Depot Clubhouse
A Dressed Architecture for Social Acupuncture
The UCL Bartlett School of Architecture BSc (2020)
River North, Chicago, IL 60654, United States
A parcel depot and community centre were established to support Chicago’s poor and vulnerable residents to attain more comfortable and sustainable means. Hybridising the programmes of job centres and institutions of social support, the emotional needs of its occupants shape the architecture: privacy, comfort, and belonging. The architecture’s skin, formed in a series of thin ceramic shells, 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 homelessness through bold full-frontal gestures and discrete spatial interventions. Public-facing retail and a waterfront restaurant are embedded in the master plan, financially sustaining the charitable venture and interlacing the typically segregated strata of the contemporary city.
Site and Triggers
The project all began with a field trip to Chicago. At 11 pm on a Monday, we just had our night in a Mediterranean restaurant called AVEC, located right next to our sites. While we were heading back by train from Clinton station, a tense situation unexpectedly met. Passing by the carriages, a few suspicious people seemed hostile and depressed. As we swiftly moved through and into a ‘safer’ carriage, we could not help but burst into laughter of relief and gladness. I did not realise at the moment that these people I thought were dangerous were homeless. They struggled to find a safe spot in the carriage to survive another cold, brutal night in Chicago.
