This was our finalist entry for the Chicago Lakefront Kiosk Design Competition. The form of this building is an attempt to express Chicago’s unlikeliness: that chutzpah, the strange emergence of something intricate and sophisticated in a hostile environment. It is a gradual transformation from a blank (vaguely block-like) mass into something more architectural, more refined, more domestic. On its surface, a pattern of shingles “fades” in, routed from plywood panels to increasing depth. For the Biennale, we had imagined it as a kind of micro-venue for local music and drinks, spilling out like many of the famous Jazz and Blues venues of the South Side. At other warm times, it might serve as an information booth or a food-stand. In the winter, it is abandoned and takes on a strange form of solidity—a frozen mass, or solid object, that appears to be only half architectural and beyond the range of human inhabitation.
View Original