2003 Schiff Prize Winner: Design Studies for Frais

Designed as an experimental performance space located at the site of the unrealized civic center in Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago, this project by Tristan d’Estree Sterk advanced a new idea of “responsive architecture.” From a neutral framework, the skin or surfaces of the structure have the ability to alter shape and environmental conditions based on the needs of the user. Forecasting the future of intelligent design and inhabiting an important urban axis, Frais was imagined as a union of experimental movement of the human body and the dynamic qualities of architectural space. Tristan d’Estree Sterk is the founding partner of the Office for Robotic Architectural Media and Bureau for Responsive Architecture, and Assistant Professor of Architecture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.