The proposal is for a parcel depot and community centre, established to support the poor and vulnerable residents of Chicago, and enable them to attain more comfortable and sustainable means. Hybridising the programmes of job centres and institutions of social support, the architecture is shaped by the emotional needs of its occupants: privacy, comfort and belonging. Formed in a series of thin ceramic shells, the architectural skin is an attention-seeking dressing, tailored to a body that society typically turns its back on.

Through its siting on prime riverside real estate in downtown Chicago, the building seeks to spread awareness of the social issue of homelessness through an interplay of bold gestures and discrete spatial interventions. Public-facing retail and a waterfront restaurant are embedded in the masterplan, financially sustaining the charitable venture and interlacing the typically segregated strata of the contemporary city.