Chicago Studio
Overview
Chicago Studio is an alternative to the traditional design studio that integrates education and practice in a direct way for upper level architecture and design students. Its distinctive structure and curriculum promotes a collaborative design process encompassing multiple points of view within academia, the profession and the broader community. It is an integrated set of courses that incorporates a range of activities of daily professional practice.
The semester is comprised of alternating study and residence in the city and campus, including two three-week stays in Chicago’s Loop. Initially each team of students creates a collective master plan for one of three sites. Subsequently each student designs one of the master-planned buildings. There are assorted interactions as the learning environment interchanges academic setting and professional offices, rural town and metropolitan city.
While in Chicago, host firms give each student a direct relation to contemporary practice as well as their own workstation. Local practitioners critique student work, and illuminate the role of Chicago’s political leaders in shaping urban design policy, initiatives towards sustainability and its renowned buildings.