Eco-Cultural Infrastructure

Location: Humboldt Park, Chicago

Year: 2023

Status: Design Development

Collaboration: Hammersley Architecture

Award: AIA Upjohn Grant Initiative

What if underutilized spaces found in city neighborhoods transformed into an integrated network of places throughout the community, providing neighbors and visitors opportunities to socialize, learn, enjoy physical activities, and share / make art?

This research-design project, sponsored by the American Institute of Architects’ national Upjohn Initiative program, underpins the idea of adaptive reuse as sustainable place making that promotes walking and cycling and serves to foster social cohesion and exchange in urban communities.

Humboldt Park

Neighborhood maps used to locate sites for potential interventions based on demographic, economic, crime, transit & amenity service data points. Maps include the four zip codes surrounding Humboldt Park

These data present the spatial inequality of the Humboldt Park neighborhood, where Hispanic minorities are highly exposed to health and crime issues along with a low access to amenities.

Restaurants and Cafes

% Bike to Work

Crime

Toxic Air -Cancer Risk

Murals and Art Galleries

% Hispanics

Poor Mental Health

Tree Equity Score

Focus areas

Synthesizing data on public health, amenities, transportation, crime, and vacant lots/buildings, we identify opportunity areas clustered in the northwest corner of the Humboldt Park.

These three areas - vacant commercial lot(s), abandoned building, and park edge are focus sites of intervention, intended to become a green and social nexus near the Humboldt Park.

Reclaiming underutilized spaces

We identify prototypical sites that can be found in any cities. These sites present challenges of being disconnect and lacking programs to support citizens' health, social life, and urban ecology.

Therefore, we repurpose these sites space into public spaces to reconnect them with existing parks, boulevards, and surrounding neighborhoods. Programs can be multifunctional oriented to art, gathering spaces, athletics, cycling.

Art & Sustainability

These sculptural pieces can be unique to the neighborhood, created by artists from the area. They have a variety of programmatic uses and can vary in scale depending on the needs of a community.

The different pieces are used to set up a visual language throughout the neighborhood. Examples of uses are- landmarks for wayfinding, inhabitable follies, pieces of public art, lanterns, towers, entryways...

Surface will be repaved with permeable materials like open bricks. Public spaces can integrate art pieces with green infrastructures, such as bioswale, green roof, rain garden, etc.

Six Prototypical Interventions

Park Corner

2. Parking Lot

3. Residential Lot

4. Warehouse

5. Train Underpass

6. Interchange

Google Sites

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