West Side Community Garden Will Become Art Installation For Chicago Architecture Biennial, Showing The Potential Of Vacant Urban Spaces
The projects in this year’s expo are meant to inspire people to radically reimagine the possibilities of what could exist in open and public spaces, especially on the thousands of vacant lots around the city.
By Pascal Sabino
Block Club Chicago
Sep 16, 2021
Excerpt:
The pavilion will include several 20-foot totems made from raw, natural materials, including untreated wood designed to naturally evolve over the lifespan of the installation. The materials also will allow students and residents to grow edible mushrooms on portions of the totems.
Birds and insects will be able to nest in the different layers of the structure, which are intended to “create a lot of different spaces for either people to hang out in, but also for animals to live in and inhabit,” Loverich said.
It will also include 8-foot-high baskets made from layers of woven willow branches, as well as live willow trees that will grow in and around the pavilion, giving it an “interconnectivity of all of these different elements to kind of create this self-sustaining ecosystem,” Loverich said.
