Chicago’s Urban Sculptor Design Jam

The collaboration between the Chicago Architecture Foundation and No.9 has grown through both organizations’ commitment to educating today’s youth about sustainable architecture and urban planning. 

Building on Imagining My Sustainable City’s existing curriculum, the partnership with the Chicago Architecture Foundation combines No.9’s architectural programming with an organization that has established itself as a leader in architectural education. No.9 brought their Imagining My Sustainable City educators, Elizabeth Lenell Davies and Barbara Lilker, to Chicago to teach the four-day course to the city’s youth for the Urban Sculptor Design Jam at the Chicago Architecture Foundation. This collaboration is the beginning for a Sister Cities Education Exchange initiative that will link Toronto to Chicago through its shared investment in architecture and architectural education.

Over the course of four days, CAF’s students designed a nature center consisting of a series of pavilions using Studio Gang’s landscape proposal for the southern portion of Notherly Island as their site. Each student’s design contributes to the newly restored ecosystems by enhancing habitats for specific Indigenous wildlife and creating opportunities for people to experience nature in the city.