Lakefront Kiosks

School Kiosks

In collaboration with internationally renowned architects, three Chicago architecture schools have each designed a kiosk. Participating schools included the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Each school selected an architectural firm who will design a lakefront kiosk. The Biennial’s partnerships with IIT, SAIC, and UIC created unique and exciting educational opportunities for local students of architecture to learn from internationally renowned architects.

IIT’s College of Architecture, a school that explores the role of architecture, urbanism and landscape within the global conditions of the 21st century, collaborated with Pezo von Ellrichshausen, an art and architecture studio based in Concepción, Chile. Founding partners Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen were curators of the Chilean Pavilion at the 2008 Venice Biennale. Their work has been widely published and has been featured in exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts (London), the Biennial of the Americas (Denver), and the Museum of Modern Art (New York). The studio’s Poli House received the 2014 Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize for Emerging Architecture.

SAIC’s Department of Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects – which engages with design at all scales, from body to environment – partnered with NLÉ, led by Kunlé Adeyemi, an architect, designer and urbanist with a track record of conceiving and completing high-profile projects internationally. His recent work includes the ‘Makoko Floating School,’ an innovative, floating structure prototype located on the lagoon heart of Nigeria’s largest city. Based in Amsterdam and Lagos, Adeyemi’s research focuses on providing sustainable solutions for Africa and other developing regions. In 2014 he was the Baird Distinguished Visiting Critic at Cornell University.

The UIC School of Architecture selected an architectural design team comprising Paul Andersen, of Denver-based Independent Architecture, and Paul Preissner, principal of Chicago-based Paul Preissner Architects. The School of Architecture at UIC is energized by an environment that enjoys animated polemics and debate, characterized by extreme rigor, frequent irreverence, contagious curiosity, and calculated optimism. Andersen’s Independent Architecture explores new ways of disseminating architectural and urban ideas, while Preissner’s projects draw on academia, architecture and art, to produce innovative and accessible projects. Andersen and Preissner have previously collaborated on the large-scale temporary installation “Two Barns” at the 2013 Biennial of the Americas in Denver.

Entries

The Cent Pavilion

Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Illinois Institute of Technology

The Cent Pavilion, designed by Pezo von Ellrichshausen in collaboration with the Illinois Institute of Technology, is a 40-foot tower meant to convey silent and convoluted simplicity. It repeats the same angled design over and over, resulting in an opaque monolith. When its commercial function ceases at the summer’s end, the kiosk will complement the verticality of Chicago’s iconic skyline year-round.

- Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Concepción, Chile

Rock

Kunlé Adeyemi, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Rock, the kiosk designed by Kunlé Adeyemi in collaboration with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is a pop-up pavilion—a public sculpture—composed from the raw and historic limestone blocks that once protected the city’s shoreline. Its bold yet sensuous and delicate balance transforms Chicago’s lakefront into a magnet for social and cultural life. Situated at Montrose Beach, the kiosk is conceived as an “infrastructure box” consisting of materials and technologies that are found in or belong to the local environment. The composition’s resilient limestone and concrete elements can be uniquely assembled to suit different locations, vendors, and uses along the lakefront, providing shelter while contributing to the protection of the shoreline. In the fall of 2015, the design team created a representative work at Millennium Park during the Chicago Architecture Biennial.

- Kunlé Adeyemi, Lagos/Amsterdam

Summer Vault

Paul Preissner, Paul Andersen, University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture

Summer Vault, designed by Paul Andersen of Independent Architecture and Paul Preissner of Paul Preissner Architects, in collaboration with the University of Illinois at Chicago, is a lakefront kiosk that accommodates a multitude of things. It consists of basic geometric shapes—a 12-foot-diameter barrel vault, a parallelogram, triangles—combined to create a curious, freestanding hangout within the park. The interior of the skewed vault is divided into two triangular spaces—one enclosed by expanded metal screens and doors, and one open to the air but still within the vaulting. This two-part plan allows for commerce and community to occur simultaneously. It also reflects the kiosk’s Persian origins as a 13th-century garden pavilion, while embracing its contemporary use as a seasonal commercial front and festive park retreat. Its openness allows year-round use, so that it remains active even in its retail slumber during the Chicago winter.

- Paul Andersen, Independent Architecture, Denver + Paul Preissner, Chicago