@chicagoarchitecturebiennial

From Henry David Thoreau’s cabin in the woods to 19th century estates and 20th century cottages, the notion of retreat in the form of camping has been central to our culture. The enduring appeal of camping over the past century seems to be a return to the proverbial “primitive hut” - the desire for immersive experiences while reducing the infrastructures that traditionally separate us from our environment. Yet we are increasingly removed from this experience. What new forms of collectivity in isolation can we imagine that also embrace the wilderness? ⁠ ⁠ “Making Camp” by the Toronto studio @lateraloffice is a series of 5 prototypes exploring a range of typologies, landscapes, and degrees of user customization as possible evolutions for 21st century camping, presented during our first edition. Instead of the typical arrangement of single tents scattered around a site, the architects believe camping areas can offer more to their occupants, from digital technology, to improved safety and sustainable living. ⁠ ⁠ Pictured is “Suspend”, a proposal for woodland camping where tents form part of a community suspended from tree trunks. Each solution offers new camping experiences as well as doubling as a public platform for experiencing the landscape in new ways. See all the “Making Camp” prototypes at the link in our bio. ⁠ ⁠ 📸 courtesy @lateraloffice

SO-IL @solidobjectives developed the project “Into the Hedge” with the preservation team at the Miller House and Garden, a mid-century home devoted to the work of Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen in Columbus, Indiana @exhibitcolumbus. “Into the Hedge” consists of 130 trees covered in pink, yellow and blue nylon webbing hammocks, with the trees to be replanted in the Miller House garden at a later date. The team came up with the idea in response to a need to replant a hedgerow of 70-year-old arbor vitae trees that wrap Saarinen's property.⁠ ⁠ "After the exhibition the trees can be permanently planted in the garden, making a direct link between the installation's original architectural inspiration and a contribution to the stewardship of one of Columbus, Indiana's seven National Historic Landmarks.”⁠ ⁠ The US based architecture firm has continually pushed its exploration of materials and ecologies. In collaboration with artist Ana Prvački the group created air-filtering skins turned costumes for a musical performance for the 2017 Biennial. The seven-minute piece titled “L'air pour l'air,” was performed by musicians from the Chicago Sinfonietta at Garfield Park Conservatory. ⁠ ⁠ Link in bio for more on SO-IL, and a @dezeen interview with SO-IL co-founders Florian Idenburg, Jing Liu and our 2017 co-Artistic Director Mark Lee! ⁠ ⁠ 📸 Hadley Fruits, courtesy Dezeen + SO-IL -IL

Five students from IIT College of Architecture @iitarchitecture teamed up with Tokyo based design firm SANAA for “Lake 33rd, Bronzeville,” a strategic proposal to imagine a series of connectivities between the IIT Mies Campus, Bronzeville, and the lakefront and exhibited as part of our second edition. ⁠⁣ ⁠⁣ IIT students Zixin Li, Peter Rigali, Yunji Chung, Clayton Knapp, and Mario Serrano, collaborated with SANAA to explore scenarios for the development of the IIT Campus and its impact on the surrounding neighborhoods. A feature of the proposal includes the transformation of 33rd Street into a garden pedestrian way, linking IIT and its neighborhood to the lake, expands into a new landscape bridge crossing the railway and freeway, concealing the boundary between the neighborhood and the lakefront. ⁠⁣ ⁠⁣ Read more about the project at the link in our bio. The Biennial is dedicated to showcasing innovative work by established as well as emerging designers, design educators and students. If you are an educator, student or graduating senior whose work has been impacted by the current crisis please drop us a line!⁣ ⁣ 📸 Kendall McCaugherty / Chicago Architecture Biennial, 2017 ⁠

