Chicago, Illinois
2003

The 576-acre US Steel South Works site, once supplying the livelihood of South Chicago neighborhoods, lays fallow and baffled the city’s redevelopment department about its future. The proposed strategy of creating a strong landscape infrastructure reinterpreted the gigantic remains of ore walls along the boat basin as a landscape armature for both public and private recolonization of the historic site.

In contrast to a master plan that privileged new residential and commercial tenants blocking the local citizens’ access to the lake, the alternative tactic preserved the remaining industrial structures to serve as a public realm backbone while private mixed-use development fleshes out as the market grows. One concept introduced, later implemented, called for barges to deliver clean sediment to a dirt farm beside the boat basin, where healthy soils were to be manufactured for regenerating a productive landscape.

Clients + Collaborators

City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development