The common voids.

An unconventional strategy for enhancing liveliness

in the suburbs of Chicago.

By Diana Maria Galatus

 Studio: Performative Architecture
Chicago suburbia - a hunch.
Tutor: Martine de Maeseneer
Student: Diana Maria Galatus

INT MA AR
GNT/BXL_BE

All rights reserved under international Copyright

Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photo-copying, recording or by any information
storage retrievel system, without permission from the
publisher or specific copyright owners.
Work and publication made during the course of
personal Master Dissertation Project.

©2018 by Diana Maria Galatus

International Master of Architecture

KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture

Campus Sint-Lucas, Brussels
Belgium

June 2018
Acknowledgement

I would first like to thank my thesis advisor, Martine de Maeseneer,

for guiding me through this project, consistently allowing this to be my
own work, but steereding me in the right direction whenever she thought I
needed it.

I must express my very profound gratitude to my parents, Galatus

Ioan Traian and Pasca Mihaela Simona, to my stepfather Bonamore Arnaldo
and to my grandmother Pasca Elena for providing me with unfailing support
and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study.

I consider myself the luckiest person in the world by having
unconditional support from the man I love, my future husband, Albanito
Giuseppe. Without him, this accomplishment would not have been possible.

I would also like to special thank my friend Ana Tirlea for being by my
side for the past 7 years and beilieving in me.

...all my past experience together with the persons that took part of
my journey , helped me become The Person I am Today.

Thank you.
Table of Contents

Abstract...........................................................................................................................................8

I. Global issues.............................................................................................................................13

Introduction
The grid
Sprawl
New urbanism

II. Memories from Chicago................................................................................................25

The great migration
Slums
1950s public housing
The black belt

III. North Lawndale...................................................................................................................35

Tissue
Photographic report
Morphology
Vacancy
Desired paths

IV. Intelligence..............................................................................................................................51
Case studies
Re-use of materials
Vacancy network
Mandatory complexity
Safety-natural control
Merging space
Continuity of space

V. Proposal.......................................................................................................................................71

VI. Annex........................................................................................................................................115
 Abstract
The common voids represents a togetherness of memories, from
the individuality of human being to collective spaces, from a given way
of living to a sensitive approach of the surrounding space, all these being
put in the scenario of a forgotten present.
In order to one make an idea about the overall urban state of United
States of America, in this Master Thesis we will first introduce the general issues
regarding Suburbia and The Great Grid, how an entire continent is eaten by
the Sprawl and which are the consequences of such drastic interventions in the
urban morphology.
In contrast with the past decisions of great urbanists, what we tried in
the past decades and still trying hard to implement nowadays, is the concept of
“New Urbanism”.
Larry Bennett, in its book “The Third City, Chicago and American
Urbanism”, calls contemporary Chicago the third city to distinguish it from it two
predecessors: the first city, a sprawling industrial center whose historical arc ran
from the Civil War to the Great Depression; and the second city, the Rustbelt
exemplar of the period from around 1950 to 1990.
The main focus area in this scenario is the city of Chicago, Illinois. For a
better understanding of how the city was born and of what kind of inhabitants
were living in it in the past, we will talk about the Great Migration, a long-term
movement of African Americans that moved from the South to Urban North
around 1917s. The African American population became deeply infused with
urban sensibility.
More than 70% of the African American population was living in slums,
pushed there by other layers of society. This drastic way of living pushed entire
families to live in tiny apartments, sometimes not enough for what at that time
meant 7 people per household. In this whole scenario, the crime was just a
consequence of poorness, racism and culture.
8 9
Around ‘50s, Chicago Housing Authority tried to ease the pressure in
the overcrowded ghettos and proposed public housing sites. This proposal did
not worked for the African American communities and the crime rate and black
market increased even more. Facing such a fail, American House Authorities
decides to demolish all the high-rise public housing projects. By the end of
2005, they accomplish the mission and all the public housing projects are gone,
leaving behind more empty urban land with a strong footprint history.
We will analyze a suburbia of Chicago where many African Americas
live nowadays, called North Lawndale; a neighborhood with many issues such
as low education level, high rate of criminality, unemployment and quite zero
investments.
The morphology of North Lawndale is a particular one because it lacks
of 18% of what once was built. Each abandoned building has to be demolished
because it represents a risk for the community. What happens with all the
construction material resulted from demolishing 18% of a neighborhood? We
are dealing with an impressive footprint of vacancy in a place where this is the
last thing to be needed, on a grid that was working at its time but now it doesn’t
fit anymore with the needs of the inhabitants.
What this place would look like with a complex, necessary morphology
and with another kind of grid? The complexity is mandatory in order to make
places work.
With this project, we are implementing new morphological and strategic
intelligence, by creating a scenario where the grid as we know it doesn’t exist
anymore, where the architectural interventions are incremental, the car is not
on top of needed objects, where the continuity of space is a must and natural
control can be put in practice with help from the existing built.
We will get rid of unnecessary urban elements such as unused access
roads, fences around vacant plots and will not delimit the existing built
properties; what results is an immense urban space where all the outdoor and
indoor common activities of the neighbors can take place.
The interventions are an alternative to the traditional approach of
designing urban environments, they are multi-functional, informal spaces that
allow for all kind of activities. From small to large configuration, the spaces can
be merged and separated.
The architecture is meant to respond to social changes and adapt
to current needs. The context becomes part of the architecture due to the
permeability and transparency of it.
 fig.1 Void (noun)

completely empty space

an unfilled space in a wall, building, or other structure
an emptiness caused by the loss of something

