Abandoned housing project in Chicago to be reborn as artist housing.
While
much of Chicago’s large-scale public housing has been demolished, a
small, abandoned 36-unit Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) property on
the South Side is being reborn as an innovative mixed-income project
with public, affordable, and market-rate housing as well as a cultural
center for residents.
The project is a collaboration between artist-planner Theaster
Gates, Landon Bone Baker Architects (LBBA), and Brinshore Development,
working in coordination with the CHA. The project calls for 12 units
for CHA residents, 11 units of affordable housing for artists, and nine
market-rate units, possibly for home ownership. The market rate units
will also be targeted for artists. “We want to be able to attract South
Side artists—artists of color—who normally have to go to the North Side
to make art or make music,” Gates said. Four of the original 36 units
will be combined to create a cultural center for the complex, which
could include workshop, gallery, or studio space, open to all residents.
The Rebuild Foundation, a non-profit that Gates founded, will
recruit artists and manage the cultural space. The goal is for resident
artists to mentor CHA residents and their children as well as work with
schools in the neighborhood.
The site plan indicates the arts center at the center of the U-shaped block. (Click to enlarge.)
Gates has been working in the Dorchester neighborhood for almost six
years, rehabbing four houses as alternative live-work spaces for
artists and community members. Working with neighbors, he is also
caring for two vacant lots in the area. “We’ve been exploring how a
cluster of houses could become a cultural amenity,” Gates said. “What’s
really cool about this project with CHA is that it’s really focused on
raising people’s quality of life. How do we celebrate the lives of
people no matter what means they have?”
For the CHA project, Landon Bone Baker will focus on making the
midcentury building’s shell more energy efficient. The CHA resident
units will be conventional three-bedroom units, whereas the artists’
units will be left relatively raw so they can be built out by tenants
and owners. “It’s a chance for us to look at these buildings more
spatially, rather than just in terms of the number of rooms, so that if
removing some joists and opening up a unit into the space above makes
the most sense, we can do that,” said Catherine Baker, a principal at
LBBA.
For Gates and LBBA, reusing the existing buildings is important.
“The full obliteration and recreation of neighborhoods is not natural,”
Gates says, referring to wholesale destruction of vast tracts of public
housing in Chicago. “How do we work with the existing fabric of a
neighborhood and dream what we want the neighborhood to be?” While the
buildings themselves are not of particular architectural merit, the
townhouse scale and its mature trees relate well to the surrounding
neighborhood.
They hope the project could serve as a model for other parts of the
city and beyond. While housing authorities around the country have
adopted New Urbanist-influenced, mixed-income rebuilding programs, some
have struggled to attract market rate residents, and others have failed
to develop planned commercial uses.
“This model could be a different way to attract a variety of
residents,” Baker said. “It’s really about enriching the lives of all
residents. It’s a different notion of amenity.”
Alan G. Brake
