Latent Design is making change in Chicago
The American Midwest has been shaking up the world of architecture. As part of our Next Generation series, we meet Latent Design, a small practice pioneering big change
‘We’re probably always going to suffer from small firm syndrome,’ Katherine Darnstadt says. The founder of Latent Design – which has been working in multiple disciplines but always with a focus on spatial and racial equity, restorative design, and reclaiming access to space for a wide population – is talking about the biggest challenge facing her six-person Chicago-based firm, which she formally started in 2009. ‘But it’s something we’ve learned to embrace – it’s a quality, it’s not a deficit.’
Being a small firm has allowed Darnstadt and her team the nimbleness to take on a wide variety of projects and to use planning, zoning, codes, and financing as creatively as most of her peers are using AutoCAD and renderings. For her, architecture and urban planning have not only the possibility, but the necessity, to make a profound impact, as seen in work for clients such as the Mayo Clinic, the Boys & Girls Clubs, and 40 Acres Fresh Market, and projects including community masterplans, affordable housing, and commercial interiors. For Mayo, Latent Design brought a sense of place and permanence to the clinic’s home in the small town of Rochester, Minnesota.
Darnstadt points out that there are only about 200,000 permanent residents in the town but about three million medical visitors a year. It’s a tension that to anyone else might have seemed impossible to bridge, but to her allowed for a creative opening up of the downtown area, linking the drive to be healthy to reconsidered and reconfigured outdoor spaces.
For her 2018 project Boombox, she transformed shipping containers into affordable micro-retail spaces, bringing small businesses into Chicago neighbourhoods that, she says, are ‘normally locked out of commercial real estate’. She's now working with one of those businesses, 40 Acres Fresh Market, on a full-scale standalone grocery store on the West Side of Chicago. ‘It’s not a food desert,’ Darnstadt says of that neighbourhood. ‘It’s food apartheid.’
Such directness and clarity are part of what has made Latent Design a go-to for clients deeply invested in actually changing how a variety of populations experience the built environment. As a certified Benefit Corporation since 2013, Latent Design is invested in financial and social equity, and in truly wielding all kinds of architectural and planning skills to make measurable differences in its home city of Chicago and beyond.
The team’s work is ‘really based in looking at those kinds of placemaking provocations that reveal a gap, or reveal the inequity, and then turn that into something more permanent’, says Darnstadt. ‘That’s either a policy piece, a piece of architecture, or a business model.’ They may be a small firm, but they’re mighty.
INFORMATION
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
Aesop’s Salone del Mobile 2024 installations in Milan are multisensory experiences
Aesop has partnered with Salone del Mobile to launch a series of installations across Milan, tapping into sight, touch, taste, and scent
By Hannah Tindle Published
-
Dial into the Boring Phone and more smartphone alternatives
From the deliberately dull new Boring Phone to Honor’s latest hook-up with Porsche, a host of new devices that do the phone thing slightly differently
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Berlinde De Bruyckere’s angels without faces touch down in Venice church
Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere’s recent archangel sculptures occupy the 16th-century white marble Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore for the Venice Biennale 2024
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
A Petra Island house rises from Frank Lloyd Wright's original drawings
Based on Frank Lloyd Wright drawings, the cantilevering Petra Island Massaro House, located in New York’s Hudson Valley, is now open to visitors
By Craig Kellogg Published
-
An Upper West Side apartment by General Assembly nods to its history
An Upper West Side apartment in New York, born out of the reimagining of two neighbouring units, is refreshed by General Assembly for a young family
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
New York's Leica store echoes the brand's blend of heritage and innovation
Leica store throws open its doors in New York's Meatpacking District, courtesy of Brooklyn based Format Architecture Office
By Adrian Madlener Published
-
Hudson Valley Residence is a low-lying retreat that seamlessly blends into the horizon
Designed by HGX Design, Hudson Valley Residence is a scenic home offering unobstructed views across the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York
By Tianna Williams Published
-
Boise Passive House’s bold gestures support an environmentally friendly design
Boise Passive House by Haas Architecture combines sleek, contemporary design and environmental efficiency
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
At the Hilbert Museum of California Art’s expanded home, art and architecture converge
The Hilbert Museum of California Art expands its home, courtesy of Los Angeles architecture studio Johnston Marklee
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Pearlman Cabin by John Lautner is an organic Californian mountain retreat
John Lautner’s midcentury Pearlman Cabin, tucked away in the Californian mountain resort of Idyllwild, is a striking example of organic architecture
By Mimi Zeiger Published
-
Albert Frey’s Aluminaire House is reborn in Palm Springs
Aluminaire House, designed by legendary modernist Albert Frey, has been reconstructed outside the Palm Springs Art Museum
By Michael Webb Published