Between States, Chicago Architecture Foundation, Chicago Biennial, 2017

“Nowhere now Somewhere” exhibition: community-based design solutions to transform underappreciated and underperforming spaces in Chicago into rejuvenated civic anchors. This exhibition identifies a physical asset of one of Chicago’s 50 wards that could benefit from a redesign and imagine a way to transition it “between states.” The meaning is twofold. First, how can the physical state of these sites be transformed? Second, how can successful community-based projects from other U.S. states serve as inspiring case studies for Chicagoans? This design proposal reconnects two communities through a new hybrid infrastructure that celebrates the basic needs of habitation through the production of food, water and energy, creating the social spaces that are the institutions of the community. It provides economic stimulus in the form of job creation and bridges the physical and psychological divide of the expressways.