New York City-based Terreform and Chicago community development nonprofit Blacks in Green are planning to moving ahead with the BIG Green Homestead project, a development that will bring community-owned sustainable housing and commercial spaces to the city's South Side.
The project is led by Blacks in Green Founder and President Naomi Davis and its design, Energy News Network reports, was worked on by architect Michael Sorkin up until just before he passed away due to COVID-19 in late March. In addition to Sorkin, architect and School of the Art Institute of Chicago educator Ellen Grimes and WXY urban planner Tracy Sanders have also contributed to the project.
The development seeks to instill a “sustainable-square-mile” infilled urban model for the West Woodlawn neighborhood, which is in proximity to the proposed Jackson Park site of the forthcoming Barack Obama Presidential Center designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects (TWBTA) and is facing gentrifcation. According to Davis's 8 Principles vision, the development approach brings together community ownership, locally-produced energy, sustainable housing, neighborhood organizations, and other attributes to create a walkable, low-carbon district. The housing designed by Sorkin and his team is built from mass timber structural elements and is designed with expanses of glass to allow daylight into its interior spaces while also harvesting solar energy, following a design similar to the firm's recent "Green Housing as Garden" design for the recent Big Ideas for Small Lots competition in New York City.
Davis tells Energy News Network, “We are creating these sustainable square miles. We’re creating this walk to work, walk to shop, walk to learn, walk to play village, where African American people live, where they own the businesses. They own the land. And they live the conservation lifestyle.”
5 Comments
That first image is very nice. It reminds me a little of the St. Paul Studios in London.
Love these renderings. Gorgeous.
The second image seems appropriate for the neighborhood and climate.
The first is beautiful, yes, but Chicago is not the most friendly climate for large expanses of skylight glazing. It's brutally hot and sunny in the summer and cold, icy, and wet in the winter.
Looking forward to seeing this project move ahead. Nice work, team. Could not come at a better time.
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