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This fall, Professor David Brown’s Available City project is organizing two series of charrettes that will inform the design of spaces for The Available City-North Lawndale, an upcoming exposition examining the role that collective space can have in the city today. Both are presented in association with the Chicago Architecture Biennial (CAB), which opened September 19.

The Available City and the North Lawndale Greening Committee (NLGC) are a CAB partner for three charrettes focused on the design of elements and spaces for the NLGC’s MLK District Garden (site shown above). These charrettes, led by Clinical Assistant Professor Ania Jaworska and Eric Hotchkiss, will take place at the MLK Exhibit Center on October 5, October 19, and November 2.

For the second series, the Available City and CCA Academy are offering a CAB Youth Studio for CCA Academy students consisting of four charrettes in October. The first three, led by Clinical Assistant Professor Antonio Torres, will focus on the design of an outdoor classroom for CCA Academy’s PermaPark. A fourth charrette, led by Brown, will look more broadly at possibilities for vacant lots in North Lawndale.

The Available City is an ongoing urban design project whose non-hierarchical, flexible, and variable approach develops from Brown’s study of design implications of structures that facilitate improvisation in jazz. The Available City-North Lawndale will be on view July–October 2020.