OVERVIEW: This project explores urbanism through the examination and development of single buildings that, owing to their size, form, or urban impact, become in themselves urbanism. Specifically, the focus of the agenda combines typology and topology to produce large interior urban voids. The project sets itself as a very large mixed-use building in the Chicago Loop to replace Helmut Jahn’s James R. Thompson Center and is to be conceived in relation to the recent controversy surrounding the proposed sale of the building. The studio’s focus is on disciplinary questions of the relationships amongst typology, function, and form in urbanism. These questions will be considered as they relate to current issues of urban politics and policy, infrastructure, and large-scale buildings.