Liveliness (noun)

the quality of being outgoing, energetic, and enthusiastic

an atmosphere of excitement and activity

10 11
 I. GLOBAL ISSUES

I hesitate. Behind me the boulevards lead to the heart of the town,

to the fiery jewels of the central streets, to the Palais Paramount, the
Imperial, the Grand Magasin Jahan.
That doesn’t tempt me at all. It’s apéritif time.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

12 13
 Introduction

Suburbs are the greatest missalocation of resources in the history of

the World. A tremendous problem for USA. These are places that are not worth
caring about.

The ability to create places that are meaningful and places with quality
and character depends entirely on the ability to define space with buildings
and to employ the vocabularies, grammars, syntaxes, rhythms and patterns of
architecture in order to inform people who they are.

The public realm in America has two roles: it is the dwelling place of
their civilization and their civic life and is also the physical manifestation of the
common good.

When one degrades the public realm, he automatically degrades the
quality of the civic life and the character of all the links of the public life and
community life.

The public realm comes more in the form of the street in America
because they do not have the thousand years old cathedral plazas and market
squares of older cultures.

The ability to define space and to create places that are worth caring
about comes from a body of culture that is called the culture of civic design.
This is a body of knowledge, method, skill and principle that Americans ignored
after World War Two .

Consequently, they can see the result all around them. The public realm
has to inform us not only where we are geographically but has to inform us
where we are in our culture, where we come from, what kind of people we are
and by doing this, it has to give us a glimpse on where we are going in order to
allow us to dwell in a hopeful present.

fig.2

14 15
 The grid

Throughout the world, the grid has been used continuously as a

development pattern since Hippodamus first used it at Piraeus, Greece in the
5th century BC.
After a history of 2,000 years after that, in 1682 William Penn used the
grid as a physical foundation for Philadelphia. From here, the grid began its life
in the new America.

Penn’s instructions for laying out his orthogonal plan were simple:

Be sure to settle the figure of the town so as that the streets hereafter may be
uniform down to the water from the country bounds…This may be ordered when
I come, only let the houses built be in a line, or upon a line, as much as may be…

Richard Newcourt’s plan for London after the fire in 1666 may have
influenced Penn’s use of grid. However, the grid by its very nature has no built-in
hierarchy. Philadelphia was the first city to use the indexical system of numbers
for north-south streets and tree names for east-west streets. Every plot of land is
equal to every other.
Following the example of Philadelphia, the grid has been used in every
American city. Each of these cities, based on their needs, adopted the grid as
their foundation with varying outcomes.
In Chicago, the grid was used as a vehicle to maximize both the speed of
development and financial speculation. In San Francisco, the grid flatly ignored fig.3 Piraeus grid
topography and created a city of dramatic hills and valleys. In Paragonah, Utah,
the grid was executed to promote the doctrine of Mormonism. But perhaps
most famous of all American grids is that found in Manhattan.

16 17
 The individuality of the grid

I take SPACE to be the central fact to man born in America,

from Folsom cave to now. I spell it large because it cames
large here.Large, and without mercy.

Charles Olson, “Call Me Ishmael”

The grid represented a fundamental change in the US and it literally puts

a frame around the history of migration and sattlements. The implementation of
the geometrical pattern of the grid on quite all North America, played a central
role for the development of further technological creations of that moment.

In the Colonial times, the centrality was the community, not the individual.
The ecclesiastical order of the first settlers was visible in the layout of the land
because the Americans reproduced the European village, with the church as its
center, with the roads radiating outwards. In that times, local governements did
not thinked that the land is generic. A family had several pieces of land, here and
there, depending on the use, if it was pasture, farmland or woodlot.

Totally oposite to what once was the idea of land, the new comming
grid system erased hierarchy and centrality from the landscape, substituting the
values of individuality and equality. Its endless squares declared that the land
was unused and waiting for settlers.

The adoption of the grid made it easier to believe in Manifest Destiny;
fillin in the “empty” and “undeveloped” spaces of the grid became an automatic
historical process.

manifest destiny (noun): the 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion
of the United States throughout the American continents was both justified and
inevitable.

fig.4 - individuality of the grid

18 19
 Sprawl

Not a single individual on this

planet wanted to have a sprawling,
monotonous suburbia. Codes,
standards and regulations are
responsible for this.

The virtual aspects of urban
development are dictated by these.
The regulations which we deal with
now are the results of decades of
rules designed to promote particular
practices.

