Will a Vacant Stare Inspire? AFH/Chicago's Activate!; Chicago Women in Architecture's Scholarship deadline

When you look at a vacant lot, do you see beyond the emptiness?  Architecture For Humanity/Chicago is posing that challenge in its Activate! Temporary Public Space Design Competition.

The American city is rooted in its neighborhoods, public spaces, and infrastructure.  Transforming the interstitial open spaces that characterize our cities can be a fundamental catalyst for community connectivity and socialization . . . Through small acts we can repurpose public space to be more universally accessible, inclusive, age friendly, and a builder of community.

The guidelines are pretty simple: "design one or more objects that activate a vacant site, is universally accessible, and fosters multi-generational community interactions."  Submit in PDF form two 11 x 17 boards including a plan/section/elevation and design detail.  The budget is $1,000, so put back that travertine.  The deadline is March 15th.  Check out the full details here.

On another note, aspiring designers have only until January 31st to submit for Chicago Women in Architecture's Student Scholarship 2013-14.  

Each  year [CWA] awards a scholarship to a female sutdent in the last year of studies, with an outstanding Design Studio Project.  The $2,000 Scholarship is awarded at the CWA Scholarship Brunch, where her author presents the winning entry.

Appliccants must be female architecture students scheduled to graduate in the 2013/2014 Academic Year (December 2013 or May 2014) with a M. Arch or a five year B. Arch Degree from a NAAB Accredited Architectural Program in the State of Illinois.  There is no limit of student submissions per school.

More information here. Registration form here.

Fore! PARK(ing) Day 2012 turns Milwaukee Avenue into a Golf Course Friday

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Although, since it's miniature golf, maybe it should be:  Fore! . . .

If you're around North Milwaukee Avenue early Friday morning, September 21, you may see Architecture for Humanity/Chicago's Katherine Darnstadt playing parking chairs, getting dibs on nine metered parking spaces that will be transformed for the day into the holes of a miniature golf course.  Nine parking spots from Kimball to Central Park, each in front of a vacant storefront, will be transformed into a 9-hole course, each of the nine holes individually designed by a local artist or creative business.

Speaking of Number 9, there are also Nine "gates" to the male human body.  Nine choruses of angels, and Nine noble virtues.  Nine animals make up the Chinese dragon.  Nine false doors in the building permit office.  Nine small steps in the Parade of Shoes.  Nine check-out lanes to choose from at my local Jewel, and everyone ahead of me has a very large cart filled with  81 very small items.  But I digress. 

The event is part of PARK(ing) Day 2012, "an annual worldwide event where artists, designers and citizens transform metered parking spots into temporary public parks." The ultimate objective of Mini-Golf on Milwaukee is to help "create a vibrate arts corridor over time in an area that is experiencing serial vacancy." You can see some pics of the course being pre-assembled here.

Last week to send Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice a Valentine; but you can Activate urban acupuncture through the 29th - two current competitions

Show Prentice Some Love
After placing and then yanking the issue of saving Bertrand Goldberg's Prentice Hospital from their agenda last June, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks has been missing in action in what has become the most important preservation battle of the new century.  The Save Prentice Coalition continues to battle Northwestern's hidden omerta  behind-the-scenes gaming of the city's political system to remove all obstacles to destroying Goldberg's essential structure - the only world-class building on the sprawling Northwestern Hospital Streeterville campus - for what it admits will be a long-lived vacant lot. 

The Show Prentice Some Love competition invites everyone to create their own personalized valentine to Prentice, with prizes for adults and for kids 13 and under.  First prize is "A rare copy of the catalogue for the 1985 Paris Art Center exhibition, Goldberg: On the City, signed by Geoff Goldberg (estimated value ‐ $300)"

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There are no restrictions on the nature of the submittals. You can make your Prentice “valentine” in whatever medium you choose—photography, paintings, songs, short video (60 seconds or less), t‐shirt graphics, and construction paper valentine are just a few of the options. Entries can originate in any format, as long it can be converted to a digital file and emailed to us. If you have lots of ideas, don’t let that limit you! Multiple entries will be accepted from the same entrant.

