Tough as a Bear

CATEGORY Student Award, Graduate

Installation of the first stanza of Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, In the Mecca on the steps of IIT’s Crown Hall interrogates the relationship between the University and an area of the Bronzeville neighborhood that was displaced during the expansion of the university — including demolition of the Mecca Flats apartment building for Crown Hall. The installation, written in soil, explores text in public space and reclaims a lost site of memory.

Envision 2040 creates a pedestrian-friendly transport system to reduce parking lots, increase transportation safety, and reduce carbon emissions. It explores trade-offs between safety, usability, and aesthetics and proposes a suitable balance between these elements. Using the place-based approach and systematic thinking, the project aims to increase biodiversity, restore the ecology value, and achieve urban rehabilitation to help promote the economy, recall the culture, and improve environmental quality.

Folding Stripes promotes the transformation of Chicago Chinatown through an urban ground strategy to improve the quality of the district’s public spaces and ecological performance. The site’s distinct Chinese cultural identity frames the surface intervention strategy from traditional principals and contemporary design perspectives and redesigns the site surface through spatial and infrastructural considerations to catch and infiltrate stormwater, reducing urban flood risks.

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