In the late nineties, early
twenties standards became a tool to
solve health, safety and morality issues.

Having a huge impact on urban
development in the US of 20th Century,
standards shaped the largest footprint
of urban development:
the suburbs.
fig.5 view from ex-Sears tower

20 21
 New Urbanism

Accessible public spaces, housing

and shopping in close proximity and walkable
distances are the main aspects on which New
Urbanism is focusing.

These aspects were developed to offer

an alternative to the actual sprawling, single-
use and low-density morphologies of post
Word War II development, which have been
demonstrated that is influencing negatively the
economy, health and also has an environmental
impact on communities.

For New Urbanists, place-making and

public space are the highest priority. This means
streets designed for people and not for cars,
accommodating multi-modal transportation.
To be able to host the interaction and public
life, we need to provide commons based on
what a neighborhood needs.

Great design is not useful if it can’t

be built. It is suggested to work with inclusive
production builders, small developers,
volunteers, public officials and citizens. They
will influence over the built environment and
will help to come up with implementable
solutions.

fig.6

22 23
II. MEMORIES FROM CHICAGO

25
 The Great Migration fig.7

The Great Migration, a long-term movement of African Americans from
the South to the urban North, changed Chicago and other northern urban areas
between 1916 and 1970. Chicago attracted at that time more than 500,000 of
the around 7 million African Americans who left the South during these times.

Before this migration, African Americans constituted 2 percent of

Chicago’s population; by 1970, they were 33 percent. What had been in the
nineteenth century a largely southern and rural African American culture became
a culture deeply infused with urban sensibility in the twentieth century. And what
had been a marginalized population in Chicago emerged by the mid-twentieth
century as a powerful force in the city’s political, economic, and cultural life.

The city offered few opportunities to dissatisfied population until Word

fig.8
War I, even if the Migration had contributed to the city’s community since 1800s.
Furthermore, African Americans were virtually excluded from factories and East
and South European immigrants were given the least skilled jobs in industry.
This lead to even less chances for African Americans to find a job and build a
decent lifestyle.

When World War I halted immigration from Europe while stimulating
orders for Chicago’s manufactured goods, employers needed a new source
of labor for jobs assumed to be “men’s work.” (...) For black women the doors
opened only slightly and temporarily, but even domestic work in Chicago offered
higher wages and more personal autonomy than in the South.

The Great Migration established the foundation of Chicago’s African

American industrial working class. Despite the tensions between newcomers
and “old settlers,” related to differences in age, region of origin, and class, the
Great Migration established the foundation for black political power, business
enterprise, and union activism. fig.9

The Great Migration’s impact on cultural life in Chicago is most evident in the
southern influence on the Chicago Renaissance of the 1930s and 1940s, as
well as blues music, cuisine, churches, and the numerous family and community
associations that link Chicago with its southern hinterland—especially
Mississippi. To many black Chicagoans the South remains “home,” and by the
late 1980s increasing evidence of significant reverse migration, especially
among retired people, began to appear.

26 27
 Slums fig.10

Every slum area has it’s own history of how it happened over the years.
This usually involves poverty, destruction, depression, crime and so on. fig.11

The Black Belt of Chicago was a chain of slums/neighborhoods in
the South Side. Here, more than 70%of the African Americans used to live by
the ‘20s. This belt was as long as 30 blocks aligned from South to North and
approximately 7 blocks wide. As the area was overcrowded due to a high-rate
migration, low income families used to live in devastated buildings.

The poorest used to live in the older section of the Black Belt while the
well-being population lived in the southern-more part. Economic confines were
created by segregation and residents had to find a way to create more economic
opportunities in their communities through local businesses.
More and more people struggled to fit into converted kitchenette and basement-
apartments. By that times, in a black family house were living around seven
people.

Associated with all these problems of poorness, racism and culture,
crime was just a consequence of them.

fig.12
By 1946, the Chicago Housing Authority tried to ease the pressure in the
overcrowded ghettos and proposed to put public housing sites in less congested
areas in the city.

Of course, this was not good news for the white people, so they forced
the Chicago House Authority to keep the public housing in the area where the
slums were and in the West Side.
We will see next that some of these public housing projects became
total failures.

28 29
 1950s Public Housing
fig.13

The Federal Government was about to make the situation even worst.
Harry Truman, by that time President of United States, signed a housing act of
1949 which was intended to provide vast amounts of federal funding to cities,
to eradicate the slums, where five million American families were living at that
moment, and build new modern housing. While this theoretically should sound
like a good idea, in practice it was a disaster.

“...urban renewal, which means moving the Negroes out. It means Negro removal,
that is what it means. The federal government is an accomplice to this fact”.
James Baldwin
fig.14
As modern architecture was in vogue at that time, architects already
had plans about how to create new public housing. The solution was high-rise
buildings.

While middle class white people moved to single-house suburbs and

afforded to buy them because the government sold land at a cheap price for
them, black people moved to the new built high-rise public housing, with low
incomes and mostly the same social problems as in the slums.

