Frame | Work

Invited to participate in the 50th Anniversary Exhibition of the Chicago Architecture Foundation's Fifty Wards, Civic Projects, in collaboration with Carlo Parente, developed new approaches to utilize vacant lots and buildings.

FRAME | WORK, a modular spatial prototype, sparks commerce and activates the streets of under-resourced communities by enhancing commercial corridors with a unique architectural intervention. The team designed a modular kit-of-parts that can be assembled inside vacant storefronts or on empty lots and customized to the use and location. Its formal manifestation is a simple orthogonal frame, but its deployment has a multiplicity of effects, from fostering retail enterprise and farmer’s markets to encouraging children’s play and interaction with art. Becoming permanent over time, these temporary interventions help fill in the gaps along neglected commercial strips. Many of the communities ripe to receive FRAME | WORK house small manufacturing companies striving to remain relevant in today’s marketplace. The system’s materials and design change in response to the specific needs of local businesses, supporting community development.

We developed the first phase of FRAME | WORK, completed in 2016, with local manufacturers and community partners: The Greater Englewood Community Development Corporation, the Englewood Business Accelerator and the 63rd Street Farmer's Market. Civic Projects, as well as our collaborators, envisioned and designed FRAME | WORK to evolve over time and deployed its first prototype in 2016. The simple system is both easily reproducible and site-specific, allowing for as large or as small an intervention as the context and community calls for.