Deadline for entries is next Monday, February 13th by 5:00 p.m., via email to loveprentice@gmail.com.  The top five entries will be announced on the Save Prentice Facebook  page on the 14th and will be open to popular vote, for which the winners will be announced on the 17th.

The valentine everyone is looking for would be from 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly, an energetic leader in saving Northwestern from demolishing the Lake Shore Athletic Club on Lake Shore Drive and keeping the Chicago Children's Museum from building in Grant Park, who hasn't had much to say lately on the battle to save Prentice.  Reilly's latest newsletter to constituents includes a diagram of the remapped 42nd ward that shows the new northern boundary running straight down Superior and right past Prentice.  Has the Goldberg landmark been pitched into the 43rd?  Strangely enough, 43rd alderman Michele Smith's depiction of the new map on her own website shows the 42nd still going all the way up to Oak Street.

Last April, Landmarks Illinois put the lie to Northwestern's propaganda that - cue the crocodile tears - no future use could be found for the building and they have no choice but to grind it into dust, by issuing a compelling report detailing several viable reuse scenarios.

You can download the complete rules for Show Prentice Some Love from the Preservation Chicago website here.

Activate! Architecture for Humanity/Chicago's Design Competition to Re-Imagine Chicago Public Spaces 

You've got until February 29th to get your entry in to another worthwhile competition (check out MAS Studio's winning entry for 2010.  AFP/Chicago's Katherine Darnstadt talks about the competition process in this video), to create minimal-cost, high-impact interventions into the urban fabric - this year at the Reilly Elementary School, 3650 West School.  According to sponsor Architecture for Humanity Chicago . . .

Through an acupuncture style small-scale design intervention, the ACTIVATE! competition challenges individuals to create one or more objects that can activate a vacant site, is universally accessible, and fosters multi-generational community interaction for $1,000 or less.

Building on the success of the 2010 competition, the winning designs have fostered a dialogue about open space and how design can be the catalyst for the creation of meaningful and joyful places that facilitate community engagement.  The 2012 competition site is a Chicago Public School with a ‘blind spot’ on their campus that attracts unwanted loitering and illegal activity.  Site photos, plans, project information and previous winning installations are located on the Open Architecture Network project page and email furniturecomp@afh-chicago.org the chapter directly with questions.

More information here, and the competition brief (pdf format) here.

Architecture for Humanity Charrette on Saturday for Tanzania's Nyegina Resource Center

Architecture for Humanity Chicago is partnering with Tanzania Development Support to prepare designs for . . .

a new three-phase library, teacher enhancement center, and computer lab. The facility will be located on the grounds of the Nyegina Secondary School, a Catholic-run boarding school, and will also serve a nearby government primary school as well as the village of Nyegina.

Education remains a critical issue in Tanzania, especially in the rural Mara district on the shores of Lake Victoria. This will be the second library in this district of over a million inhabitants, and a crucial piece of infrastructure for the schools and the community.

Saturday, October 8th, there will be a kickoff,  9 a.m. to 4 p.m. charrette in room 1227 of the Sullivan Center at The School of the Art Institute, 38 South Wabash. 

"Participants will work in teams to develop schematic schemes that day, and will optionally have until Monday, October 24th to finish documenting their ideas before they're sent to our partners TDS and UMABU for review. Lunch will be provided."

Email Laura Bowe if you plan to attend, she'll put you on the security guest list.

A Moveable Feast of Healthy Food launches tour today in North Lawndale

Think of it as a really big, motorized camel, bringing rescue to the middle of the dessert.

In this case, we're talking about Chicago's food deserts. And the camel? It's an outdated bus, donated by the CTA . . .

to serve as a one-aisle mobile grocery store serving some of the many food desert areas within the city (swaths of the city with little or no access to fresh foods and grocery stores) . . . access to such foods has been statistically linked with higher cases of diet related diseases, diabetes, heart disease, and even premature death. Food Desert Action's plan was to find a simple way to create a system that would readily, and quickly, fill these voids in the urban fabric of the city. The solution, we feel, to be an elegant answer to the city's crisis.