- ⁣⁣ We knew how to order. Just the dash⁠⁣⁣ Necessary. …⁠⁣⁣ But nothing ever taught us to be islands.⁠ ⁣ - Gwendolyn Brooks ⁠⁣⁣ ⁠⁣⁣ Originally about African-American soldiers in World War II, fellow Chicagoan Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem was a partial inspiration for “We Know How to Order,” the project of CAB contributors Bryony Roberts @bryonypix and the South Shore Drill Team @officialsouthshore. Opening our very first edition, the site-specific performance brought together the Federal Center by Mies van der Rohe and the South Shore Drill Team, which performs high-energy drill routines infused with street choreography. ⁠⁣⁣ ⁠⁣⁣ Conceived by Roberts, and choreographed by Asher Waldron of SSDT, this collaborative project responds to a space of federal government and the architecture of Mies van der Rohe through dynamic physical movement. It superimposes multiple systems onto one another: street choreography onto SSDT’s trademark precision drills onto the Miesian grid of the Federal Center - a 4 ft. 8 in. (1.4m) module regulating the courtyard, post office, federal offices, and the plaza between them. It is a simultaneous reflection on spaces ordering the body and a celebration of the grace and power of bodies.⁠⁣⁣ ⁠⁣⁣ Link in our bio and story for the full performance on our YouTube channel, where you can find other videos, interviews, and tours of the Biennial! ⁠⁣⁣ ⁠⁣⁣ 📸 Andrew Bruah / Chicago Architecture Biennial, 2015

A beautiful Chicago day captured by photographer and CAB contributor @iwanbaan. Baan investigates architecture as a stage for everyday life, capturing the movements and encounters that shape the perception of buildings. ⁠ ⁠ For more on Baan's work and his Biennial project "Anonymous Histories" check out our archives, and stay tuned here for new features, spotlights on Chicago, and updated digitial access to each of our editions. One month down, one month to go, stay home and stay safe Chicago!⁠ ⁠ 📸 @iwanbaan

Looking back today to celebrate the life and work of architect Francois Perrin. Best known for his futuristic designs addressing sustainable systems and mass consumerism, Perrin’s contribution to the 2017 Biennial “Air Houses: Design for a New Climate” was a large-scale installation suspended above the canopy of the Palm House at the Garfield Park Conservatory. The Palm House’s tropical microclimate provided the ideal setting for Perrin’s experimental prototype for a climate responsive shelter. The house’s silver fabric and structure reflect sunlight, and keep out rain water and wind, resulting in a cool, dry sanctuary. ⁠ ⁠ Born in Paris, France and based in Los Angeles, Perrin’s work was uniquely concerned with site specificity and the local environmental context of sites. In addition to his work as a designer, he was also an educator and curator, organizing several exhibitions including "Dialogues" and "Yves Klein-Air Architecture" at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture @makcenter. We wrote in April of last year: “Getting to know Francois through his incredible ambition, energy, and thoughtful approach was one of the highlights of our second edition.” Follow @francoiseloiperrin for more on the legacy of Perrin’s work and life!⁠ ⁠ 📸 courtesy @francoiseloiperrin ⁠ ⁠

Architecture for all ages: @soiledzine is a collection of illustrated architectural children’s stories akin to “picture books” that narrate contemporary ideas about the built environment. Published by @couldbearchitecture and independently produced and artist-led, these stories are crafted to be read aloud to young audiences as well as encouraging storytelling to empower, engage, and entertain audiences of all ages. ⁠ ⁠ We partnered with SOILED Zine this past edition for their issue Onceuponascrapers to create an afternoon of family storytime and hands-on architectural activities in the Learning Lab at the Cultural Center. Onceuponascrapers features stories from Julia McMorrough, Ihwa Choi, OK Architecture, WAI Think Tank, Sarah Aziz and Sekou Cooke, Office Kovacs, Besler & Sons, and Sarah Gunawan on everything from a tour of the city’s roundest corners and squarest curves to empathy for a tornado. You can find Onceuponascrapers in the link in @soiledzine’s bio! ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ 📸: Leila Register, courtesy SOILED Zine

Take a virtual tour of Chicago architecture and history while staying at home with @leebey. Lee’s instagram spotlights images of Pride Cleaners at 79th and St. Lawrence, the former Anthony Overton Elementary at 49th and Prairie (designed by Chicago’s @perkinswill_CHI), and more. ⁣ ⁣ Bey’s newly published “Southern Exposure: The Overlooked Architecture of Chicago’s South Side” further chronicles the South Side’s architectural heritage. First exhibited as “Chicago: A Southern Exposure” at the DuSable Museum in conjunction with the 2017 Biennial, “Southern Exposure” documents visits to 60 landmarks such as the Gary Comer Youth Center, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Stephen A. Foster House, work by Jeanne Gang, Eero Saarinen, Mies van der Rohe, and buildings by pioneering black architects Walter T. Bailey, John Moutoussamy, and Roger Margerum. ⁣ ⁣ “In the neighborhoods, the people who live there—generally people of color—are the caretakers of these buildings, the stewards and the owners of these structures. These are not the buildings that some previous occupants left behind... These buildings are cared for, valued and nurtured by the people who live there.” Click the link in our story to read more about ⁣. ⁣ 📸: courtesy Lee Bey

