Design Matters: Bridging the Gap between the Arts and Architecture

Tuesday, October 19, 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Organized by Sunny Fischer, executive director, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation; Peter Handler, program manager, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.

Presented by Lee Bey, executive director, Chicago Central Area Committee; Monica Chadha, Studio Gang Architects, co-founder Converge: Exchange, adjunct assistant professor, Illinois Institute of Technology; Jason Shupbach, design director, National Endowment for the Arts; Rusty Smith, associate director, Rural Studio, and associate professor, Auburn University.

Against the background of Chicago's rich and varied architectural history, this session will examine the intersection of architecture, design, and the arts and highlight the opportunities for funders interested in and willing to explore the borders of these disciplines. Architecture and design often fall between the cracks of foundations’ guidelines, not easily fitting into any one discipline or another. The common ground, however, is both broad and fertile, its borders increasingly crossed by artists, designers, and planners with surprising and successful results that enhance quality of life in communities, help maintain or reflect the character of neighborhoods, and encompass answers to pressing social problems.


The session will include a tour of the new headquarters of Access Living, a nonresidential center for independent living servicing people with disabilities - and an example of state-of-the-art universal and green design. The tour will include the center’s Permanent Collection, which comprises art by professional artists with disabilities and non-disabled artists who have made disability a central focus of their work.


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Session host: Access Living