MAS Context Spring Talks 2025

Towards a New Standard: New Housing Strategies in Chicago

July 29, 2025 at 6PM

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Presentations by Ann Lui and Craig Reschke, founders of Future Firm; Rafael Robles, cofounder of Duo Development; and Dawveed Scully, Managing Deputy Commissioner of Planning and Development at the City of Chicago. The event will take place at the MAS Context Reading Room (1564 North Damen Avenue, Suite 204, Chicago, Illinois 60622).

The program is organized by MAS Context and the Chicago Architecture Biennial as part of the exhibition Boliglaboratorium: A Danish Housing Lab.

Contributors

Mas event 2025 towards a new standard new housing strategies in chicago hem house 01

Hem House designed by Future Firm, Chicago, 2021. © Daniel Kelleghan Photography.

Cities around the world are grappling with a growing housing crisis. Urban areas are facing shortages of affordable housing and housing costs for owners and renters are increasing to unsustainable levels. Within the context of current and future urban challenges, shifting family patterns, new ways of living, and the current climate crisis, how can those thinking about and working on housing in Chicago provide paths forward?

During this program, architects, developers, and city officials will share initiatives they are leading to provide well-designed and affordable housing across the city. Future Now is an emerging design-develop model focused around a family of twelve new infill typologies for Chicago’s typical lots, from “mini” to “super-long,” which use emerging building technology and code opportunities to produce more abundant housing at lower costs. Duo Development’s Homekeep initiative aims to design new models of ownership that preserve affordability, provide ethical investment opportunities, and protect residents’ rights. A project to imagine a reality without landlords and tenants. The City of Chicago is developing comprehensive initiatives and long-term policies to foster sustainable housing models.

This conversations aims to provide a local counterpart to the six groundbreaking Danish architectural projects that are exhibited as part of Boliglaboratorium: A Danish Housing Lab at the CAB Studio at the Chicago Cultural Center.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Boliglaboratorium: A Danish Housing Lab features six groundbreaking Danish architectural projects that explore how housing can respond to the current climate crisis, future urban challenges, shifting family patterns and new ways of living. . The exhibition in Chicago is organized by the Chicago Architecture Biennial and MAS Context and on view at the CAB Studio inside the Chicago Cultural Center (78 East Washington Street. Chicago, IL 60602).

Boliglaboratorium: A Danish Housing Lab, an exhibition curated by Nord Architects, is a joint initiative of the Danish Arts Foundation and Realdania. The US premier of the exhibition is presented by Scan Design Foundation, whose mission is to support the cross-cultural exchange between Denmark and the US, in partnership with the Embassy of Denmark in Washington DC.

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