The fourth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, The Available City, opened September 17. Professor David Brown is the biennial’s artistic director. For more on the project, which extends Brown’s ongoing research into improvisational frameworks in the city, read his essay on the biennial’s website. From the essay’s introduction:
The Available City’s collaborative and improvisational approach to creating a new urban landscape is community first rather than system first, as it works from a small scale to a large scale and over time to provide diverse forms and activities to foster collective spaces that are transformative for the residents and communities of each neighborhood.
Brown will be in conversation with Craig Wilkins on September 28. The school is also planning events for students and faculty to visit the biennial and engage its contributors.
Several school faculty are participants in the biennial. Clinical Assistant Professor Antonio Torres’s practice, The Bittertang Farm, contributed The Living Room, a work located in the CCA Academy’s Permapark, a self-sufficient permaculture garden run by the high school. The project, which opened with the biennial, “provides space for humans and nature to comfortably intermingle in a thriving cultural ecosystem that evolves, transforms, and promotes collective growth.”
Programs and projects related to the biennial, including a contribution by Clinical Assistant Professor Ania Jaworska, will continue to open throughout the fall. For more information, visit the CAB website.
About The Available City