Housing By and For Seniors: Collaborative Design
with the Shirman Affordable Housing Campaign
1996
The Shriman Affordable Housing Campaign, a coalition of three non-profit
senior organizations, was created to pursue and protect affordable senior
housing in the Lake View neighborhood and Chicago’s North Side. The
members of the Campaign were concerned about a lack of affordable senior
housing in the Lake View area, and also by what they viewed as a mismatch
between existing senior housing and seniors’ needs and wishes. The
Shriman Campaign asked the City Design Center for assistance in designing
exemplary models of senior multi-family housing. They sought to develop
user-responsive senior housing with the active collaboration of Campaign
members in the design and development process.
The City Design Center arranged for a School of Architecture design
studio to focus on senior housing. In response to Shriman Campaign goals,
the format of the studio was participatory, with Campaign members invited
into the studio as full collaborators with the students to develop alternative
multi-family senior housing schemes on a city-owned site at 4040 North
Sheridan. Campaign members attended lectures and senior housing site visits,
had access to class readings, and worked closely with students and faculty
in the studio to program and design alternative schemes. In the words
of one of the senior leaders, Chuck Cerny, “I will always remember
it as something unique.” The students’ designs were reviewed
periodically by Shriman Campaign members, faculty and professional architects,
and also by public officials. As the work progressed, Senator Carol Mosely
Braun, Mayor Richard M. Daley, Housing Commissioner Marina Carrott, and
Alderman Helen Shiller endorsed the project, making commitments of land
and possible financing.
Currently, the land has been donated by the city, the financing has
been secured, and an architecture firm was hired and has developed a building
design that, while differing from those developed in the studios, was
influenced by some of the students’ research and ideas. The ground-breaking
is expected in Spring 1998.
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Map of Chicago with project location
Shriman Senior Building
designed by UIC School of Architecture student Michael Girard - east elevation
Shriman Senior Building designed by UIC School
of Architecture student Michael Girard - site plan
Shriman Senior Building designed by UIC School
of Architecture student Peter Wesoloski - east elevation
Shriman Senior Building designed by UIC School
of Architecture student Peter Wesoloski - site plan
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City Design Center Affiliated Faculty
Roberta Feldman, Professor, School of Architecture, and Director, City
Design Center
John Macsai, Professor, School of Architecture
Collaborating Organizations
Jane Addams Senior Caucus
Lake View Action Coalition
White Crane Wellness Center
Funding
Jane Addams Senior Caucus
Lake View Action Coalition
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