Here, the lack of commons is again present. I can say that people living
in slums interacted more in the daily life than here, in this kind of settlements.
Wide-open spaces are dangerous, there is no natural control and high criminality
is still on going.


Authorities started the demolition of public housing blocks at the
beginning of 1970s and concluded the total demolition in 2008.

30 31
 Common space in public housing

Gabrini Green

horisontal distribution

Henri Worner
Homes

Ikes Dearborn
Hilliard Homes

Reinforced social-economic-racial borders

vertical distribution

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32 33
III. NORTH LAWNDALE

35
 Tissue North Lawndale schwarzplan

North Lawndale was settled in 1827 in the West Side of Chicago. Its
boundaries are Arlington Street, Taylor Street and 5th Avenue on the north, 21st
Street, Cermak and the railroad tracks on the south, the railroad tracks on the
east, the railroad tracks on the west.

With a length of 4.3 km E-W and a media of 2.2 km N-S, the neighborhood
contains one big park, named Douglas Park, which is part of the green chain of
Chicago.

North Lawndale has a very powerful delimitation of tissue because of the

surrounding railways and industrial sites. It is crossed by the Roosvelt Road
which links the suburb with the Loop, and ends its path in Lake Michigan.

Despite the very diverse character of the footprint, the suburb is nearly
close to the city-center, precisely a 4 kilometers distance, an easy going path for
public transport and why not, bicycles.

Loop

Roosvelt Road
North Lawndale

36 37
Photographic report

1229 S Kedzie Ave 18th and Trumbull Roosvelt and St.Louis 12th Place and Homan

2856 Roosvelt Rd 13th and Harding 18th and Pulaski 13th and Kostner

2918 Roosvelt Rd 18th and Pulaski 13th and Kolin 13th and Sawyer

38 39
 Morphology

Dissecting the different-use layers from the composition of North

Lawndale, we are able to observe that the streets infrastructure occupies a large
amount of land, fragmenting the space.

The built layer is a complex one, varying from large footprints of ex-
industries on the margins of the neighborhood, the Douglas Park, the immense
asphalt all around - parking lots to the individuality of vacant plots.

What more and more gains our attention in this scheme, is the footprint
of vacancy present all around North Lawndale, from which we can identify the
spots of density, the change of space character in different areas, the poverty
rate, the safe zones.

40 41
 ...the contemporary city is not an identifiable object
or “entity”. Its characteristic dissipation and dispersion
have established a complexity that is difficult to grasp
as anything other than a statistical construct. As such,
it remains conceptually transparent to participants of
a design discourse bound to a fetishistic analysis and
development of discrete and identifiable objects and
spaces.

...it is not built form that characterizes the contemporary

city, but the immense spaces over which built form has
little or no control.

A critique of the primacy of built form in the contemporary

urban environment need not lead to paralysis, absurdity,
nihilism, irony, commercial prostitution, or despair on
the part of the aspiring form=maker. A rejection of the
primacy of form is not a rejection of urban form itself,
but a rejection of its privileged status in an environment
where clearly has none.

Superstudio: “Live with objects, not for objects.”

Photo-collage, 1972

42 43
 Vacancy

The grey color from this illustration represents the empty space around
the neighborhood.

44 45
 The black fill represents the vacant plots in North Lawndale. By condensing the vacant plots, we can observe than more than 18% of the
neighborhood is vacant.
railroad

S Talman Ave
S Fairfield Ave
S California Ave

S Mozard St.

S Francisco Ave
S Richmond St.
S Sacramento Blvd
S Whipple St.
S Albany Ave
S Tray Ave
S Kedzie Ave
S Sawyer Ave
S Spaulding Ave
S Christiana Ave

S Homan Ave
S St. Louis Ave
S Central Park Ave
S Milliard Ave
S Lawndale Ave

S Independent Blvd
S Avers Ave
S Springfield Ave
S Harding Ave
S Pulaski Rd
S Komenski Ave
S Karlov Ave
S Kedvale Ave
S Keeler Ave
S Tripp Ave
S Kildare Ave
S Kollin Ave
S Kostner Ave

S Kilbourn Ave

railroad

46 47
 Desired Paths North Lawndale crossed land map

After several demolitions, people use

crossing vacant land in order to shorten distances
between two points. We can observe diagonals
created around the neighborhood and how they
are spreaded around the studied area.

