COLLABORATORS

Applied Ecological Services is a group of expert restoration ecologists and frequent Studio Gang collaborators. They led our rooftop bioblitzes in fall 2016, 2017, and 2018. Used as a measure of biodiversity, a bioblitz is an effort to catalog all living things in a discrete area, catalyzing interest and knowledge in ecological health and biodiversity. Through these events, the growth of our rooftop is tracked by not only what is growing there but what other life it supports.

Omni Ecosystems is a group of horticulturalists, urban farmers, and researchers who create living infrastructure, bringing nature to the built environment via green roofs, green walls, landscape architecture, urban agriculture, and clean growing media for contaminated sites. We worked with Omni Ecosystems to establish our green roof using their proprietary growing media and a custom seed mix.

Omni Ecosystem’s sister organization, the Roof Crop organized our winter wheat harvest in summer 2016, providing a learning experience for local youth who hand-harvested, winnowed, and threshed the wheat into high-quality pastry flour. The Chicago Honey Co-op is a group of beekeepers and bee enthusiasts who establish and maintain beehives throughout the city. They practice and advocate for sustainable agriculture and awareness of the natural environment. Beekeepers from the Chicago Honey Co-op established our rooftop hives in spring 2017 and led our honey harvests in summer 2017 and 2018. They continue to teach us about the importance of bees in nature and in human cultures.

Lincoln Park Zoo’s Urban Wildlife Institute is a group of scientists, researchers, and analysts who study the interaction between urban development and the natural ecosystem to develop scientific standards for minimizing conflict between these overlapping areas. In summer 2017 they installed a passive acoustic monitor on our rooftop to gauge bat species in the area as part of a larger ongoing biodiversity monitoring project throughout the region.

Bur Oak

Animal Diversity Web, Museum of Zoology,

University of Michigan, http://www.animaldiversity.org. Bat Conservation International, http://www.batcon.org. Chadde, Steve. Prairie Plants of Illinois: A

Field Guide to the Prairie Grasses and

Wildflowers of Illinois and the Midwest, 2017. Cofrin Center for Biodiversity, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, https://www.uwgb.edu. Cornell Lab of Ornithology,

Cornell University, https://www.allaboutbirds.org. Encyclopedia of Life, Field Museum of

Natural History, Harvard University, http://eol.org. Illinois Wildflowers, http://www.illinoiswildflowers.info. International Union for Conservation of

Nature and Natural Resources, http://www.iucnredlist.org. Minnesota Wildflowers, https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info. Missouri Botanical Garden, http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org. Morton Arboretum, http://www.mortonarb.org. National Audubon Society, http://www.audubon.org. Natural Resources Conservation Service,

United States Department of Agriculture, https://plants.usda.gov. Seeley, Thomas D. Honeybee Democracy.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 2010. Studio Gang

Founded and led by Jeanne Gang, Studio Gang is an architecture and urban design practice with offices in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. The Studio works across project types, drawing insights from ecological systems to create places that strengthen beneficial relationships between individuals, communities, and the built and natural environment.

© 2018 Studio Gang. All rights reserved.

Preface by Jeanne Gang, Founder. Designed and illustrated by Elizabeth Hamilton. Edited by Sarah Kramer, Senior Editor, with Alissa Anderson, Publications Director. Interviews by Lydia Meyer and Sarah Kramer. Special thanks to Claire Cahan, Design Director, and to Steve Apfelbaum, Susan Lehnhardt, Liza Lehrer, Michael Repkin, Michael Savona, and Michael Thompson.

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