Ragdale Foundation Meadow Studio

Project Details:
The Ragdale estate, listed in the National Register of Historic Places was designed by Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw is located north of the city of Chicago in Lake Forest, IL.

The Meadow Studio, built in 1943 as a sculpture studio for Shaw’s daughter Sylvia Shaw Judson is where she created one of her most famous sculptures Bird Girl. A Shaw family member put it succinctly when she said:

“Meadow Studio is the heart and soul of Ragdale. It was the first studio on Ragdale property. It’s isolated presence on the prairie fosters inspiration and creativity in a new way . . . “

Penny West, Ragdale Board Member and Building Committee Co-Chair

According to Architecture Professor Frank Flury:

“The importance of this project is in the educational benefit to the students who get to design and build a piece of architecture in an historically important and unique landscape setting. In addition, the students are working to design the most sustainable possible building through the use of appropriate new technologies and natural materials.”

Professor Flury said, “Icynene is the only choice for insulation.” His students conducted extensive research and determined that they only had one choice for insulation.

The original Meadow Studio failed due to poor roof maintenance during the studio’s early years, the building suffered extensive structural damage and dry rot according to Jack Danch, Director of Property.

Frank Flury, Illinois Institute of Technology professor of Architecture donated the labor and the minds of his young architecture students. Frank challenged his students to rebuild the Meadow Studio with the best materials available today while maintaining the architectural integrity of the original structure. Icynene was their choice for insulation due to its unusual characteristics. The Meadow Studio was designed to last for 100 plus years and the insulation is critical to the integrity of the structure. Moisture was the reason the original structure failed and Icynene’s bi-directional drying would ensure that the walls would stay dry and that the roof would not be damaged by moisture.

After the Meadow Studio was installed, one student was so impressed he brought his father to the property. His father had recently been diagnosed with cancer and was finding the draftiness of his home a bit more uncomfortable than he like. A few weeks later we installed Icynene in his father’s attic.

Statement by Frank Flury:
The Meadow studio is a small, roughly 1,000 sq. ft., artists’ studio located on the border between an area of woods and an expanse of prairie, in Lake Forest, Illinois which was designed and constructed throughout the course of a one year as part of the Design/Build initiative at the Illinois Institute of Technology. The Meadow Studio replaces a previous building which was constructed in 1943 and had fallen into a state of disrepair making it no longer usable by artists. The new building was designed based on the given programmatic requirements, conversations with various artists and the client, and also by looking back at the old structure’s construction, and detailing, of particular interest was the use of cedar as a design element.

An important condition attached to the permit was that we would cause as little impact as possible to the site during the building process meaning that no heavy equipment could be used during construction. The building was therefore built entirely by hand. Inspired by the natural setting, and the old studio, the students designed the building in such a way that all exterior cedar finishes could be left untreated. Energy efficiency and a comfortable interior climate were also important design considerations and thus finding ecologically responsible and sustainable materials was mandatory. The students did considerable research trying to find the appropriate insulation material, and then a student found an ad in Dwell magazine about Icynene and remembered a movie about the installation of the product. After reading about the company and getting some references it was clear for the students that they had found the perfect insulation for our project. The product had all the requirements the students were looking for. The product Icynene is the only spray foam that is not toxic or harmful to the environment, while also being incredibly efficient. By spraying the product as a very thin liquid, it has the ability to get into the smallest gaps and holes, to guarantee the most efficiency possible. There is no waste at all, the company uses only as much as needed so there are no leftovers at all. The product does not release any fumes, so the indoor air quality very good, an important criteria for a truly green building.

After inhabiting the building in the cold Chicago winter for almost a half year our decision has proven to be a good one; with the highly insulated walls and roof, the building can be heated with a radiant floor heating system very economically. The heating contractor originally had concerns about whether the radiant system would indeed heat the building. He felt we needed additional radiators, however, this has proven to be unnecessary. It seems that the value of highly insulated walls and ceilings are not well understood in the building industry. Icynene is a highly engineered product which will change the way we think about buildings, and going through the process of researching, installing and now seeing its performance has been an incredible learning experience for these young architectural students.