The Fresh Moves Mobile Market, a collaboration with Architecture for Humanity, who designed the retrofit of the bus, and EPIC, which pairs creative professionals with non-profits, kicks off what is scheduled to be a six week run today, Wednesday, May 25th, from 9 to 11 a.m. at Lawndale Christian Health Center, 3860 W. Ogden, 12 to 2 p.m., at Sankofa Safe Child Initiative, 4041 W. Roosevelt, and 3 to 5:00 p.m., at Green Youth Farm, 3555 W. Ogden. Tomorrow, Thursday the 26th, from 11 a.m. to 2 the market will be t the Herbert Spencer Technology Academy, 214 N. Lavergne, and from 3 to 5 p.m., at Bethel New Life, Division and Lavergne. Check out the website for future appearances.

Street Furniture Competition 2011 launched by Architecture for Humanity/Chicago

Last year, it was MAS Studio that came up with the winning design (pictured above) for innovative street furniture that was actually fabricated and put on display in Pilsen.

Now, the Chicago chapter of Architecture for Humanity is back with the second, 2011 edition of its Street Furniture Competition. The challenge is to:

Design one or more pieces of ‘street furniture’ that can revitalize a vacant site, is universally accessible, and fosters multi-generational community interaction. Street furniture should not be limited to benches. We consider other structures that make a small space seem inviting, usable, and safe to be street furniture. Including but not limited to: harvest tables, raised planters, play equipment, interactive sculptures. The goal of this installation is to continue the dialogue about open space and how design can be the catalyst for the creation of meaningful and joyful places that facilitate community engagement. Winning designers will have at least one piece (potentially more) of their ‘street furniture’ built in the spring of 2011 as a year-long community installation. This installation is intended to activate the space in anticipation of a future neighborhood garden at the site. After the year, the street furniture will be considered for permanent installation or relocated to a new vacant site in Chicago.

The budget entrants should be working with is $1,000.00. The submission requirements are:

• Team Information & Release Form
• $10 Entry Fee
• Two 11x17 Boards, submitted as a PDF including a plan, section/elevation and design detail. Please list the required materials and describe the build process. Scale of drawings at the discretion of the entrants.

Once again, the prize is that the winner gets to see their design constructed. Submission deadline is 5:00 p.m., Friday, February 25th, with the winners to be announced in March by a jury to be announced.  Check out the details here.

Future City, Tillim's Avenue Patrice Lumumba, pre-restoration FLW Studio, AFHc Holiday Hangover and more - additions to the January calendar

It's the second week of the month - time to add another half-dozen great items to the January Calendar of Chicago Architectural Events.

Saturday the 29th at UIC, 750 South Halsted, it's time again for  Future City Competition™ Regional Finals.  Now in its 19th year, this great program matches up area middle school students with engineer mentors to design cities of tomorrow, using SimCity, which they then have to translate into table-top scale models. The winners move on to the finals during National Engineers Week in Washington in February, where the top prize includes a trip to Space Camp.  (Last year, the competition's winning team also made a trip to the White House to meet President Barack Obama)

This Thursday, January 13th, sees two new events. At 6:00 p.m., at the Columbia College's Museum of Contemporary Photography, Northwestern's Krista Thompson will be in conversation with South Africa born photographer Guy Tillim, whose new exhibition at the museum, Avenue Patrice Lumumba, explores the "architecture and infrastruture of colonial and postcolonial Africa."

Also at 6:00 at Unity Temple in Oak Park, Jack Lesniak will be providing a virtual pre-restoration tour of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio as it existed in 1974, after a series of remodelings had seen it broken up into apartments.  Next Tuesday, the 18th, Architecture for Humanity Chicago will be holding it's 2nd Annual Holiday Hangover Fundraiser at the Steelcase showroom at the Mart, while on Thursday the 27th the Chicago Botanic Garden and Bartlett Tree exports will be sponsoring a day-long symposium, Sustainable Site Development: Trends, Challenges & Innovations.

There are nearly three dozen great events still to come in January, including tonight's  Mayoral Forum on Public Housing in Chicago, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Cultural Center.  Check them all out at the January calendar here.