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Architect
Kevin Yim Architect & Associates, Tokyo, with S.
Conger Architects, Chicago
Project
Ford Calumet Environmental Center, competition finalist
Location
The 4,000-acre Calumet Open Space Reserve of marshes,
wetlands, and prairies on the far south side of Chicago.
Program
The egg, a symbol of time and fertility, serves
as icon for the environmental center itself, through the building’s
self-evidently egg-shaped form, and also, more subtly, as a concept for
the treatment of the site. Yim’s scheme for the landscape acknowledges
the past by excavating and restoring the site’s most prominent (though
today unseen) feature: a section of the original Calumet River, which
was buried and relocated in the last century. He also creates a series
of view corridors to capture the remarkable surrounding contemporary landscape
of bridges, factories, railroads, and the “Calumet Mountains”—landfills
to the west of the site. A series of paper fences demarcate and suggest
a partitioning of the site into units of study and contemplation. The
fences encourage organized future thinking with community involvement.
They outline an ongoing symbiotic process inspiring and encouraging people
now and in the future.
