Architects create living Ragdale Ring amphitheater in Lake Forest

Above the whine of a power saw and the pound of hammering, nine architecture students chatted in three different languages while working on the new Ragdale Ring outdoor performance space in Lake Forest.

While some tightened supports at the base, others balanced on ladders to tack down the netting.

The group worked steadily to complete the supports for the straw wattles, lying on the ground like a jumble of giant earthworms behind the Ragdale House artist-in-residence retreat. The wattles think super-lightweight logs will cover the structure and spill onto the grass below.

We wanted something that blended seamlessly with the ground and you could actually grow things in, architect Michael Loverich said. Over the course of the summer, things will start sprouting in it and the existing lawn will grow through it. It actually becomes much more alive as the summer goes on.

Loverich and Antonio Torres of The Bittertang Farm in New York and Guadalajara submitted the winning design in the second international competition to create an interpretation of the outdoor performance ring designed by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw for what was originally his summer home, Ragdale, located at 1230 N. Green Bay Road in Lake Forest. Like Shaws original performance ring, their design will also play host to a series of artistic performances this summer.

In the first week of the design-build project on May 28, Torres was still pinching himself.

We were given this chance to stay here at Ragdale with a team of 10 people and that is just really amazing, said Torres, a native of Chicagos Pilsen neighborhood. There are not that many opportunities or projects that allow you to have a team stay and be fed for the duration of the project. Weve been able to make a lot of progress, because were all focused on what were here for to build the pavilion.

Jeffrey Meeuwsen, executive director of Ragdale, believes this years winning team embodies the vision the projects creators intended when the competition was first conceived in 2013.

The fact that it pulls a really diverse group of people from across the U.S. and Mexico and theyre here working together, learning together, experimenting, and creating something that is really special and unique to this area that will inspire a whole series of other artistic programming, is really sort of perfect, Meeuwsen said.

The Bittertang group had the same thoughts when they first arrived on the Ragdale campus on May 19 and saw in person the home and landscape they had only ever viewed in photographs.

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Architects create living Ragdale Ring amphitheater in Lake Forest