JACQUELINE YU 2019-20 YEAR 2
Depot Clubhouse: A dressed architecture for social acupuncture
A parcel depot and community centre established to support the poor and vulnerable residents of Chicago attain more comfortable and sustainable means. Hybridising the programmes of job centres and institutions of social support, the architecture is shaped by the emotional needs of its occupants: privacy, comfort, and belonging. Formed in a series of thin ceramic shells, the architecture’s skin is an attention-seeking dressing, tailored to a body that we typically turn our back on.
Through its siting on prime riverside real estate in downtown Chicago, the building seeks to spread awareness of the social issue of homelessness through an interplay of bold full-frontal gestures and discrete spatial interventions. Public-facing retail and a waterfront restaurant are embedded in the masterplan, financial sustaining the charitable venture and interlacing the typically segregated strata of the contemporary city.
Tutors: Greg Storrar, Farlie Reynolds
