Florencia Rodriguez

SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change is published in conjunction with the sixth Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB 2025) under the artistic direction of Florencia Rodriguez. In a world defined by crisis and uncertainty, where architects are researching, relearning, and reimagining, the volume marks not only a change in direction but also presents provocative inquiries about a redefinition in the substance and fundamentals of the field. It is an invitation to think with others, to project with intention, and to set new grounds for the interpretation and design of our built environments. In the same spirit, the book unfolds the many faces of SHIFT through collective, multilayered, and multidimensional conversations, visual essays, and manifestos. CAB 2025 participants’ voices are brought to print through a transcript of a five-hour conversation marathon that tackled topics such as new realism, the magic in the ordinary, pleasures in the urban, and the need to critically shift architecture’s language, as well as a repository of manifestos exploring other possible worlds. Beyond the exhibition, SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change also calls upon practitioners from different fields to discuss the current state of education in architecture schools, the challenges of material culture, the future of housing, and exhibitions as devices for change. *** @chicagoarchitecturebiennial Edited by Santiago Bogani, Igo Kommers Wender, Isabella Moretti and Florencia Rodriguez @kommerswender @flor_ness @isabmore @bgsanti Book design by Estúdio Margem (Aleksandra Lindenberg, João Pedro Nogueira, and Letícia Souza) @estudiomargem Printed by DZA Druckerei zu Altenburg @dza.druck #cab2025 #chicagoarchitecturalbiennial #parkbooks #radicalchange #architectureforthefuture

While getting ready for the @chicagoarchitecturebiennial , it’s great to go back and review one highlight of this year. It was such a pleasure to collaborate with @johnstonmarklee and @christopherhawthorne for the Speaker’s Corner at the @labiennale ! Gathering, talking, throwing ideas out there to make them part of a bigger collective conversation has always been crucial to my practice, and this collaboration celebrates that spirit. Photographs: @estudiopalma @cristobal_palma

The Chicago Architecture Biennial is pleased to announce the participants of its sixth edition, SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change (September 19, 2025 – February 28, 2026). Celebrating ten years as North America’s leading international platform for contemporary architecture, the Chicago Architecture Biennial convenes the world to explore innovative ideas and collectively imagine the future of design. The sixth edition of the Biennial invites nearly 100 visionary architects, designers, and creative practitioners from around the world to present a citywide constellation of groundbreaking exhibitions, films, podcasts, dialogues, print and digital publications, and public events, at iconic sites across Chicago. Together, these programs address urgent questions shaping the spaces we inhabit, such as housing, ecology, and material innovation, to demonstrate architecture’s role in shaping our collective future. SHIFT signals the opportunity and need to change direction, to think with others, and to set new grounds for the interpretation and design of our built environments. Curated by Artistic Director Florencia Rodriguez, the sixth edition explores how architecture engages with the profound cultural, social, and environmental transformations shaping our world today and explores the possibility of envisioning alternate paths forward. In alignment with the Biennial’s mission, all programming will be free and open to the public. Read the full release and learn more about SHIFT’s participants at the link in bio. Graphic identity by @estudiomargem . #SHIFT2025 #CAB6 #chicagoarchitecturebiennial

Two weeks after the close of SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change, we’re still reflecting with gratitude on what we built together. The sixth edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial transformed spaces across Chicago into platforms for bold ideas, urgent questions, and new perspectives on architecture’s role in a rapidly changing world. Thank you to the architects, artists, and designers, our partners across the city, and the funders and supporters who made it possible—and to everyone who visited and engaged. SHIFT sparked conversations that will continue beyond the exhibition, with several installations already being rehomed and materials thoughtfully reused. This moment marks not an ending—but an expansion. Stay tuned for what’s next.

Lugar común SHIFT: Architecture in Times of Radical Change Directora artística: Florencia Rodríguez Chicago Architecture Biennial @flor_ness @kommerswender @chicagoarchitecturebiennial

Last chance to see #InhabitOuthabit @chicagoarchitecturebiennial @chicagoculturalcenter , which closes Saturday 2/28. It was co-curated with @flor_ness @kommerswender @magdataglia Camilo Restrepo Ochoa and includes the amazing work of 29 studios and their incomparable contributions to housing.

