Welcome back to my blog. This post is for the third Action Project of the STEAM class Urban Planning. In this third and final unit, Flow, we focused on how cities and urban areas have developed over the years. We first learned about how cities have always been centered around trade which has always relied on transportation and studied different modes of travel over the years that all contribute to urban planning. We took some time to learn about eminent domain which is something the state can use to claim private land from a private citizen for its own use if it has a strong case such as public use. We then looked at INVEST South/West, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot's community development initiative to reverse disinvestment on Chicago's South and West Sides. This initiative is trying to bring together multiple city departments, community organizations, and corporate partners and so far the city has aligned more than $1.4 billion in public and private investment. We then moved on to discuss how bridges can be powerful for connecting communities in Chicago but not so much in London. To wrap up the Internal Investigation we explored different cities around the world and how their designs or redesigns have changed urban life. For Field Experiences, we met with Peter Exley, a former President of the American Institute of Architecture and representative for the AIA at the United Nations Climate Change Conference or COP26 in 2021. Peter is also the co-founder of the firm Architecture is Fun and meeting with him helped inspire many of my classmate's Action Projects and my own.
This Action Project asks us to take everything we previously learned about cities and use it to improve an existing space. We were told to choose an underdeveloped or disinvested neighborhood and find a block to redesign. The neighborhood I chose is Auburn Gresham of Chicago which I will talk more about in the AP. Along with coming up with a design, we were asked to create a physical or digital 3D model of it and I chose to use Minecraft to build it. I hope you enjoy reading about my design.
The neighborhood I have chosen to redesign is Auburn Gresham. It is a part of Chicago’s South Side that had a large increase in population during the time of the 1893 World’s Fair or Columbian Exposition and later saw many African Americans move in after restrictive housing covenants were outlawed. When racial tension in the community continued, white residents began moving out of the neighborhood. Auburn Gresham has also seen its fair share of commercial disinvestment, especially along the main retail strip of 79th street. The neighborhood has been a food desert area for quite some time and lately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, limited access to health care has been revealed. Auburn Gresham is primarily residential and has a few small grocery stores spread out around the neighborhood. Larger stores such as Walmart, Jewel Osco, and Aldi are very distant from the middle of the neighborhood, either sitting at the Northern edge or past the Eastern border. Hospitals and other medical centers are shown to be limited in terms of access to the whole community of Auburn Gresham. Larger grocery stores and hospitals should be built around the neighborhood to provide all citizens access to fresh, healthy foods and medical services. To encourage community gathering I think the area could benefit from more green spaces such as parks or gardens. I also think centralized retail from small businesses could create more foot traffic and bring non-residents into the neighborhood to hang out and shop.
After looking through data provided by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning or CMAP, I found Aubrun Gresham has made the most notable overtime changes in household income, age population, and modes of work travel. From a 2006-2010 period, the median household income was $40,794 (2019 dollars) which is equivalent to $46,131.69 in 2022 dollars. From a 2015-2019 period, the median household income has shifted to $34,396 (2019 dollars) or $38,896.54 today. Compared to the median household income of a neighborhood such as The Loop ($108,676 2019 dollars from 2015-2019) demonstrates the large divide in economic health between areas of the city. Continuing to use the 2006-2010 and 2015-2019 time periods the percentage of the age population in Auburn Gresham has increased for citizens aged 50-64 and 65 and over while citizens aged 20-34 have only slightly increased. The most notable change in modes of work travel is the increase in car usage for driving alone with a significant decrease in public transportation use. Work destinations can be inside the neighborhood or outside of it but Auburn Gresham has remained an area with high public transit availability over the years. Another piece of data that stuck out to me was the low amount of accessible park acreage per 1,000 residents. Many residents of the neighborhood are slightly less or equal to a mile from any park or public green space that is suitable for community gatherings.
The space I am looking to redesign is a large block area on the Southwestern side of Aubrun Gresham. The block has residential, retail, and community space, and is separated by railroad tracks with space for a water tower, factory building, and vacant land on the other side. The East-West streets of 81st and 83rd are both about 395 meters long. The North-South streets of Halsted and Wallace are both about 400 meters long. By multiplying these lengths together, the area of this block is 158,000 square meters. For my blueprint and 3D model, I am focusing on the East half of the block which has an area of 79,000 square meters.
