Chicago’s New Nature: An Ecological Override Plan
The Spring 2023 Studio focused on how a history of natural abundance and recent legal precedents could give way to a rights of nature movement in the Chicago region. The Plan investigates how factors of influence have degraded and fragmented the region’s natural systems and over time disconnected its communities from nature and each other. In effect, the plan challenges individuals to reconsider the suite of possibilities for the built environment and natural systems woven throughout the Chicago region.
Chicago’s New Nature focuses on the ‘C’ - the shape created by the Des Plaines River, the Chicago River, and the Calumet Sag Channel confluence - and the resulting inner island of land that defines the south and southeast sides of Chicago. The Plan provides a pathway for a new kind of built environment, one which embraces the City in a Garden’s rich and diverse ecotones. As a result, new networks of connectivity better situate the Chicago region to adapt to the effects of climate change and improve living conditions for local ecosystems and communities. Adaptation strategies explored included a green roof network, railways as natural corridors, waterways as safe havens and community focal points, and other place-based solutions.
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