auxiliary vessel

Sudio Description: There has not been enough attention given to materiality as deeply philosophical, inherently social and political, and formally generative territory for architectural exploration. The lens of material provides a potential connector between these poles—the social and the formal—at numerous scales. This studio will explore this potential by using material as a means of engaging a particular site, campus center program, and multifaceted constituency in Chicago. This city’s enormous growth and transformation in the 19th century was highly dependent on both nature and material, and its intertwined ecological-industrial history is a precursor to the environmental and social challenges that Chicago and cities like it face in the 21st century. The research portion of the studio is aimed at unpacking this history and engaging it with a current community that is working toward regeneration.

Academic Studio 1320 I 2017 Spring I Material that Connects: A Campus Center in Chicago Location: Chicago, IL, USA

architectural solution

material research

The material chosen for the project is Glass black, a material that has a long history in Chicago in various manufactural and building expriments. The reserach is to examine its economic flows, physical capacities, and cultural properties, and how these understandings can generate architecture that resonates with habitation and use. Among which the idea of a vessel that embraces the air and the potential of activities, and the formality of scale resulting from technical evolution were chosen to be integrated into the idea of design.

urban solution

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