Expanding the Latent Landscape
Planning Proposal for North Lawndale, Chicago 2006
Team: Clare Lyster with Carlyn So
Globalization has handed us two primary urban states; the emerging city and the emptying one. This project concerns itself with the latter and explores empty urbanism as a concept of the post-modern metropolis. While many cities, such as in India and China, are witnessing unprecedented growth, cities in other parts of the world are either shrinking or emptying out. The “subtraction” (Keller Easterling) of the post-industrial city is as challenging as the rapid growth of the emerging one. Both confirm the city as a product of temporal shifts generated by the highs (flow in) and lows (flow out) of economic capital.
The project explores landscape as an enabling mechanism in a blighted neighborhood at the intersection of natural, synthetic, social, political and economic processes. Specifically it tests landscapes potential as an economic and cultural framework in an impoverished territory on Chicago’s Westside delivered through 4 objectives- SWAP, GROW, PLAY and PRESERVE that direct a series of design interventions in the area. The project was exhibited at “Young Chicago” at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2006.
