JUSTIN BANDA

Use-based zoning has led to the creation of the types shown here. Mandating use and floor- area ratios has led to the huge floor-plate buildings you can see in the IBZ. Gowanus predominantly consists of open-interior buildings, shown in purple, and various residential types, shown in blue. Magenta here represents institutional buildings such as schools and churches.

This project, “Gowanus: From Resilience to Sustainability," was awarded the Charter Award in the student category by the CNU-Illinois Board, and competed for the top prize at CNU-National.

At the Head of the Canal we created a celebratory water feature bounded by open plazas to commemorate the historic pump station, and to expand the park to better connect to the water. This area is the natural ending of a path of public space along the canal, with close proximity to the highest existing residential density of Gowanus in the public housing towers.

That heart— the animus of the machine— drew inspiration and guidance from external sources, as well. Sekou Cooke, an assistant professor of architecture at Syracuse University, argues that hip-hop architecture is an imminent cultural movement that has been simmering for the better part of two decades. He argues that hip-hop owes it’s existence to both architecture and urbanism, and that architecture, in turn, is the “fifth pillar” of hip-hop, alongside deejaying, emceeing, breakdancing, and graffiti.

Cooke, in his symposium, cites Craig Wilkins from the University of Michigan, who argues that spaces are designed either for inclusion or exclusion, otherness, and the potential for “hip-hop architecture” to be inclusive to underrepresented groups, while Ashton T. Crawley writes in his book Blackpentecostal Breath that “racial categorization and distinction is but one way to think of the world, one way to consider organizing, and racial categorization and distinction is, in many and fundamental ways, about the disruption and interruption of the capacity to breathe in the flesh,” while Katherine McKittrick writes in her examination of blackness Demonic Grounds that “black matters are spatial matters.”

We introduced a neighborhood-scaled center of Gowanus focused around a neighborhood market surrounded by the densest area of commercial activity, paired with appropriate increases in residential density with the aim of creating a stronger sense of community. This area is the highest existing center of activity in the neighborhood, as it is intersected by half of the streets that bridge the Canal.

The decision to make Kanye West the focus of a Chicago-based museum in the Fulton Market district in the West Loop is a creative decision made simple by the mere fact that this city is his home, which he strings references to throughout his body of work. His beloved late mother Donda West moved her family from Atlanta to Chicago when Kanye was three, an event he describes on his track “Homecoming” as a formative experience:

I met this girl when I was three years old
And what I loved most, she had so much soul
She said, “Excuse me, lil’ homie, I know you don’t know me
But my name is Windy, and I like to blow trees.”
And from that point I never blew her off
People came from out of town, I like to show her off.
They like to act tough, she likes to tear them off
And make them straighten up their act
Cause she knows how they’re soft
And when I grew up, she showed me how to go downtown
In the nighttime her face lit up, so astounding
I told her in my heart is where she’ll always be.

West’s clear affection and profound respect for Chicago make him an ideal candidate for a gallery orbiting his life, work, and art.