48 49
IV. INTELLIGENCE

Loop

Ch
icag
oR
Roosvelt

iver
focus

zoom-in

51
 Case studies
Common-UNITY is a public
space in Mexico City.
By taking a placemaking
approach, the architect Rozana Montiel
transformed the alienated sectors of
the housing complex into a community
place.
She worked around the physical
barriers created by the residents in
common areas to make them permeable,
democratic and meaningful.
Through participatory planning,
before
the design strategy substituted dividing
vertical structures for sheltering
horizontal ones:
the architect implemented
roof-modules equipped for a diverse
program (blackboards, climbing walls,
handrails and nets).
The new design spoke for itself:
residents agreed to remove 90% of the
barriers and the recovered public space
became an extension of each apartment.
The new space facilitated
a different kind of ownership and
appropriation:
after one that habituates inhabitants
to work for the common good.
This example of getting rid of
barriers and creating a common space in
bitween housing units is a good example
for the North Lawndale inhabitants that
are eager to use common facilities but
do not have enough resources to do it.
after
52
Rozana Montiel and Alin V.
Wallach proposed a canopy above a
space in order to give a new life to an
unused plaza in Veracruz, Mexico.
This structure is half covered,
half not, with two levels height in some
points, containing enclosed spaces
for children, recreational areas, activity
rooms and least but not last, bathrooms.
The structure is created in such a
way, that people can sit in the upper part
of the court and observe the activites
happening below.
What inspired me was the
simplicity of this light structure that, even
if is all precise, clean and organised,
creates the needed space for the
informal to happen.
It can be from impromtu barber
shop to an open air theatre for kids or a
yoga space.
The materials used for this
structure are durable and efficient like
steel and brick.
Chicago is known for its steel
structured buildings in the city center
but is also known as having great white
brick houses in the near suburbs. These
two materials put together in the studied
context can generate light structures
needed in order to let informality and
appropriation happen.
“We built an indoor court, efficiently
optimising a very restricted space in
order to generate a varied activity
programme.”
Rozana Montiel
53
 Re-use of construction materials after demolition

Construction and Demolition

debris is non-hazardous, non-
The Quinta Monroy social housing
contaminated solid waste resulting
project of Elemental, is inspiring for
from construction, remodeling, repair
the case of North Lawndale because
or demolition projects on pavement,
of the innovative way of using space
buildings and other structures. It may
and building just half of the house,
include:
letting space for another further half
development by the settlers.
Bricks, concrete, rock and
other masonry materials, wood,
This, in our case, could be
including non-hazardous painted,
a great idea of using the existing
treated, and coated wood, scrap
blind walls remained empty after
metal, plaster and gypsum drywall,
the demolition of some white-stone
plumbing fixtures and piping, non-
houses that were built in a raw, and
asbestos insulation, roofing shingles
instead of building new houses from
and other roof coverings, reclaimed
zero, we could create a framework on
asphalt pavement, glass and plastics,
which the existing settlers can extend
landscape waste.
and create their own habitat.
These recycled materials
are a great source for building new
interventions in poor suburban areas,
without being necessary need of new
investors to come build new buildings.

54 55
 Vacancy network

The grey color represents the vacant plots in North Lawndale. The blue
lines suggest the potential walkable connection paths between the
vacant plots, together creating a network around the neighborhood.

56 57
 Mandatory complexity

By shifting and spinning pieces of grid in an utopic way, we create

diversity in the morphology, new kind of central spaces that then can be
linked between them, creating spatial identity and hierarchy.

58 59
 existent building lateral facade
- to be kept

Safety - natural control

After several years of demolitions, many housing blocks remained with

one or two blind walls. The blind wall is not a secure space for users such as kids,
women and eldery, lacking of control, not only from the authorities but from the
inhabitants of the area.

In this way, a first step to a better conviviality is to create windows in the

blind walls (case 1) where there exists at least three empty plots in front of them.

Another strategy is to merge a new framework with the existing

construnctions (case 2), where there are less than three vacant plots available in existent blind wall case 1
front of the blind wall, in order to give the opportunity for a further development - to be modified
of the existing built.

existent blind wall case 2

- to be merged with extension

60 61
 Merging space

suggestive collage with insertion of windows for a better natural control

The sketch of the ground floor plan, a grid of right angles that do not
intersect, difficult to read as a living space, that extends out into space without
clear containment, yet still a scheme coherent and compelling.

Mies van der Rohe Brick Country House,

Description by Gary Garvin

62 63
 Common space in North Lawndale

existing - road

proposed-scattered

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65
 Continuity of space

Max Bill, Continuitè, 1947, Concrete Sculpture Max Bill, Casabella, 1959, Perspective

66 67
 There is a status in the society that cannot be beaten by our desire, just
for the sake of tasting what we can’t have. This is the case of architecture, too.

If I know I can not afford a Louis Vuitton bag, I will not enter a Louis Vuitton
store.I don’t need that bag. Why a person that cannot afford posh architecture
would ever need one or feel confortable having one? The space has to talk for
the user. In this case, the voice of the interventions has to sing along wit the voice
of the community.

Nocturne thoughts by the author.

View from Nichols Tower (ex Sears Tower) on Chicago Downtown skyline

69
 V. PROPOSAL

The most interesting characteristic of the cube is that it is

relatively uninteresting. Compared to any other three-dimensional
form, the cube lacks any aggressive force, implies no motion, and
is least emotive. Therefore, it is the best form to use as a basic unit
for any more elaborate function, the grammatical device from
which the work may proceed.

