Above, Across, Around

An independently led undergraduate research studio, where viewers float in the immaterial space of the screen’s glow that projects the interior of a miniature model, instructed in 2021

Above, Across, Around distills thresholds from everyday environments to a set of spatiotemporal relationships, which requires an awareness of details often overlooked in familiar places. Through abstraction and translation, observations from serial drawings transform into discrete spatial concepts, where two prepositions juxtaposed begin to imply a narrative. Referencing a single, shared scale figure, model making alone guides a tactile and intuitive process to study materiality and affect. Building proposals consider a place we visit in the everyday, such as a dentist office, laundromat, car repair shop or hair salon. Drifting between miniature models and large, projected photographs of their interiors, architecture emerges as media where viewers inhabit the image, floating in the immaterial space of the screen's soft glow.

Image Credit: Leslie Hurtado, Abigail Chang

Featured Student Work: Julio Almaraz, Giovanni Escobedo, Leslie Hurtado, Tara O’Connor, Brian Ma, Konrad Marusarz, Alessandro Sprout, Sebastian Tibu

Contributors: University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture students led by Abigail Chang

Recognition: Konrad Marusarz, Faculty Fellowship Award, Outstanding Fourth Year Undergraduate Project