The neighborhood of Auburn Gresham is primarily residential with the opportunity for more walkability. Due to noncentralized retail and limited access to green space, transportation is more focused on cars and public transit. The parks that currently exist are spread out and designed with baseball fields so implementing green space with structures such as pavilions or gardens will attract more citizens in and out of the neighborhood. Bringing people together is important for the area to grow and one way of providing growth and community is a garden made for fresh produce that can be used in markets or brought home to cook with. Different age cohorts can be brought together and contribute to garden spaces which enhances the public sphere and promotes local community gardening for all neighborhoods across Chicago and other cities.
To get to the design I have now, I needed inspiration. The music pavilion, for example, was a building I wanted to include but it couldn't be too big and I didn't want it to be too small either. My first thought was the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park which is a very large, magnificent structure, designed to hold much more people than I could imagine fitting in my design. I was inspired by the standing it holds as a grand work of design but I knew that having a similar feeling in my design would need something a little more simple. As I was looking around I discovered a music pavilion designed in Austria that was very simple in design and used an organic form inspired by nature.
I was also inspired by Imagine Group's Evergreen Imagine, a submitted design for the INVEST South/West initiative. The proposed project would create 56 affordable housing units with ground-floor retail and parking spaces. It would also include garden lots, a playground for residents, open public spaces, and more. Before finding where I wanted to redesign I thought about a space with ground floor residential and housing on the next floors upward but decided not to when I learned how residential Auburn Gresham already was and how it wouldn't fit as well in the area I wanted to use. This design did make me think about open spaces for the public and gardens which I have implemented in my project.
There are 5 physical alterations to this space that I have found are very important for improving the area.
1. Opening sections of elevated railroad tracks wall. I am including this feature because each of the openings is designed to be linking the residential to the commercial and community space. The openings are planned at two streets so anyone coming from the West can use that pathway to enter the redesigned space with ensured safety from only pedestrian traffic.
2. Developing commercial space centered off railroad tracks wall. The commercial/retail area is important to me because it will encourage more people to enter the neighborhood to shop or sit at a cafe with a space that is meant to be fully utilized with the outdoors.
3. Constructing a pavilion in the park space. A pavilion can be a great space that attracts people because it is new and looks nice. It is also a good way to bring people in the community or neighborhood together and set aside shopping or dining to watch a film or listen to live music.
4. Landscaping sections of the park to have water and plants along walkways. Landscaping is very important for a flat area and using water to create a large pond that has walkable pathways can get more people outdoors, especially in the spring and summer.
5. Constructing a community garden in connection to a local market/restaurant. A garden can grow fresh foods for resident patrons to use in their own cooking or be available to others in the market/restaurant. Having this type of space creates some diversity in the neighborhood compared to the liquor stores that may or may not also sell food.
My design hopes to bring the retail to the residential by working around the raised railroad tracks and creating a large gathering place that makes use of the open land to bring the community together. With the green space already available on the block and a park across the street, these two places can be linked with the street and converted into a walking and bike path. The current development of the manufacturing building would provide a great indoor space for gathering the neighborhood's needs. Beside that building will be a market/grocery store providing fresh produce and healthy foods for residents on the block and in the area. The market also has a connected building that holds a restaurant so citizens of Auburn Gresham have the opportunity to dine in a larger establishment with affordable prices that are comfortable for the residents of the area. Against the wall from the elevated railroad tracks are a series of retail and commercial buildings that will bring in more visitors to the neighborhood and customers to small businesses. Walkways will be made through the wall to let citizens coming from the West enter the retail area or garden. A third building made for a “food hall” space will also be included on the property to provide residents with more opportunities for dining and gathering. A pavilion similar in purpose to the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park is also planned to be built for live music or film showings in the park.
My design helps tackle two targets from Sustainable Development Goal #11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.” Target 11.4 states: “Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage.” My project provides space for a display of artwork produced by residents of Auburn Gresham in hopes of sharing and representing the culture of the citizens who live in the neighborhood. Because of its importance to the residents of Auburn Gresham and other neighborhoods across Chicago, the gallery space would be continually open to accepting new art pieces and protecting those pieces to treat the artist and all citizens involved with respect. Target 11.7 states: “By 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities.” The public spaces planned in my project such as the pavilion and walkable garden were always meant to be accessible for any person, especially those with disabilities and the elderly.