Sol LeWitt

70 71
 73

focus
72
North Lawndale
695

plot dimensions

43 5 43 9 44 4 44 9 43 4 41 15 41 4 52 44 5 44 9 92 9 44 5 42

Analyzing the proportion of a

cvartal in North Lawndale, we
can easily observe that each

139
cvartal is more or less the
same dimension, with very
little oscilations.

This being observed, we can 186

focus on one of the cvartals

4
represented here, by giving
a solution, a response to the

45
contemporary issues, to a
91 9 92 9 89 14 89 8 92 9 92 9 89

piece of land that can then be

implemented in other similar
Cvartal dimensions
areas, areas that are facing
the same morphological and
lexical issues.

38
26 12
8 12

12

17

20
65
68
43

15

8
15

19

15

11
8

13 30
13 15 22 5
26
38

29

Property plots dimensions

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75
 Analysis of the vacancy on the studied area:

Vacant lots
Roosvelt Road

Vacant lots with residential character

Vacant lots near Roosvelt Road - commercial area

Roosvelt Road

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77
 study area

The vacant plots that are in proximity of the Roosvelt Road, have high
potential of becoming places to gather commoners and make the interaction
happen informally.
These spaces can be sustained by creating small architectural
interventions, non-invasive structures that can be developed further on by the
users.

The red line represents the potential walking path between different
points of the neighborhood. Now, the connection is not possible due to different
physical and mental boundries existing in the morphology of this space.

79
Axonometric view - existing situation

81
Axonometric view - phase I

- getting rid of physical

boundries in order to
facilitate walkin paths
around the neighborhood.

83
Axonometric view - phase II

- introducing windows in
blind walls where possible
and prepare the land for
further development of
the framework.

85
Axonometric view - phase III

- implementing the
framework

87
Demographics - studied area
By studying the demographics of the focus area, we can create a scenario
of what would be a first necessity of framework development.
In this case, the number of children and single mothers is very high, so
there is need of a kids center such as kindergarden and playgrounds.

Avarage:
single mothers
53 children

housing housing

commercial
public functions

Roosvelt Road

48 people 125 people

18 house units 33 house units
2 people/house unit 4 people/house unit

89
Proposal plan - ground floor

1m 5m 10m

91
 intervention 1
structural framework with insertion of walls and 0m 1m 5m 10m
desks for sellers - commercial needs
93
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 GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

94
commercial use / playground use
10m 5m 0m 1m
structural framework with insertion of walls
intervention 2

intervention 3
extension of an existing structure
spaces can be used as movie projections, 0m 1m 5m 10m

classrooms on daytime, neighborhood meetings

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95
 GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

96
10m 5m 0m 1m
ground floor as open public space
structure with insertion of walls and two staircases for a vertical development
intervention 4

intervention 5
merge with existing housing block
insertion of windows for a better natural control
0m 1m 5m 10m
staircases and walls for furthure vertical development
ground floor with public character

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 GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

children center
appropriated by inhabitants for children needs

98
10m 5m 0m 1m
developed structure
intervention 6

intervention 7
narrow plot
merge with existing house block
used for enlargment of existing apartments 0m 1m 5m 10m

stairs insertion for vertical development

ground floor with common use

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99
 101
10m
5m
used for enlargment of existing apartments

0m 1m
merge with existing house block

ground floor with common use

intervention 9

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intervention 8
narrow plot
merge with existing house blocks on left and right
used for enlargment of existing apartments
sturcture before insertion of staircase 0m 1m 5m 10m
ground floor with common use

100
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 Trials during the design process:

intervention 10
indipendent structure
common spaces
framework development on vertical

0m 1m 5m 10m

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102
104 105
106 107
Neighborhood scenarios
appropriation of frameworks

structure nr. 6 - kindergarden

structure nr. 6 - kindergarden

108 109
structure nr. 1 - commercial use [market] structure nr. 3 - education/movies projection

110 111
structure nr. 5 - mergin the new structure with existing appartment block

113
Annex

Sources:

Books

[1] Chicagoisms: The City as Catalyst for Architectural Speculation

edited by Alexander Eisenschmidt and Jonathan Mekinda

[2] Cities of Change Addis Ababa: Transformation Strategies for Urban

Territories in the 21st Century
by Marc Angélil, Dirk Hebel

[3] Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla Urbanism and the Remaking of

Contemporary Cities 1st Edition
edited by Jeffrey Hou

[4] Key concepts in urban studies

Book by Mark Gottdiener

[5] Ladders, Second Revised Edition

by Albert Pope, preface by Pier Vittorio Aureli

[6] Look at this demolished

The end of Chicago’s public housing
by David Eads and Helga Salinas
photos by Patricia Evans

[7] Principles of Urban Structure

Book by Bruce West, L. Andrew Coward, and Nikos Salingaros

[8] Site Matters: Design Concepts, Histories, and Strategies 1st Edition
by Carol J. Burns (Editor), Andrea Kahn (Editor)

[9] Space in America: Theory, History, Culture

edited by Klaus Benesch, Kerstin Schmidt

[10] Sprawl: A Compact History

Book by Robert Bruegmann

[11] Tactical Urbanism

Short-term Action for Long-term Change
Mike Lydon and Anthony Garcia; Foreword by Andres Duany

