Sustainable Land Development

• Michael Clendening
• Tyler Bratland
• Jenna Burian
• Shifra Feldman

Chicago currently has thousands of empty plots of land, and there is so much that can be done to make use of this space. Our team has designed a recreational space that will also serve as a stormwater mitigation area during storm events. We have utilized an empty lot that is located in the Little Italy neighborhood of Chicago with the hope that similar initiatives will be taken to utilize the rest of these lots. The team has taken inspiration from the Space to Grow movement in the Chicago Public Schools. The basis of the Space to Grow projects is redesigning schoolyards to encourage play and learning while also acting as a detention basin during large flooding events. These projects have decreased flooding throughout those communities and their work has become mainstream in several schools around the city. We want to continue this movement with two main goals in mind: to design a stormwater mitigation area for extreme flooding events and to design a recreational space utilizing sustainable practices to encourage outdoor physical activity and provide a sense of community. This project has been designed using low impact development practices. The team has designed the recreational space as a multi-use field that acts as a detention basin during extreme storm events, in order to reduce flooding in the surrounding community. An example of one low impact development practice that will go into making the design sustainable is a green roof. The location of this development project is 1302 W. Taylor St. Chicago, IL 60607. We have conducted a site visit to analyze the existing site conditions in order to determine the most effective design of the recreational space. The design encourages outdoor physical activity and will reduce flooding in the community.