While I was working on this project I encountered a few problems with the space I was looking to redesign. One large problem was the presence of the railroad tracks running through the block I had chosen to work with. Originally I believed I could build over the tracks until I discovered they were elevated from ground level. Thinking that trying to build high enough over the tracks was not the best decision, I considered rerouting the tracks altogether. In this scenario of having unlimited resources and funds including no concern about removing structures entirely, this option was a possibility. After thinking that plan over I decided to take a more feasible approach to the problem and planned to have sections of the wall supporting the tracks be opened up so people may walk through to get from the residential to commercial sides of the block and vice versa. Because of this problem, I chose to continue thinking about how realistic my design ideas were and if they would work in the space. My suggestion for myself in the future or anyone doing a similar project is to think big in the beginning and narrow it down so it becomes a realistic idea, especially if you are looking at a space that is important to you.
The neighborhood I have chosen to redesign is Auburn Gresham. It is a part of Chicago’s South Side that had a large increase in population during the time of the 1893 World’s Fair or Columbian Exposition and later saw many African Americans move in after restrictive housing covenants were outlawed. When racial tension in the community continued, white residents began moving out of the neighborhood. Auburn Gresham has also seen its fair share of commercial disinvestment, especially along the main retail strip of 79th street. The neighborhood has been a food desert area for quite some time and lately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, limited access to health care has been revealed. Auburn Gresham is primarily residential and has a few small grocery stores spread out around the neighborhood. Larger stores such as Walmart, Jewel Osco, and Aldi are very distant from the middle of the neighborhood, either sitting at the Northern edge or past the Eastern border. Hospitals and other medical centers are shown to be limited in terms of access to the whole community of Auburn Gresham. Larger grocery stores and hospitals should be built around the neighborhood to provide all citizens access to fresh, healthy foods and medical services. To encourage community gathering I think the area could benefit from more green spaces such as parks or gardens. I also think centralized retail from small businesses could create more foot traffic and bring non-residents into the neighborhood to hang out and shop.
After looking through data provided by the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning or CMAP, I found Aubrun Gresham has made the most notable overtime changes in household income, age population, and modes of work travel. From a 2006-2010 period, the median household income was $40,794 (2019 dollars) which is equivalent to $46,131.69 in 2022 dollars. From a 2015-2019 period, the median household income has shifted to $34,396 (2019 dollars) or $38,896.54 today. Compared to the median household income of a neighborhood such as The Loop ($108,676 2019 dollars from 2015-2019) demonstrates the large divide in economic health between areas of the city. Continuing to use the 2006-2010 and 2015-2019 time periods the percentage of the age population in Auburn Gresham has increased for citizens aged 50-64 and 65 and over while citizens aged 20-34 have only slightly increased. The most notable change in modes of work travel is the increase in car usage for driving alone with a significant decrease in public transportation use. Work destinations can be inside the neighborhood or outside of it but Auburn Gresham has remained an area with high public transit availability over the years. Another piece of data that stuck out to me was the low amount of accessible park acreage per 1,000 residents. Many residents of the neighborhood are slightly less or equal to a mile from any park or public green space that is suitable for community gatherings.
The space I am looking to redesign is a large block area on the Southwestern side of Aubrun Gresham. The block has residential, retail, and community space, and is separated by railroad tracks with space for a water tower, factory building, and vacant land on the other side. The East-West streets of 81st and 83rd are both about 395 meters long. The North-South streets of Halsted and Wallace are both about 400 meters long. By multiplying these lengths together, the area of this block is 158,000 square meters. For my blueprint and 3D model, I am focusing on the East half of the block which has an area of 79,000 square meters.
Google Maps (2022), Auburn Gresham, available at https://www.google.com/maps/place/Auburn+Gresham,+Chicago,+IL+60620, modified by GS
The neighborhood of Auburn Gresham is primarily residential with the opportunity for more walkability. Due to noncentralized retail and limited access to green space, transportation is more focused on cars and public transit. The parks that currently exist are spread out and designed with baseball fields so implementing green space with structures such as pavilions or gardens will attract more citizens in and out of the neighborhood. Bringing people together is important for the area to grow and one way of providing growth and community is a garden made for fresh produce that can be used in markets or brought home to cook with. Different age cohorts can be brought together and contribute to garden spaces which enhances the public sphere and promotes local community gardening for all neighborhoods across Chicago and other cities.
