Regina Pricillia
Cornice
From the second-year undergraduate studio Chicago Frame, Fall 2018
Faculty: Barbara Materia
About the studio:
Taking Colin Rowe’s 1956 essay “The Chicago Frame” as a prompt, this studio looked for formal and compositional design opportunities in the organization of architecture. It investigated the origin and occurrences of the Chicago Frame and used those as a basis to create more flexible riffs on a type, seeking a shared conversation across the work and developing criteria for assessing its quality.
About the project:
This project deals with the consequences of two simple gestures: the change in scale of its floor plates, and then shifting them out of alignment. With intended simplicity, these gestures were executed with reference to a nine-square grid at the project’s base, and while most of the floors manage to retain a one-to-one ratio, circulation demanded the introduction of half-grids into the system. The resulting frame is one that embraces diagonals and overhangs to create cornices, creating an exterior that mimics a vase (with a “waist”), while also manipulating the spatial qualities of its interior due to the multiple changes in ceiling height.