Biennial contributor @massdesigngroup, whose @gunviolencememorialproject was featured in the 2019 edition, have worked at the nexus of design and healthcare since their founding. In this moment of global concern, MASS is lending their expertise to critical response organizations and sharing key resources outlining recommendations for designing to fight more infections. Visit the MASS Instagram and website to learn more about their take on the role of architecture right now. ⁠ ⁠ Pictured is the GHESKIO Tuberculosis Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. 📸: Iwan Baan ⁠ ⁠

Looking for ways to move and be moved? Biennial contributor @alexandrapirici extends an open invitation to join herself and @morosistaz, @pauladunker, @cristiannanculescu, and @farid.fairuz in a “Telepathic Movement” practice:⁠ ⁠ “For half an hour, we will be moving in different places but at the same time. We'll put up & share a youtube playlist for the sessions with music... so that wherever you are, you can press play and move with us.” Check out @alexandrapirici’s profile and stories for a full description and schedule!⁠ ⁠ Pirici’s practice fuses dance, sculpture, spoken word, music, and performance. Pictured is the ongoing action “Re-collection, 2018-ongoing,” performed by Macey Westall, Zachary Nicol, Jennifer Tchiakpe, Miguel Angel Guzmán, Courtney Mackedanz, Asha Benjelloun, and Sheli Ruffer as part of the 2019 Biennial. ⁠ ⁠ Situated in the Grand Army of the Republic Rotunda of the Chicago Cultural Center, space is created in relation to, and as a relation between, living structures and movement, remembering but also destabilizing history at the scale of the body. ⁠ ⁠ 📸: Daris Jasper / Chicago Architecture Biennial 2019

A little over four years ago the Writers Theatre @writers_theatre opened its first permanent home in Glencoe, Illinois, designed by @studiogang 🎈🎉. Founded in 1992, Writers Theatre is a non-profit theatre company where “the written word and the nurturing of artists is the foundation of all productions.”⁣ ⁣⁣ ⁣ For the 2017 Biennial, Studio Gang explored how the history and lifecycle of wood timbre, and the wider social, political and economic contexts embedded in the material and its distribution, can inform architectural form making in Writers Theatre. A full-scale mock-up of the wood structure Studio Gang designed to support the theater lobby’s second-floor canopy walk was exhibited. The structure reflects the area’s history of timber production and resonates with Glencoe’s many Tudor style buildings.⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ Its seemingly delicate lattice screen is actually an innovative structural system that uses wood in tension. Used in place of mechanical fastening is a wood “cat’s paw” detail developed in collaboration with a team of timber specialists and engineers that utilizes connection techniques akin to traditional Chinese and Japanese joinery methods.⁣ We look forward to it’s reopening! ⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ 📸: Tom Harris / Chicago Architecture Biennial 2017; and courtesy Studio Gang.

“Water dominates both the ecosystem and the artistic imagination in @oscartuazon’s ‘Water School’” writes Natalie Haddad in @frieze_magazine in May of last year. In 2018, Tuazon founded the Los Angeles Water School (LAWS), an educational centre that foregrounds a DIY approach to environmentally conscious design to explore how water, land, and infrastructure connect diverse communities.⁣ ⁣ Drawing on his long-standing interest in how the built environment is redefined through the act of inhabitation, Tuazon frequently uses wood, concrete, glass, steel, light fixtures, and piping to create his structures and installations, responding directly to the sites in which they are presented. ⁣ ⁣ Housed in a structure inspired by the Zome Home (1969–72) by engineer and inventor Steve Baer, “Water School” presents Tuazon’s prototypes for sustainable living along with ephemera, such as architectural drawings by R. Buckminster Fuller and copies of Mother Earth News, the iconic magazine of the US permaculture movement of the 1960s and 70s. ⁣ ⁣ Iterations of the project have been installed in Los Angeles, Michigan at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Chicago as part of “...and other such stories”, and in Seattle at the Henry Art Gallery. ⁣ ⁣ 📸: Nathan Keay, Cory DeWald / Chicago Architecture Biennial 2019