To get to the design I have now, I needed inspiration. The music pavilion, for example, was a building I wanted to include but it couldn't be too big and I didn't want it to be too small either. My first thought was the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park which is a very large, magnificent structure, designed to hold much more people than I could imagine fitting in my design. I was inspired by the standing it holds as a grand work of design but I knew that having a similar feeling in my design would need something a little more simple. As I was looking around I discovered a music pavilion designed in Austria that was very simple in design and used an organic form inspired by nature.
Millennium Park Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Walsh Group
Elliptical Music Pavilion in Austria, InHabitat, Nicole Jewell
I was also inspired by Imagine Group's Evergreen Imagine, a submitted design for the INVEST South/West initiative. The proposed project would create 56 affordable housing units with ground-floor retail and parking spaces. It would also include garden lots, a playground for residents, open public spaces, and more. Before finding where I wanted to redesign I thought about a space with ground floor residential and housing on the next floors upward but decided not to when I learned how residential Auburn Gresham already was and how it wouldn't fit as well in the area I wanted to use. This design did make me think about open spaces for the public and gardens which I have implemented in my project.
Evergreen Imagine, Imagine Group
There are 5 physical alterations to this space that I have found are very important for improving the area.
1. Opening sections of elevated railroad tracks wall. I am including this feature because each of the openings is designed to be linking the residential to the commercial and community space. The openings are planned at two streets so anyone coming from the West can use that pathway to enter the redesigned space with ensured safety from only pedestrian traffic.
2. Developing commercial space centered off railroad tracks wall. The commercial/retail area is important to me because it will encourage more people to enter the neighborhood to shop or sit at a cafe with a space that is meant to be fully utilized with the outdoors.
3. Constructing a pavilion in the park space. A pavilion can be a great space that attracts people because it is new and looks nice. It is also a good way to bring people in the community or neighborhood together and set aside shopping or dining to watch a film or listen to live music.
4. Landscaping sections of the park to have water and plants along walkways. Landscaping is very important for a flat area and using water to create a large pond that has walkable pathways can get more people outdoors, especially in the spring and summer.
5. Constructing a community garden in connection to a local market/restaurant. A garden can grow fresh foods for resident patrons to use in their own cooking or be available to others in the market/restaurant. Having this type of space creates some diversity in the neighborhood compared to the liquor stores that may or may not also sell food.
My design hopes to bring the retail to the residential by working around the raised railroad tracks and creating a large gathering place that makes use of the open land to bring the community together. With the green space already available on the block and a park across the street, these two places can be linked with the street and converted into a walking and bike path. The current development of the manufacturing building would provide a great indoor space for gathering the neighborhood's needs. Beside that building will be a market/grocery store providing fresh produce and healthy foods for residents on the block and in the area. The market also has a connected building that holds a restaurant so citizens of Auburn Gresham have the opportunity to dine in a larger establishment with affordable prices that are comfortable for the residents of the area. Against the wall from the elevated railroad tracks are a series of retail and commercial buildings that will bring in more visitors to the neighborhood and customers to small businesses. Walkways will be made through the wall to let citizens coming from the West enter the retail area or garden. A third building made for a “food hall” space will also be included on the property to provide residents with more opportunities for dining and gathering. A pavilion similar in purpose to the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park is also planned to be built for live music or film showings in the park.
My design helps tackle two targets from Sustainable Development Goal #11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.” Target 11.4 states: “Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage.” My project provides space for a display of artwork produced by residents of Auburn Gresham in hopes of sharing and representing the culture of the citizens who live in the neighborhood. Because of its importance to the residents of Auburn Gresham and other neighborhoods across Chicago, the gallery space would be continually open to accepting new art pieces and protecting those pieces to treat the artist and all citizens involved with respect. Target 11.7 states: “By 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces, in particular for women and children, older persons and persons with disabilities.” The public spaces planned in my project such as the pavilion and walkable garden were always meant to be accessible for any person, especially those with disabilities and the elderly.
As shown in my updated drawing of the East half of the block, I have kept the ComEd power station, manufacturing building, and water tower because they all have a level of importance to the neighborhood and 2 of the 3 can become focal points of the design. The drawing also shows the space planned for retail which keeps the water tower in view so all citizens can see it. This drawing does not show the buildings for each of the shops in the retail space because of me still figuring out their sizing. The markings on the slanted edge in the retail space represent pathways from the residential side of the block but after drawing it I have chosen to only have 2 paths instead of 4. My drawing also shows the market and food hall space and I have chosen to rotate and move the left building so it lines up directly South of the main building. Because the food hall building is moving to where the pavilion was going to be, they will swap places and the pavilion will face Southwest to amplify the sound coming from it off the water. Shown in light blue is the pond with the purple outline of an island. Passing around and over the pond are pathways that can be accessible to the retail, food, and entertainment areas.
