CHICAGO CITY OF LAYERS

KU Leuven - International Master of Architecture - Campus Sint-Lucas Ghent

Project idea

The idea of the project is to find a new way of living, a new society that is reconnecting the city of Chicago and its industrial heritage. This is achieved by a research part going on the layered identity of Chicago and the influence of dystopian and utopian spaces and ideas that shaped the city. Resulting into a Heterotopia for space and people.

Project description

The project is a utopian interpretation of the layered identity of the
city ​​of Chicago that uses the dystopian infrastructuree and underutilized
vacant industrial sites for infrastructure
to reconnect a divided city.
The project is underpinned by the different layers that make up the identity
of Chicago as a city of layers to form a strategy
build to connect these unused sites. This investigation
is supplemented with utopian case studies such as 'New Babylon' designed
by Constant Nieuwenhuys.
The project proposes an ever-growing superstructure that emerges
from the forgotten vacant industrial sites where there is a new typology
of architecture is conceived in the form of a heterotopia of
functions to link industry in the city with other forms of work,
recreation and life. These sites form the cells that make up the superstructure
begins to grow and eventually connect with each other.
This connection will happen through a symbiotic or even parasitic
relation of a newly connecting structure to the already dividing one
infrastructure of train tracks and highways in the city.

Technical information

The construction of the system exists out of a modular system of steel brackets and Mass Timber to facilitate a grow in the structure. Further the use of low weight polycarbonate sheets will create a second facade for climatisation of the pulic facilities and create a semi transparant boundary between the structure and city.

Documentation

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