Off angled
Chicago, IL - 2021
Ideas Competition
Off angled is a progressive urban response to the sprawl and abandoned lots across Chicago’s Southside in an attempt to curb the perceptions of blight and the disinvestments that occur in these neighborhoods. Off-angled works from the current context and promotes the fluidity between urban, suburban, and rural by redistributing available land to the mainstay population as a method of collectivized ownership and value
The house model revalues common Chicago housing elements “The Beautified Front Facade”, “The Basement”, “The 3-Flat Model” by establishing itself in available land as a partially submerged, poly-faceted, stepped home that balances internal and external connections and disconnections between stairs, windows, and overlapped angles. This model remembers yet removes the binding divisions of land to embrace the rurality characteristics of the Southside without the perception of blight.
1 0 1 1 0 0 1 - The rhythm of abandoned lots and current density suggested a single-family house that can freely situate itself between two typical Chicago lots but is opportunistic in looking beyond traditional divisions of lots across the entirety of a block and its conventional urban cadences from conventional Chicago urban cadences.
“Tiny Spaces, Big Possibilities” was a driver to explore how interstitial and awkward pockets of the built environment can become meaningful places of inhabitation. Created by off-angled volumes, these overlooked slivers — side yards, split levels, nooks — transform small spaces into big moments of delight and domestic possibility.
Our process could be described as a “synthesized triptych”, distilling and merging three primary drivers of the project: the oblique geometry on site, the horizontal datums that structure layered experiences, and the inhabitable roof. Through iterative layers of refinement, these elements coalesced into a unified spatial system, both unique and awkward, transforming distinct interests into one interconnected architectural narrative.