Draft, GS, 2022
As mentioned earlier, I used Minecraft to create my 3D model of the block. For the dimensions I chose to work with, the length of the block is 400 meters and I would divide that by 3 to get about 133 meters which is the length of the block in Minecraft. With my 3-meter length by 3-meter width by 3-meter height blocks, I attempted to construct what I had drawn on the blueprint. Unfortunately, because of time constraints, I wasn't able to complete as much as I wanted to. Within the time I was able to build, I constructed the ComEd facility, manufacturing building, market/food hall building, a shop, and a restaurant.
Top-down View, GS, 2022
Manufacturing and Market Buildings, GS, 2022
Commercial Buildings, GS, 2022
In this design, I was asked to find the volume of at least 2 structures. The first structure I have chosen to find the volume of was one of my smaller shops in the retail space. In my 3D model, the dimensions of the shop were 10 meters long by 6 meters wide by 4 meters tall. The scale I used was 1 block is equal to 3 meters in length, width, and height so I multiply each measurement by 3. Using the volume formula of length multiplied by width multiplied by height, the volume of the shop is 6,480 cubic meters. The second structure I am using to calculate the volume is the food hall and market building. (54-14-3) The dimensions of this building were 56 meters long by 16 meters wide by 4 meters high. Again, multiplying each dimension by 3 for the scale and solving with the volume formula equals 96,768 cubic meters.
While I was working on this project I encountered a few problems with the space I was looking to redesign. One large problem was the presence of the railroad tracks running through the block I had chosen to work with. Originally I believed I could build over the tracks until I discovered they were elevated from ground level. Thinking that trying to build high enough over the tracks was not the best decision, I considered rerouting the tracks altogether. In this scenario of having unlimited resources and funds including no concern about removing structures entirely, this option was a possibility. After thinking that plan over I decided to take a more feasible approach to the problem and planned to have sections of the wall supporting the tracks be opened up so people may walk through to get from the residential to commercial sides of the block and vice versa. Because of this problem, I chose to continue thinking about how realistic my design ideas were and if they would work in the space. My suggestion for myself in the future or anyone doing a similar project is to think big in the beginning and narrow it down so it becomes a realistic idea, especially if you are looking at a space that is important to you.
I thought this Action Project was fun to work on. I learned a lot more about Chicago neighborhoods through this project when I took the time to research about areas of Chicago that had poor access to fresh food or even healthcare. I am proud of the drawing I was able to produce because I thought I had good ideas going through my head. I am disappointed I wasn't able to finish the 3D model but this project is something I would continue to work on and update to this blog. If I could do this project over again, I would consider choosing a smaller area to work with because thinking about designing the whole block to half of it and then what to do with the rail tracks cost me a lot of time. This AP has given me a lot to consider about career paths since urban planning or civil engineering are careers I am currently interested in. I am also very grateful for the feedback given to me about moving around some of the buildings from my drawing by Whitney Architects, an architecture firm our school has made a connection with recently. Thank you for reading and I hope to see you in the next blog.
Sources:
"CMAP Community Data Snapshot: Auburn Gresham." Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. Aug. 2021, https://www.cmap.illinois.gov/documents/10180/126764/Auburn+Gresham.pdf. Accessed 27 May 2022.
Kim, Caroline. "This New San Francisco Corner Market Design Will Make You Crave Vegetables." NextCity. 1 Jun. 2015, https://nextcity.org/features/san-francisco-food-desert-corner-store-design. Accessed 28 May 2022.
"Imagine Evergreen." Imagine Group. http://imaginedevelopmentgroup.com/imagine-evergreen/. Accessed 27 May 2022.
"INVEST South/West." Chicago.gov. https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/invest_sw/home.html. Accessed 27 May 2022.
Jewell, Nicole. "Elliptical Music Pavilion in Austria is made from locally-sourced silver fur." InHabitat. 20 Nov. 2015, https://inhabitat.com/elliptical-music-pavilion-in-austria-is-made-from-locally-sourced-silver-fir/. Accessed 30 May 2022.
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