Katherine Darnstadt, head of Latent Design, met with us today to discuss her companies branches of work. The company does architectural, contracting, and small scale urban design work. The two projects she discussed that I found most intriguing, were Activate! Chicago and Boombox Chicago. Both of these projects leverage underutilized negative spaces throughout the city to create human connection. Activate! Chicago takes city alleys and converts them into pop-up urban experiences. The pop-ups showcase the talents of Chicago’s most creative artists, musicians, and more. I’ve had the opportunity to attend a few Activate! Events, and they do a fantastic job of highlighting Chicago’s artistic diversity. The unique event brings people together from all parts of the city and seems to achieve the goal of bringing people together to interact. Boombox Chicago, which Katherine has turned into its own entity, takes public space around the city and provides a more permanent installation. Latent has designed a 200 square foot indoor space that sits on a 1,000 square foot outdoor public space. Vendors are able to rent out the space for a day, a week, or months at a time. They then have the opportunity to design the space and sell their product or run their event there. Latent currently has Boomboxes located in Wicker Park, Englewood, Austin, Chatham, and The West Loop. The project does a good job supporting small businesses and what Katherine called “side hustlers”, or people with day jobs who also want a creative outlet as a side job.
Meghna and I have begun pursuing “Social Interaction” as our driving concept for our community campus. These projects by Latent Design are specifically relevant to our discussion of negative and positive space. We are aiming to create a campus with a hierarchy nodes where social interaction will take place. The spaces could be as large as soccer fields or as small as an alley between two buildings. Latent Design is a fantastic precedent for successful of how these spaces (temporary or permanent) can create social interaction while also allowing for local businesses and community groups to showcase their work. The type of events that take place in these spaces have a huge benefit toward our health and well-being. The human connection created is a huge determinant towards our life expectancy.
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