UrbanLab, the local architecture firm that won the History Channel's "City of the Future" design contest in Chicago last year, won the national contest as well, a feat that brought the small group international acclaim. The prize purse for the nationwide competition, which brought together winning teams from Los Angeles and New York City, was $10,000 -- on top of the $10,000 UrbanLab scored at the local competition last November.
Worldchanging Chicago readers might remember our City of the Future blog entry months ago when the design firm first wowed judges at the History Channel's event downtown.
In UrbanLab's world, Chicago will become a key exporter of water to regions around the country, and as such the city's entire economy must shift toward the retention and distribution of water. Entitled "Growing Water," the design team presented a Chicago of the future where all east-west boulevards have been returned to greenspace.
Architecture blogs and news outlets around the country have hailed team's work as an example of forward-thinking urban design. Here at Worldchanging, we've taken UrbanLab's victory as an opportunity to look again at another of their projects: Chil.us.
The web site is a research project-cum-resource intended to catalogue -- and graphically display -- various data about Chicagoland. From the main page:
chil.us examines Chicago's status as a global city. The current condition of the Chicago Megalopolis is revealed with maps, diagrams and statistics. The project charts comparative states of Chicago's land use, growth, population densities, energy/natural resources, infrastructural networks, economic/leisure activities, and photo-slices taken along prime travel-routes.The research project is an effort to document a broad informational context for those currently working on and/or thinking about the design and planning of Chicago.
chil.us is funded by the National Science Foundation and organized by UrbanLab.
The project lists dozens of statistical numbers about our megalopolis, including sprawl, land use and ethnic dispersal. Beyond that, chil.us is highly entertaining to use. The different data categories are often portrayed on the site as small flash animations. UrbanLab's chil.us offers simple, colorful maps and charts that possess eminent potential to educate and inform residents, especially students, about Chicago as it has appeared in the past -- and into the future.
Sure, chil.us is nothing new. But it's fitting that, as the architecture community praises UrbanLab's recent victory in New York City, the firm be recognized for their continuing worldchanging work in Chicago.
