Architecture & Interior Architecture Capstone Studio 2020

Update from the Capstone Studio: May 18th, 2020

The AIADO 4900 Capstone students (Jacqueline Danielyan, Alexandra Flora Ferreira, Michelle He, Lily Gabryelle Hernandez, Nicole Huang, Daisy Liu, Syara Lodewyck, Noah Hirsch Miller, Paola Santos-De Soto, Raphaelle Alexandra Satre, Tina She, Ruihan Yang, Alyssa Yao) have been working diligently, and from all 4 corners of the world, on their visions for the gateway site to North Lawndale, at Harrison St and Homan Avenue.

The students had to abandon the group model in the studio when the school turned to online teaching, relying on their memories and remote feedback from their community advisors to develop meaningful schemes. In spite of the stress caused by the virus, the moving, the quarantines, the lack of resources and the distance from their peers, all 13 students have produced thoughtful solutions to bring together hybrid functions to this busy intersection. Housing units are reinvented as they are paired with work-spaces; banks take brand new meanings; beauty salons, day care centers, and gyms become hubs of public life; libraries cohabit with greenhouses; circular economy and public transportation generate innovative landmarks; landscapes develop within buildings. Utopian ideas a few weeks ago - are those more feasible now that a global health crisis has demonstrated the value of mutual aid and our ability to work together in a global emergency?

The capstone students and their guests discussed the projects on Tuesday May 5th, between 9:00-12:00 a.m. (Chicago and Texas time), 7:00 and 10:00 a.m. (Los Angeles time), 8:00-11:00 p.m. (Taipei and Beijing time). 

You can see the work of other SAIC Capstone studios on the Senior Expo page.

Congratulations to the class of 2020.

Update from the Capstone Studio: April 2nd, 2020

ARCH / INARC 4900 001

Faculty: Odile Compagnon

13 Architectural Projects. Senior students from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Class of 2020, devise their own program and architectural design, in collaboration with local stakeholders, to respond to the needs for a sustainable mixed-use development at the neighborhood’s threshold on the West Side of Chicago at Harrison and Homan.

Sustainability implies a time-based strategy to bring the site from its current state and occupation to the final architectural design, including circular economy, user participation, and environmentally friendly materials and construction methods. 

Mixed-use implies the elaboration of a hybrid program including housing, where each programmatic element helps the others grow.

This Capstone studio focuses on an architecture and interior architecture project and makes evident the powerful bonds between conceptual thought and the acute resolution of space, form and experience. The clear delivery of abstract theoretical ideas into constructible reality synthesizes the learning of 7 previous semesters. Students worked at multiple scales from the start, considering context issues and small details simultaneously. The semester’s work has been documented in the form of narrative writings, conceptual studies, site and iterative building models as well as plans, sections, elevations and 3D representations of the design. The quality and integrity of the idea is paramount.