House as Garden in Illinois

Project description by jury

House as Garden originates from a collaboration with a non-profit organization, Blacks in Green, to transform a problematic neighborhood of Chicago into a new sustainable district – a “sustainable square mile”. The project consists of a residential complex including eight flexible housing units and a number of internal and external shared areas, including a guest bedroom, spaces for collective recreation and green areas for on-site agriculture. The provision of community spaces that serve different functions fosters a sense of shared empowerment by encouraging self-sustainment and collaboration between residents.

As a Main category prize winner in the regional Holcim Awards 2020, House as Garden in Illinois, USA automatically qualified as a finalist in the Global Holcim Awards 2021.

View Global Holcim Awards Entry – House as Garden in Illinois

In collaboration with the nonprofit organization Blacks in Green, a sustainable residential building is being placed into an afflicted urban neighborhood. As a prototype, it shows how community can be regained and sustained by applying rational and appropriate technologies, self-reliance systems, and a spirit of sharing. The multifamily building consists of eight flexibly designed residential units as well as indoor and outdoor shared spaces, including a guest room, spaces for collective recreation, and green areas for onsite agriculture.The residents share cars, bicycles, gardens, and certain indoor spaces. The project is intended to be net carbon negative thanks to the many green systems and materials, the extensive greening, and the energy-efficient design.

“We’re creating a new normal for affordable housing,” explains Naomi Davis of Blacks in Green, Chicago, USA. “It is awesome, zero-waste, energy producing, wealth generating, grounded by food and flower gardens inside and out, and within reach of the black middle-income purse.” The jury says the proposal suggests an innovative residential building typology that not only gravitates around the value of sharing as a means of human empowerment but that is also environmentally friendly and aesthetically pleasing. They particularly appreciated the great potential for flexibility and replicability of the project, which promotes transferable sustainable practices on many levels.

Sustainability is for Everyone: A Building Block for Community Development and Growth

The idea of sustainability is both privileged and confused. While best practices - natural ventilation, rational orientation and openings, thermal mass, use of renewables, net zero construction - can be found in traditional architectures, environmental culture in the USA remains both exotic and contested. The comfortable find it superfluous. Others think it’s a foible of the organic Chardonnay-drinking, Tesla-driving, rich. Our national government believes climate change is a hoax. We don’t. And, we see the environmental burden very unevenly shared, with the poor, the elderly, and communities of color disproportionately afflicted. Our project is grassroots: a battered community remakes and sustains itself via the tools of home-grown, green systems, buildings, practices, and habits.

To achieve net negative, materials are sourced for lowest embodied and emitted carbon. Engineered lumber structure sequesters 35 tons of CO2 and reduces greenhouse emissions vs. alternative materials by 75 tons for a 110-ton total benefit. Heating and cooling energy from metered photovoltaic array (estimated at 40,000 KWh/hour/year) and hot water from direct solar. Transport and manufacturing CO2 reduced by on-site fabrication and low-energy construction methods. Robust insulation with carbon negative dense-pack cellulose reduces emissivity on supply and demand sides. Low impact concrete/CMU foundations and retaining walls further cut via green mix, long cure, CO2 injection, light weight, reduced cement, non-fossil fuel SCM and are offset by net negative output of other systems and materials.