The centerpiece installation from last spring’s College of Architecture Open House at Illinois Institute of Technology has been recognized as a finalist in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Chicago’s 2025 Design Excellence Awards.
Named “Change in Plot,” the project features over 60 uniquely shaped forms designed for people to sit, lean, and move through. These forms were installed in the Center Core of S. R. Crown Hall on IIT’s Mies Campus. The parametrically generated pieces offered a contrast to the building’s Modernist symmetry.
Each year, architects, firms, and educational institutions submit their work to AIA Chicago’s annual awards program. Winners will be announced at Designight 2025, which takes place at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park on September 18. The event is open to architects, designers, clients, contractors, students, and others in the field.
The project is competing as a finalist in the Interior Architecture: Small category. Associate Teaching Professor Jennifer Park led the effort along with ten students who designed and fabricated the installation. More than 700 visitors attended Open House and interacted with the installation.
Some of the forms reach up to 10 feet tall and are constructed from lightweight frames wrapped in rope. The design combined digital technologies with pre-industrial craft methods, using renewable materials such as sisal strands dyed naturally with coffee, onion skins, and hibiscus petals.
Jennifer Park has curated the college’s Open House for four years. The exhibition highlights student work across all degree programs at IIT's College of Architecture, including drawings, models, and neighborhood mockups. This year, Park made Open House preparation part of a studio course that put students in charge of planning the event at S. R. Crown Hall. Creating the centerpiece project was a key component that welcomed guests upon entry.
“The prior two years, the Center Core projects were more pavilion-like,” Park says. “We looked at what we did in the past and challenged students to think outside of their comfort zones. It was in many ways the challenge of how could we make something dynamic within the limitations of Crown? How could we interact with the building in an unfamiliar way?”
She added that ideas like suspending items from ceilings or walls were considered but ultimately set aside for interactive shapes on the ground level: “What was great was the team had a lot of diverse perspectives and different strengths, and that really added to the richness of the end result,” Park says.
The lightweight objects have already been invited to exhibitions beyond academic settings.