An exploration of the Chicago grid, the entry for the ChiDesign competition expands the city grid into a vertical structural system to provide flexible, open, column-free floor plates. Like the democratic nature of the planning grid the structural system provides a framework for varied and adaptable programmatic spaces. Overlapping interior volumes and spaces are made apparent through layers of transparency in recessed asymmetrical metal frames. The terracotta clad steel frame unifies the disparate programs and spaces into a recognizable whole while alluding to Chicago Modernist building traditions.