Wild Zones: Redesigning Chicago’s Landscape Ordinance: The Peterson Avenue Transect Study
Years: 2020-2022
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Funding: University of Illinois Campus Research Board, Performing Arts and Design Program
The Peterson Avenue Transect Study develops changes to the Chicago Landscape Ordinance to accommodate urban wildlife.
Designing for urban wildlife hinges on the idea that small changes across urban areas can have cumulative positive and negative effects, and that idea has large implications for landscape architecture. Contemporary landscape architectural practice is disproportionally engaged in the development of high-profile urban parks, which provide valuable green space but may not support wildlife. Meanwhile, quotidian hardscape elements, such as streets, sidewalks, and parking lots, impede the movement of wildlife, [1] yet even relatively sparse tree canopies along and within such spaces can provide “corridors” for organisms. [2] Counterintuitive as it may seem, urban areas contain a wide variety of habitats for wildlife to utilize, [3] but those are poorly understood, and design prototypes for communities interested in supporting wildlife are severely lacking.
This research focuses on a single east-west transect through Chicago’s north side that runs mostly through Peterson Avenue. That line was selected for its proximity to large green spaces, such as Rosehill Cemetery, Legion Park, Peterson Park, the North Park Village Nature Center, and Forest Glen Woods, all of which are known for their relatively high numbers of plants, insects, birds, and mammals. By contrast, Peterson Avenue is a multi-lane asphalt road bordered by 15’-wide sidewalks with little or no vegetation.
To understand and reimagine this site, the study involves site visits to inventory the existing streetscape, 3D modeling, and designing and evaluating changes to the streetscape. Carrying out that work will form the basis for discrete yet key changes to the Chicago Landscape Ordinance, the portion of Chicago’s municipal code that determines the minimum amount of green space (in the form of sidewalk trees, planted beds in parking lots, and so on) present within the contemporary everyday urban realm.
[1] S. Braaker et al., “Assessing Habitat Connectivity for Ground-Dwelling Animals in an Urban Environment,” Ecological Applications 24, no. 7 (2014): 1583. https://doi.org/10.1890/13-1088.1.
[2] Alessandro Ossola et al., “Yards Increase Forest Connectivity in Urban Landscapes,” Landscape Ecology 34, no. 12 (2019): 2935–48. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-019-00923-7.
[3] Abigail Derby Lewis et al., “Does Nature Need Cities? Pollinators Reveal a Role for Cities in Wildlife Conservation,” Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7 (2019), https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2019.00220.