Frida Escobedo has designed a monolithic timber, tiered platform in Randolph Square—a singular formal gesture with moveable modules that allows for informal lounging, gatherings, and forums. The intervention departs from a question—what happens when different systems of spatial demarcation intersect? The insertion of this gridded form interrupts the configuration of the historic space, passing by two of the symmetrical openings and carving a pathway through the space. While this framework does seem to follow its own logic, one starts to notice that it points to other grids in the existing room, like the structural and ornamental grid of the coffered ceiling, or the inlaid Carrara marble paneling of the walls. Expanding further out the door to Randolph Street, one might start to think about what architectural theorist Sarah Whiting calls “Chicago’s elastic grid,” in regard to the 1909 Burnham plan for the city that fosters a surprising diversity of subdivisions and city-block sizes. The Randolph Square installation is not intended as a purely abstract expression of Cartesian logic, nor as a mere functional object designed to fulfill a prescribed program. Rather, it is an ambiguous ground—a landscape intended to respond to the various ways in which it will be occupied.