COMMONS REIMAGINED

Location: Chicago, IL
Type: Exhibition - Public Installation
Status: Built, Completed 2025
Size: 250 SF
Client: Chicago Architecture Biennial
Team: Miroslava Brooks, Daniel Markiewicz, Emalee Davidson
Collaborators: WallyWool, Art of Floors


FORMA was invited to participate in The Chicago Architecture Biennial’s sixth edition, SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change, which has been held from September 19, 2025, through February 28, 2026. Celebrating ten years as North America’s leading international platform for contemporary architecture, SHIFT presented groundbreaking exhibitions, installations, and programming by over 100 visionary architects, designers, and creative practitioners from around the world.

Our participatory installation titled Commons Reimagined: Collectivity Through Space was designed to be touched, rearranged, and shared, transforming the exhibition space of the Chicago Cultural Center into an interactive playscape that invited visitors to move, sit, gather, and play. At its center was a custom-designed rug that tied the entire space together, encouraging physical engagement and social interaction. Inspired by visionary playgrounds from designers like Isamu Noguchi and Aldo van Eyck, the project reimagined public space not as something fixed, but as something flexible – designed for curiosity, creativity, and collective experience. By centering on the idea of the commons – spaces that serve everyone – the project invited everyone to reflect on how architecture can create joy, connection, and belonging.

More images coming soon!