Chicago, Illinois, USA
Accommodating over 20,000 daily bus and rail passengers, the recently designed CTA 95th/Dan Ryan Terminal Station by EXP under the lead of Thomas Hoepf provides more space, facilitating better movement for passengers in and around the station, elevating the transit experience for commuters, reinforcing the station’s status as a key gateway to Chicago’s South Side.
Located between the north and southbound lanes of the Dan Ryan Expressway, the 95th Street multimodal Terminal Station reconnects southside communities to opportunities throughout Chicago and is the largest reconstruction in CTA history.
For tis design, the project has been awarded with a 2024 American Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
Scope included renovation/expansion of the existing North Terminal, construction of a new South Terminal, reconstruction of bus bridges, and various street level improvements.
The station was conceived as a continuous ribbon stretched south to north, tying the two terminals together, with the thinnest point at the new pedestrian bridge across 95th Street.
The Station influences its context beyond its primary use as transportation infrastructure to become “cultural infrastructure” with ambitions of serving as public sculpture that animates and enlivens at many scales: at the city scale as an iconic southern gateway to Chicago; at the neighborhood scale with the view from blocks away connecting east and west; and at the pedestrian scale as an open and inviting neighborhood station.
Public art includes an in-station catalyst sound studio that fosters community engagement and training to neighborhood students.
Project: CTA 95th/Dan Ryan Terminal Station
Architects: EXP
Lead Architect: Thomas Hoepf
Design Team: Jef Jakalski, Mindy Viamontes, Jasenko Badic, Casey Johnson, Alzira Maldonado Protsishin, Melina De Oliveira Sanchez, Samantha Serpico, Saul Moreno, Sara Feterolf, and John Stryker
General Contractor: F.H. Paschen, S.N. Nielsen & Associates LLC.
Client: Chicago Transit Authority
Photographs: Courtesy of the Architects