This work leverages data and architecture in opposition to the notion that cultural institutions are the primary architectural accommodation for documenting, curating, and archiving culture. It engages personal data generated by people in self-published, self-curated, mediated, and adaptive digital spaces. When data architects, users' appropriations of space and creation of culture are no longer ignored but celebrated.
Interrogating the cultural architecture of Chicago, the work examines eight community situated sites: one in each of Chicago’s planning districts with an extra representing the loop. Tweets and Instagram posts within a one-mile radius for a specified duration of time bridge the gap between architectural research and spatial conceptualization. The site plan reaches beyond streets, buildings, and trees, informing the designer of the actual user experience. The program expands alongside required areas and spatial adjacencies and achieves authentic user-focused connections. Thus the resulting concept embraces a digital and physical context for the design of a more cultural architecture.
Model Photos by Jonathan Allen
