle who says Chicago is the COLDEST place he's ever been!!!). This should be a larger topic of discussion, frankly - it's not just about insulation and indoor comfort, but about outdoor space and how to use it better or make it more function in winter.
katie (atlanta): correct, i would recommend may or september - before or after the summer tourist rush. ;)
Thank you jen :)
Can someone ask Beth to clarify when it was "recently -35 degrees" here in Chicago? It's cold in Chicago but not THAT cold...my god, that's Siberia cold.
Matt
matt - i'm guessing beth was hearing wind chill numbers...?
Matt, I saw headlines on a news aggregator two weeks ago claiming Chicago was negative thirty five degrees with the wind chill. This threw me into a state of panic because I saw a couple of tv shows about climbing Mt. Everest and it was only -20 there. Are you telling me it wasn't actually that cold? I'm packing for worst case scenario. I thought some of the charm of bundling up and seeing the sights in Chicago might wear off after I lost a few fingers and toes.
hi beth,
yes, it actually has been that cold. temps hovering around 2 degrees last week so i guess -35 wind chill is not impossible. (although i don't listen to the numbers that much...i just know when the temp hurts!)
We did have below-zero wind chills during our recent "arctic cold blast," but those kind of temperatures aren't an everyday thing for us; that's why they make the news! The average temperatures for Chicago in January are a low of 18 and a high of 32. Each winter we'll get a few spells of hard cold that will drop temperatures into the single digits, but they're usually not that long-lasting. If we go two weeks in winter without a day over 32 degrees, that's also considered very unusual.
One helpful thing to know about the Chicago region is that the lake moderates temperatures, so in winter the areas closest to the lake don't usually hit the lows. (Example: this morning it was 23 degrees downtown while it was only 13 at Midway airport, about 8 miles further inland.) When you see super-low temps on the news, they're almost always from somewhere far inland, not downtown.
My general advice to travelers is to pack like you're going on a ski trip, minus the snowpants. Think wind, many thin layers, warm footwear, wooly scarves, hats, and mittens. Layering is key, because once you're inside you'll die if you have a big fat wool sweater on!
For me the biggest winter essential is silk long underwear. It's thin enough to go under any kind of pants without showing, it's not too hot when you're indoors, and it will save your bacon when you're outside, all without making you feel like a yeti. They're the best thing for winter since waterproof mascara.
Thanks so much for all of the input and cold weather advice! I'm so excited to come out and experience the midwest in all of its cold weather glory. I'll bundle up, watch out for falling ice and take it all in.