Design Commons
(Competition Finalist)
A new home for the Chicago Architecture Foundation, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, and a Design and Allied Arts High School in downtown Chicago.
The Design Commons offers a new platform for learning and cultural exchange that prioritizes interaction over compartmentalization. As people crave less mediated engagement with one another, cultural environments are changing to become more open, more inclusive. To do this, the different programs are continuously linked through a series of vertical openings and generous stairs that encourage an awareness of place to foster a sense of belonging and shared identity. These vertical links incite social friction and allow for stacked programs to gradually bleed into one another – spaces where we circulate, stop or rest become catalytic for the casual connections that instigate creative interactions between students, teachers, staff, as well as the public at large.