115
 [12] The Code of the City: Standards and the Hidden Language of Place Making Photo credits
Book by Eran Ben-Joseph

[13] The Historic Chicago Greystone: A User’s Guide to Renovating &

Maintainting Your Home
Published in 2007 by Historic Chicago Greystone Initiative (now the Chicago
Greystone & Vintage Home Program) at Neighborhood Housing Services of
Chicago and the City Design Center in the College of Architecture & the Arts at
the University of Illinois at Chicago fig.1 collage by the author

[14] Writing Urbanism: A Design Reader fig.2 collage by the author

edited by Dean and Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning Douglas
Kelbaugh, Douglas Kelbaugh, Kit McCullough fig.3 https://www.pinterest.com/pin/170855379583792865/

fig.4 collage by the author

Web fig.5 photo by the author

fig.6 collage by the author

http://commonsnetwork.eu/constructing-urban-commons/
fig.7 https://mymodernmet.com/southside-chicago-great-migration/
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/09/suburbs-should-merge/540258/
fig.8 http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1177.html
https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/08/08/foreclosed-re-
examining-possibilities/ fig.9 https://mymodernmet.com/southside-chicago-great-migration/

http://buildabetterburb.org/sprawl-repair-is-essential-unavoidable/ fig.10 https://chicagoganghistory.com/history/most-gangster-hoods/

https://blogs.roosevelt.edu/mbryson/2014/05/13/leonard-dubkin-chicagos- fig.11 http://oukas.info/?u=Archival+Collections++Chicago+Public+Library

urban-nature-writer-a-short-biography/
fig.12 https://chicagoganghistory.com/hoods/the-slums-of-chicago/
https://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2011/08/04/foreclosed-visualizing-
the-invisible/ fig.13 https://chicagoganghistory.com/housing-project/robert-taylor-homes/

http://time.com/3876778/city-at-a-crossroads-chicago-confronts-urban- fig.14 https://southsideweekly.com/chicago-unfulfilled-promise-rebuild-public-

blight-1954/ housing/

https://gbsurbanrenewal.weebly.com/

https://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/streets/supp_info/construction_
anddemolitionsites.html

https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia#t-145830

http://numerocinqmagazine.com/

116 117
INT MA AR
GNT/BXL_BE
International Master of Architecture

KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture

Campus Sint-Lucas, Brussels
Belgium

June 2018
 The common voids. The common voids represents a togetherness of memories, from the individuality of human being to collective
spaces, from a given way of living to a sensitive approach of the surrounding space, all these being put in the
scenario of a forgotten present.

An unconventional strategy for enhancing liveliness
in the suburbs of Chicago.

In order to one make an idea about the overall urban state of United States of America, in this Master Thesis we will first introduce the general issues
regarding Suburbia and The Great Grid, how an entire continent is eaten by the Sprawl and which are the consequences of such drastic interventions in the urban
morphology.

In contrast with the past decisions of great urbanists, what we tried in the past decades and still trying hard to implement nowadays, is the concept of “New
Urbanism”.

Larry Bennett, in its book “The Third City, Chicago and American Urbanism”, calls contemporary Chicago the third city to distinguish it from it two predecessors:
the first city, a sprawling industrial center whose historical arc ran from the Civil War to the Great Depression; and the second city, the Rustbelt exemplar of the period
from around 1950 to 1990.

The main focus area in this scenario is the city of Chicago, Illinois. For a better understanding of how the city was born and of what kind of inhabitants were
living in it in the past, we will talk about the Great Migration, a long-term movement of African Americans that moved from the South to Urban North around 1917s.
The African American population became deeply infused with urban sensibility.

More than 70% of the African American population was living in slums, pushed there by other layers of society. This drastic way of living pushed entire
families to live in tiny apartments, sometimes not enough for what at that time meant 7 people per household. In this whole scenario, the crime was just a
consequence of poorness, racism and culture.
Around ‘50s, Chicago Housing Authority tried to ease the pressure in the overcrowded ghettos and proposed public housing sites. This
proposal did not worked for the African American communities and the crime rate and black market increased even more. Facing such a fail, American House
Authorities decides to demolish all the high-rise public housing projects. By the end of 2005, they accomplish the mission and all the public housing projects are
gone, leaving behind more empty urban land with a strong footprint history.

We will analyze a suburbia of Chicago where many African Americas live nowadays, called North Lawndale; a neighborhood with many issues such as low
education level, high rate of criminality, unemployment and quite zero investments.

The morphology of North Lawndale is a particular one because it lacks of 18% of what once was built. Each abandoned building has to be demolished
because it represents a risk for the community. What happens with all the construction material resulted from demolishing 18% of a neighborhood? We are dealing
with an impressive footprint of vacancy in a place where this is the last thing to be needed, on a grid that was working at its time but now it doesn’t fit anymore with
the needs of the inhabitants.

