Housing Futures, closing event of Breakthrough exhibit, National Public Housing Museum, April 19, 1 pm.
Category: HOUSING FUTURES INITIATIVE
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Furniture for Housing Pilot
Shelf Life, Curtain-Column, and Rest Play Love are three pieces of furniture that were designed for a housing prototype and are Intended for highly compact modes of dwelling. They are transformable and pliable elements to accommodate a multiplicity of functions and lifestyles, encouraging both individual and communal activities. On view at BREAKTHROUGH exhibit, National Public Housing Museum, Chicago, November 19, 2025 – April 19, 2026.
Shelf Life removes the shelf from the stubbornness of a wall, lets it dance, opens and closes space, as well as widen and shorten perspectives. (rotation only with supervision)
Curtain-Column is a soft delineation of space that tempers environments, calls on us to be open, and is capable of taming even the toughest structure.
Rest Play Love breaks the confines of the bed. As you move the bed apart, you get two loveseats; rotate these two seats and you get a sofa; remove the cushions and you have two cozy islands.
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Furniture Manufacturing: Max Davis Workshop as well as Harry Warnaar and Andrew Martinez, with special thanks to Alexander Jones.
Photographs by Joe Nolasco.
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BREAKTHROUGH: Housing Futures exhibit at National Public Housing Museum
BREAKTHROUGH: Housing Futures, National Public Housing Museum, Chicago, November 19, 2025 – April 19, 2026.
This immersive exhibition creates an experimental living room and learning space for conversations about affordable housing futures, past and present. BREAKTHROUGH blends historical documentation of ambitious HUD demonstration projects from the 1970s with new prototypes from The Housing Futures Initiative, led by Alexander Eisenschmidt. This work aims to challenge the social, cultural, and economic conventions of housing by rethinking the design, material, and construction of urban living. Partner of this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial.
Photographs by Joe Nolasco.
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design _ LAKE SHORE HUT FEATURE
Lake Shore Hut featured in Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech, eds. K.Michael Hays and Andrew Holder (2022), 160.
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research _ MAS Context
Conversation and feature of seminar and studio work on Collective Housing now published in MAS Context. Read it here.
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research _ LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
“Location, Location, Location: Identifying Sites for Housing in Chicago,” a research and teaching project, UIC Architecture, February 2022.
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research/teaching _ HOMEWORK: TRANSFORMABLE PLANS FOR ADOPTABLE LIVING
Homework: Transformable Plans for Adoptable Living, a seminar on work in the confines of home, 2021.
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