The Available City is an ongoing exploration of the City of Chicago’s ownership of 13,000 vacant lots as an opportunity to impact an area twice the size of the Loop through the lot—the smallest increment of the city grid. Considering the city-owned lots as a set, The Available City proposes a publicly accessible collective space system in which each city-owned lot has potential as a surface element—a softscape, hardscape, or small building by a local nonprofit organization or the city—in that system, while those adjacent to privately owned vacant lots have additional potential to provide volumes of collective space within buildings on 2–5 lots. Those buildings receive more footprint and square footage allowances than zoning permits through the provision of publicly accessible volumes of collective space within the building with a surface area that equals, if not exceeds, the area of the city lots. The Available City is thus an urban proposition comprised of up to 13,000 local effects.
Each collective space within The Available City—designed to be flexible, nonhierarchical, incremental, open ended, and variable in outcome—is independently complete and viable, yet gains in impact as instances of collective space increase and entwine. With components and provisions that enable multiple interests and scales—resident, developer, neighborhood, ward, and city—to address various concerns and needs, The Available City solicits wide participation in speculation of what this new collective space—and consequently the neighborhoods and wards in which the city-owned lots are most prevalent—could be.
Chicago City-Owned and Surrounding Privately Owned Vacant Lots
© David Brown.
Aggregate Size
Aggregate size. © David Brown.
Variable Lot Potentials and A Six Block Area
Variable lot potentials. © David Brown.
A six block area. © David Brown.
Intensive development of surfaces or four story or less buildings, on combinations of city and private land, creates a set of collective spaces equal in size to the Loop.
Intensive development of surfaces. © David Brown.
Intensive development of surfaces. © David Brown.
Intensive development of buildings above five stories provides a set of collective spaces greater than the size of the Loop.
Intensive development of buildings. © David Brown.
Intensive development of buildings. © David Brown.
Spaces and Chambers
A periodic table of prompts—moving from aspects of form, across qualities and characteristics, to program and activity—to enable individuals and groups to think expansively about the opportunities and associations available within up to 13,000 surfaces and volumes of collective space.
Spaces and chambers. © David Brown.
Shape and Pattern Play
Organizations of a selection of prompts for Collective Space Surfaces and Chambers.
Shape and pattern play. © David Brown.
Softscapes, hardscapes and small buildings provide a collective space conditioned by the work activity or opportunities introduced by the form accommodating that activity. Each should include a small workspace if the primary activity does not provide such space.
Surface Types: Softscapes
Surface types: softscapes. © David Brown.
Surface Types: Hardscapes
Surface types: hardscapes. © David Brown.
Surface Types: Buildings
Surface types: buildings. © David Brown.
Fence structures or other elements that block entry onto a lot. They are not unlike the bollards the city uses. However, they are more sculptural and might provide activities along the street and alley edges or provide side spaces for the adjacent neighbors.
Surface Types: Fills
Surface types: fills. © David Brown.
Distributed surfaces work in conjunction with others to operate as a dispersed network for activities such as farming, water detention, or power generation.
Surface Types: Distributed
Surface types: distributed. © David Brown.
4 Stories and Below: L Building
Studies of the form to shape the collective space.
4 Stories and Below: Modular
Studies of modular components to form collective space.
4 Stories and Below: Surface Variations
Studies of the influence of the collective space on the siting of a building form.
4 Stories and Below. © David Brown.
4 Stories and Above: Form Implications of the Collective Space Volume Rules
4 Stories and Above. © David Brown.
Chambers
Ready-made collective space volumes that can be used in an additive approach to designing the collective space within a building.
Chambers. © David Brown.
Chamber-Based Building Studies
Chamber-based building studies. © David Brown.
4 Stories and Above: Possible Massings for All City+Private Combinations
4 Stories and Above. © David Brown.
4 Stories and Above. © David Brown.
The Available City. © David Brown.
The Available City, BOLD: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago, CAB, 2015. © David Schalliol.
The Available City, BOLD: Alternative Scenarios for Chicago, CAB, 2015. © David Schalliol.
TEAM
Research
Cady Chintis, Matt Van Der Ploeg, and Christina Stamatoukos.
General Design Proposition and Design Development
Jared Macken and Lyndsay Pepple.
Design Development
George Louras, Jared Macken, Cole Monaghan, Ji Noh, Tafhim Rahman, Matthew Schneider, and Jenna Wolf.
Scapes and Chambers
Collaboration with Dept US (Adrianne Joergensen, Jason Mould, and Meghan Funk).
2012 Venice Architecture Biennale
Jacob Comerci, Nicholas Krause, George Louras, Cole Monaghan, Roy Mwale, Lyndsay Pepple, Tafhim Rahman, Mark Rowntree, Julia Sedlock, and Jenna Wolf.
Switch-a-Shape
2d—Matthew Schneider,3d—David Ramis.
Chicago Architecture Biennial
Stephen Adzemovic, Caroline Grebner, David Ramis, and Samra Qasim.