Public space

Prof. Kelley Lemon has been awarded a $100,000 grant through the Chancellor’s Call to Action Initiative, a commitment by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to focus the intellectual and scholarly talent of our university on two of the greatest challenges facing our society—racism and social injustice—and to seek new solutions. The Call to Action to Address Racism & Social Injustice Research Program provides support for academic research and the expansion of community-based knowledge that advances the understanding of systemic racism and generationally embedded racial disparity.

On Monday, July 31, 2023, 12:00pm-1:00pm ET, the New York City-based CSU: The Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization will be hosting an online talk by Eileen Dancuart (MLA Illinois 2002) focused on Bicentennial Park, a project she completed in November 2022 in the Miraflores district of Lima, Peru.

As Founding Director of the practice Matéricos Periféricos, Ph.D. student Ana Valderrama (MLA, Illinois, 2009) and her collaborators have received a 2022 Inclusion Award from the New York City Architecture Biennial. Their project, "Industrial District," includes a series of practices and two buildings co-constructed with the communities they serve.

In this online lecture, O’Shea will discuss recent projects by his practice, Hinterlands, that exemplify the firm’s commitment to radically rethinking the contemporary urban realm through the medium of landscape.

Led by Prof. Mary Pat McGuire, the initiative is part of a growing movement to transform underused paved areas, such as empty parking lots, into vibrant, green, community spaces.

Students in our undergrad Regional Design Studio partnered with the City of Whiting, IN, and the USDA Forest Service to design plans for foresting vacant lots. So far, two have been planted, with more to come.