LAST DAY of seeing our “City as Home” exhibit at the 840 N Michigan site @chicagoarchitecturebiennial 2025 curated by @flor_ness “City as Home: Adapting Vacancies for Housing and Community” features a full-scale 1:1 installation of a community space for ethnic minorities, refugees and asylum seekers in Hong Kong, the exhibit showcases a series of built works addressing Hong Kong’s acute housing crisis through alternative housing and community spaces. The exhibition draws from the “City-as-Home” Project Series (2015–2025), a decade of initiatives transforming underutilized spaces into social housing and community centers across Hong Kong, including 1) Home Improvements: Upgrades to Subdivided Units (2015–2025); 2) Resettlement Home: Housing for Displaced Tenants (2017); 3) Shared Home: Cost-sharing Flats for Single-Mother Families (2017); 4) Friendship Home: Transitional Housing for the Homeless (2018–2019); 5) Home-for-All: Pop-Up Community Center and Emergency Shelter (2022–2023); 6) Sheltered Home: Women’s Shelter for Migrant Domestic Workers (2023–2024); and 7) Home-away-from-Home: Community Center for Refugees (2023–2025). Photos in post by @jeremyfuder ; In collaboration with @knd7112 @spiritofspace and Elisa @amrize

Saying my goodbyes to SHIFT ❤️❤️❤️@chicagoarchitecturebiennial * 840 N Michigan Ave closes tomorrow and Chicago Cultural Center and @grahamfoundation are on until the end of the month.

SHIFT Housing Summit: February 13, 2026 | Morning + Afternoon In its closing weeks, the Biennial hosts a one-day Housing Summit in partnership with National Public Housing Museum (@thenphm ) bringing together architects, researchers, policymakers, and cultural producers to examine housing as a central social, political, and ecological question. The Housing Summit unfolds across two sites: Morning Session (9:00am–12:40pm) at the National Public Housing Museum, centering Chicago as a living laboratory for housing futures—exploring equity, public responsibility, and breakthrough moments in housing history. Afternoon Session (2:30–6:15pm) at 840 N. Michigan Avenue, shifting into the exhibition context to highlight housing as a site of design experimentation, collective care, and new urban possibilities—followed by a poetry reading and final toast. A rare opportunity to engage housing across disciplines, scales, and forms of knowledge—at a moment when these questions couldn’t be more urgent. Full details + registration at linktree in bio. #ChicagoArchitectureBiennial #SHIFT #HousingSummit #HousingFutures

SHIFT: Housing Foundations and Futures: A dedicated weekend of programming brings together architects, researchers, policymakers, and cultural practitioners to explore housing as a shared civic responsibility—through lectures, dialogue, and installations. SHIFT Housing Summit (Morning & Afternoon Sessions) on February 13: The Morning Session at @thenphm centers Chicago as a living laboratory for housing futures, convening voices from policy, design, law, and culture to examine housing as a shared civic, political, and ecological concern. The Afternoon Session at 840 N. Michigan continues with Housing Design and Ingenuity, spotlighting practices that treat housing as a site of experimentation across typology, ecology, care, and scale. Plus More: Bookending the Housing Summit are “City as Home: Community Building in Cities of Migration” on February 12, featuring a lecture by SHIFT participant @juandu_dujuan , and “Floating Monuments: for Mecca” by @thefloatingmuseum , on view February 14–16. See the full programming lineup at the link in bio. Join us for one or all events to engage in dialogue about housing’s past, present, and future. Images: Photo 1: BREAKTHROUGH: Housing Futures, installation view, 2025, National Public Housing Museum. Photo by Joe Nolasco. Photo 2: French 2D, Bay State Cohousing, 2023. © Naho Kubota. Photo 3: Juan Du, City as Home, 2025. Photo 4: Floating Museum, for Mecca, 2025. Photo by Tom Harris.

De cumpleaños! Con mucho dulce de leche. Como corresponde. (Gracias @pablo_ness por esta foto y otras más graciosas que muestran que tenía terror de quemarme)

The Speakers’ Corner at Biennale Architettura (@labiennale ) became a stage for the Dance Corps of the Rome Opera Theatre during Teatro La Fenice’s (@teatrolafenice ) Concerto di Capodanno 2026. A space dedicated to dialogue, workshops and respite throughout the Exhibition now reactivated through movement for the New Year’s concert. #BiennaleArchitettura2025 #IntelliGens @raicultura @crassociati @johnstonmarklee @christopherhawthorne @flor_ness The Speakers’ Corner was supported by Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Kartell, COIMA, UIC University of Illinois Chicago, Deborah Berke, and Yale School of Architecture, Sidara, City of Amsterdam, Veneta Cucine, Buzzi, Fondazione Modena Wood Panels provided by technical supporter Saviola (@grupposaviola ).