Faculty

Andrew Schachman
secondnature@uchicago.edu

Cross Registrations

ARTH 24196, ARCH 24196, ARTV 20206, CHST 24196, ENST 24196, GEOG 24196

Key Dates

• 10 Nov  ︎︎︎  Proposals
  
• 01 Dec  ︎︎︎  Final Review
• 06 Dec  ︎︎︎ Chapters Published

In Person Sessions

Tuesdays - 5:00-6:20pm
Thursdays - 5:00-7:20pm

Location 
(unless otherwise scheduled)

Cochrane Woods Art Center, Room 153
5560 S Greenwood Ave
Chicago, IL 60637

Video Conference Sessions
(as needed)

Zoom via Canvas

Overview

Its easy to presume that the Chicago Park District preserves “first nature” within the metropolitan field.   But the motive for creating the park system was hardly natural.  Planned by the Commercial Club of Chicago, the parks were a political and managerial strategy dressed as gift: offering refreshment and recovery to retain the consuming and producing power of Chicago’s middle class.   With more than 600 sites, 400 field houses, 26 miles of lakefront, 50 outdoor pools, a museum campus and Soldier Field, today’s park district operates as a sovereign territory within the city.  Multiple and distributed, this territory pervades every ward and neighborhood.  Like concepts of ‘wilderness,’ many never step foot in the park district but are comforted to know that it exists.  It is second nature.

Today, questions arise about the significance, maintenance, and relevance of the spaces within this civic network.  With cultural change, the distribution and structure of the park network faces new demands, and so does the very mythology that grounds it.    If these parks were emblematic of Chicago as a city defined by modern industry, later additions to the system ​(Millenium Park) are emblematic of Chicago’s shift to finance, culture, tourism and lifestyle economies.  

This studio asks:  (1) What opportunities emerge as we rethink Chicago’s parks?  (2) If the status of parks are changing, what are the implications for other civic spaces and systems?

This course can support students coming from a wide range of disciplines: art, architecture, history, geography, philosophy, urbanism, public policy, and the social or physical sciences.    We will engage texts, debate issues, review proposals, and voyage into the field as nourishment: to inspire agendas and inform the design process.

Intent of the Course

This course will (1) invite students interested in pursuing architecture or the study of cities to develop an understanding of design processes    (2) expand students’ ability to ‘read’ cities, and Chicago in particular, to recognize ‘deep structures’ and their physical expression in urban orders and distributed networks (3) relate these pursuits to a larger ‘ecology of the mind’ via texts (and media) on relevant historical, philosophical, political, scientific, anthropological and economic topics.

2025 Project Focus

This quarter, the course will generate proposals for a real organization, Urban Growers Collective, on a real site adjacent to their developing Green Era Urban Energy campus and the Chicago Park District’s Mahalia Jackson Park.

Structure of the Course

This course will invite students to develop proposals in two steps:

Part 1: A landscape proposal (5 weeks)
Part 2: An architectural intervention (5 weeks)

Readings and Seminars

Since this is a studio course, readings are brief and meant to open questions, inspire drawing investigations, and inform design.  During each week’s seminar we will discuss the way social structures influence and encode values into the physical orders of infrastructure (in this case parks), and evaluate the way that social change influences our reception of these structures today. 

Students will be encouraged to establish a Conversation Group to share reading responsibilities, discuss via an asynchronous platform, and give each other feedback.   

Each Conversation Group will be asked to lead one seminar conversation.

Design Studio Sessions

Most design studios sessions will involve workshops to help orient students to what is due in subsequent sessions, weekly feedback (pin-ups) to review completed work, and identify possible opportunities and process for furthering development.  

Written Investigations

During the quarter, students will submit short, written statements.  They will accumulate in a loose progression, as follows:

a. A naive statement of intentions.
d. A landscape proposal
e. An architectural proposal

With the exception of the Naive Statement of Intentions, all written statements should include 2 quotations from the assigned readings.  

Due dates for Written Investigations are indicated on the course Schedule. 

Final Publication

If students are interested in publishing, we will use Adobe InDesign to collect weekly drawings and writings and publish them as an attractive record of the course.  Short, instructional videos will assist. 

For those interested in developing a portfolio forgraduate school, or wanting to publish your own magazine, InDesign is an incredibly useful platform.  Once copies are avaiable, books will either be (a) made available for students to order or (b) printed and distributed, if the course budget permits. 

Evaluation

In a studio, regular production leads to better outcomes than aiming for perfection. Regular production allows for feedback and adjustment. Therefore, students are encouraged to gradually develop a series of drawings and writings. The final compendium will include the following items and be evaluated as follows:

15% — Written statements.
20% — Landscape Proposal
30% — Architectural Proposal
25% — Weekly Project Development
10% — In-Class Engagement

Universal Access

The University of Chicago is committed to ensuring equitable access to our academic programs and services. Students with disabilities who have been approved for the use of academic accommodations by Student Disability Services (SDS) and need a reasonable accommodation(s) to participate fully in this course should follow the procedures established by SDS for using accommodations. Timely notifications are required in order to ensure that your accommodations can be implemented. Please meet with me to discuss your access needs in this class after you have completed the SDS procedures for requesting accommodations.

To contact SDS: website: disabilities.uchicago.edu phone: (773) 702-6000 email: disabilities@uchicago.edu

Laptops

The University maintains a program for students who might require a laptop or laptop replacement.   To initiate that process, begin here: https://collegesurveys.uchicago.edu/ccss-laptop-request