What this place would look like with a complex, necessary morphology and with another kind of grid? The complexity is mandatory in order to make places
work.

With this project, we are implementing new morphological and strategic intelligence, by creating a scenario where the grid as we know it doesn’t exist
anymore, where the architectural interventions are incremental, the car is not on top of needed objects, where the continuity of space is a must and natural control
can be put in practice with help from the existing built.

We will get rid of unnecessary urban elements such as unused access roads, fences around vacant plots and will not delimit the existing built properties;
what results is an immense urban space where all the outdoor and indoor common activities of the neighbors can take place.

The interventions are an alternative to the traditional approach of designing urban environments, they are multi-functional, informal spaces that allow for
all kind of activities. From small to large configuration, the spaces can be merged and separated.

The architecture is meant to respond to social changes and adapt to current needs. The context becomes part of the architecture due to the permeability
and transparency of it.

Void (noun)

completely empty space

an unfilled space in a wall, building, or other structure
an emptiness caused by the loss of something

Liveliness (noun)

the quality of being outgoing, energetic, and enthusiastic

an atmosphere of excitement and activity

railroad

S Talman Ave
S Fairfield Ave
S California Ave

S Mozard St.

S Francisco Ave
S Richmond St.
S Sacramento Blvd
S Whipple St.
S Albany Ave
S Tray Ave
S Kedzie Ave
S Sawyer Ave
S Spaulding Ave
S Christiana Ave

S Homan Ave
S St. Louis Ave
S Central Park Ave
S Milliard Ave
S Lawndale Ave

S Independent Blvd
S Avers Ave
S Springfield Ave
S Harding Ave
S Pulaski Rd
S Komenski Ave
S Karlov Ave
S Kedvale Ave
S Keeler Ave
S Tripp Ave
S Kildare Ave
S Kollin Ave
S Kostner Ave

S Kilbourn Ave

railroad

Morphology The black fill represents the vacant plots in North Lawndale. By condensing the vacant plots, we can observe than more than 18% of the
neighborhood is vacant.

existent building lateral facade

- to be kept

existent blind wall case 1

- to be modified

existent blind wall case 2

- to be merged with extension
Vacancy network Mandatory complexity

Tutor: Martine de Maeseneer

Student: Diana Maria Galatus
 Analysis of the vacancy on the studied area:

Vacant lots
Roosvelt Road

Vacant lots with residential character

study area

The vacant plots that are in proximity of the Roosvelt Road, have high
potential of becoming places to gather commoners and make the interaction
Vacant lots near Roosvelt Road - commercial area happen informally.
Roosvelt Road These spaces can be sustained by creating small architectural
interventions, non-invasive structures that can be developed further on by the
users.

The red line represents the potential walking path between different
points of the neighborhood. Now, the connection is not possible due to different
physical and mental boundries existing in the morphology of this space.

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sion 0.0.100.100

Common space in North Lawndale Map of interventions

existing - road

proposed-scattered

GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

Map of interventions

Demographics - studied area

By studying the demographics of the focus area, we can create a scenario
of what would be a first necessity of framework development.
In this case, the number of children and single mothers is very high, so
there is need of a kids center such as kindergarden and playgrounds.

Avarage:
single mothers
53 children

housing housing

commercial
public functions

Roosvelt Road

48 people 125 people

18 house units 33 house units
2 people/house unit 4 people/house unit
GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

1m 5m 10m

Tutor: Martine de Maeseneer

Student: Diana Maria Galatus
Axonometric view - existing situation

Axonometric view - phase I

GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

- getting rid of physical boundries in

order to facilitate walkin paths around
the neighborhood.

GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

Axonometric view - phase II

- introducing windows in blind walls

where possible and prepare the
land for further development of the
framework.

GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

Axonometric view - phase III

- implementing the framework

Tutor: Martine de Maeseneer

Student: Diana Maria Galatus

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 Intervention scenarios

structural framework with insertion of walls and

desks for sellers - commercial needs

0m 1m 5m 10m

GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

0m 1m 5m 10m

GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

extension of an existing structure

spaces can be used as movie projections,
classrooms on daytime, neighborhood meetings

0m 1m 5m 10m

developed structure
appropriated by inhabitants for children needs
children center
GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

0m 1m 5m 10m

merge with existing housing block

insertion of windows for a better natural control
GSPublisherVersion 0.0.100.100

staircases and walls for furthure vertical development

Tutor: Martine de Maeseneer ground floor with public character
Student: Diana Maria Galatus
 The common voids.
An unconventional strategy for enhancing liveliness
in the suburbs of Chicago.

The common voids represents a togetherness

of memories, from the individuality of human being to
collective spaces, from a given way of living to a sensitive
Loop
approach of the surrounding space, all these being put in
the scenario of a forgotten present.

Roosvelt Road vacant plot social control

North Lawndale

The red line represents the potential walking path between different points of the neighborhood. Intervention scenario

Roosvelt Road study area

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Map of interventions

0m 1m 5m 10m

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Tutor: Martine de Maeseneer

Student: Diana Maria Galatus