The Place Lab digest is a weekly round-up of pertinent news, opinion, investigations, and explorations of the arts, architecture, and city-building in Chicago and beyond.
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BOARD UP: ST. LAURENCE
UNVEILED
On Thursday, August 11, the newly enhanced exterior of the vacant St. Laurence Elementary School was unveiled. The original, pattern-making work by neighborhood youth, created in Ruben Aguirre’s workshop Board Up: Patterns In Place, were viewed and celebrated at a community party. The event featured Rebuild Foundation’s musicians-in-residence, Coultrain and Mikel Patrick Avery, and ¡Anímate! Studio's FrankenToyMobile rolled in to help stretch creative muscles. Lemonade, popcorn, and school bags were given out.
To see these beautiful boards in place, visit St. Laurence Elementary at 1353 E. 72nd St., Chicago 60619.
Read more about this project here.
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VISIT US. TAKE A TOUR.
Arts + Public Life, which established Place Lab in 2014, is leading an ambitious redevelopment project on Chicago’s South Side. Spearheaded by the vision of internationally renowned artist and urban planner Theaster Gates, the Arts Block is a planned cultural corridor on Garfield Boulevard in Washington Park. We invite you to join us from 1–3pm on the last Friday of every month for guided tours of the Arts Block.
In addition to a guided tour of the Arts Block, tour groups will have the opportunity to meet with a member of the Place Lab team to learn about Gates's various projects, and discuss the work being undertaken all across Chicago's South Side
Learn more and sign-up for our September tour here.
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What Place Lab is digesting
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Miss last Friday's edition of the digest? Read it in the archives here.
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Polis Station
A design proposal by Studio Gang
Widespread outrage and protests against police violence in the United States have prompted a renewed national conversation on policing reform. Polis Station seeks to contribute to this critical dialogue by exploring how design can help people imagine changes in police-community relations.Polis Station...offers a set of ideas and a series of steps that could activate the spaces of policing, transforming urban police stations into neighborhood investments that strengthen their communities in return.
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Millennial Trains Project Stopped in Chicago to Discuss Affordable TOD Issues
John Greenfield, Streetsblog Chicago
Earlier this week the Millennial Trains project stopped in Chicago on its five-city national tour on Amtrak, bringing a group of 26 young people to meet with locals within each city. They discussed how issues of housing affordability and inequality, and transit affect their lives, and talked about ideas for improving conditions in Chicago.
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Touring some of the world's most attractive public housing projects
Julia Ingalls, Archinect
Can affordable public housing be beautiful? It’s a question that for years was answered with indifference ... While contemporary hulking monoliths like the 962-unit Sheung Chui Court in Hong Kong may be government approved, they’re hardly aesthetic wonders. Thankfully, in the past decade, beautiful and sustainable affordable public housing seems to have made a resurgence around the world.
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Urban League CEO: Stop Addressing Symptoms And Start Attacking Root Causes Of Inequality
Melba Lara, WBEZ
The Chicago Urban League is launching a 10-year effort to save Chicago communities that have been devastated by neglect. The “Blueprint for an Equitable Chicago” includes improving education, jobs prospects and economic development among black Chicagoans.
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Transit-Oriented Housing Proposals Finally Make it to the South Side
Steven Vance, Streetsblog Chicago
Earlier this year, transit-oriented development made the jump from being proposed and built only next to Chicago Transit Authority stations to also being proposed next to a Metra station. Now, the trend that has brought hundreds of new market-rate and affordable designated housing units to vacant lots near Chicago ‘L’ stations has jumped to the South Side. A two and a half-year-old ordinance is the cause for these new housing development patterns in the city.
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For a Smarter Investment in Cities, Act Against Predatory Revenue
Op-ed, Next City
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, an estimated 10 million people owe more than $50 billion in debt resulting from their involvement in the criminal justice system. Over 60 percent of that total is owed by Blacks and Latinos, with an average total amount of over $7,000. More and more, municipalities are explicitly extracting large sums of money from their most vulnerable residents.
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Stay up-to-date on Place Lab projects, events, news, and happenings with our dedicated blog, SITE.
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A Paradigm Shift for Affordable Housing: Preserve What's Left
Elana Eden, Planetizen
As California’s governor pushes to streamline affordable housing projects and an upcoming L.A. ballot measure incentivizes affordable units in new developments, it's clear that many approaches to the state’s housing crisis have one thing in common: Their main concern is to create new housing. But while production is necessary, it’s not the only way to increase the supply of affordable housing—nor is it necessarily the most efficient, one developer argues.
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A Movement to Put Money Into Black-Owned Banks
Oscar Perry Abello, Next City
As spelled out in the Movement for Black Lives Policy Platform...about the structural economic violence that puts black lives at risk in the first place by systematically discriminating against black people when it comes to jobs, housing, small business lending and other opportunities to build wealth and move up the economic ladder.
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8 Innovative Projects That Could Change the Look of Chicago
Jim Dalke, ChicagoInno
[Curator Zoë Ryan] is...launching a new gallery at the Art Institute, to showcase the museum’s vast Architecture and Design Collection. Outside of the Architectural Fragments gallery, permanently on display in the museum’s Grand Staircase, much of this collection has never been seen by the public...
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The City That Unpoisoned Its Pipes
Anna Clark, Next City
It is tempting to throw up one’s hands in despair. From the generational failure to invest in infrastructure to the anti-tax political climate, it is virtually impossible for cities to gather the resources and political will that it takes to invest in rebuilding water lines — not least because the needed work is underground and invisible. This is what makes the story of Lansing, Michigan, all the more extraordinary.
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Graham Foundation Announces Over $400,000 Architecture and Design Grants
Caroline Elbaor, artnet news
The Graham Foundation’s 11 Board of Trustees, which includes artist Theaster Gates and architect John Ronan, chose the winning applications. There were over 230 submissions from organizations in 24 countries, and their projects will be staged in cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Johannesburg, London, and Istanbul.
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Blah City
Alex Marshall, Governing
Why aren’t we creating great urban spaces anymore?...First, I want to make clear I am using the term “urban” differently than the U.S. Census Bureau or the United Nations. I am using it the way the late Jane Jacobs, the great writer about cities, did. By urban, I mean a place where public and private worlds are delineated, and where people mingle in what is clearly and legally public space. This sort of classic urbanism has publicly owned streets and sidewalks, parks and squares, and privately owned shops, schools, homes and churches that are close to one another. Uses, to apply planning jargon, are “mixed” rather than separated.
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From our bookshelf:
Entry Points: The Vera List Center Field Guide on Art and Social Justice No. 1
Find it here
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