FAR frohn&rojas

Santiago, Chile; Berlin, Germany; and Los Angeles, United States

FAR frohn&rojas is a networked architectural design and research practice. The office’s name acknowledges its geographically distributed anatomy as well as its increasingly widened professional scope that shapes its work. With its distributed setup, the office adopts corporate models of global presence and distribution as its own effective means of production. This is not a production based on rapid output or cost-cutting, but rather on establishing a more diversified architectural production. In this way, the inherent contradictions between geographies and the stretching of disciplinary boundaries allow formerly undeterminable links to thrive. The practice’s self-reflection on its anatomy hints at one of the crucial interests in its work: the underlying “deep structures” at play in each project, including the legal and financial constraints, desires, power structures, and technological, ecological, material, and institutional frameworks that shape the built environment.

2025 Biennial Project

Project Overview

Wohnregal

Wohnregal is a six-story building in Berlin that combines living and working spaces. Built with precast concrete pillars, beams, and ceilings—all common in industrial warehouse construction—it takes advantage of the cost efficiency and speed of industrial production. The structure spans from façade to façade without the need for interior structural elements. All internal partitions are drywall, allowing floor plans to be flexible in size and configured differently on each level.

Venue

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Chicago Cultural Center

Address

78 E. Washington St., Chicago, IL 60602

Neighborhood

The Loop

Description

Completed in 1897 as Chicago’s first central library, the building was established as the Chicago Cultural Center, the nation’s first and most comprehensive free municipal cultural venue, in 1991. One of the most visited attractions in Chicago, the stunning landmark building is home to two magnificent stained-glass domes, as well as free art exhibitions, performances, tours, lectures, family activities, music, and more – presented by the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE) and many others. 

City of Chicago.
Chicago Architecture Biennial