We are thrilled to invite you to our upcoming events in the Illinois Medical District (IMD) as part of the Master of City Design (MCD) graduate capstone project. We would love to have you join us for two events: Design Workshop and Final Presentation. These events highlight a culmination of several rounds of community engagement in the IMD and we hope you can make it for the Design Workshop and Final Showcase!

• Thursday, May 30 @ 6:30pm
• IMD Building, 2100 W. Harrison Street
• Chicago, IL 60612

Please RSVP here or through the link below.

Join us for one or even better, both events!

About the project:

MCD Summer Studio aka ‘Chicago Charrette’ offers a hands-on field-based immersive environment for learning the craft of community engagement at the intermediate urban scale. Working with our community partners –  IMD, Design Workshop, UIC Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE), and a host of seasoned scholars, professional practitioners, engaged residents, and community organizers, students learn how to conceive purposeful participatory strategies inviting the engagement of diverse place-based communities for co-creating meaningful design solutions.

Building on the work of the MCD Great Cities Studio collaboration with IMD in spring of 2024, students are working closely with a variety of community, professional and institutional partners to get stakeholder feedback on their “Remaking Place Framework Plan” to support IMDs efforts to design a Work, Study, Live, and Play sustainable “district/neighborhood.”

The IMD is our main community stakeholder. The IMD is one of the largest urban medical districts in the U.S. and is strategically located west of Chicago’s downtown core, the Loop. This special-use zoning district comprises 560 acres [1 square mile = 640 acres] of medical research facilities, laboratories, a biotech business incubator, raw development land, universities, more than 40 healthcare-related facilities, and undeveloped lands. The district is a 24/7/365 environment with world-class medical centers employing over 30,000 people. Medical centers include Rush University Medical Center, Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, The John H. Stroger Hospital of Cook County, The University of Illinois Hospital, and the Health Sciences System.

Design Workshop is our design and community engagement partner. Design Workshop is an international design studio working across the fields of landscape architecture, urban design, planning, economics and engagement. In this studio, they will be leading the formal Charrette process in McKinley Park and, under their mentorship, students will learn how to design and implement purposeful community engagement strategies.

The entire course is generously supported by the UIC Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement (IPCE), which serves as a catalyst for learning and participatory action in discourse, research and educational programs.

We hope to see you there!

Dr. April Jackson and Merav Argov