Perkins+Will held its annual design competition yesterday at the Chicago Cultural Center, pitting young designers in its offices across the globe against each other. This year's theme was inspired by the Chicago Architecture Biennial program, "The Second City's Second Coast: An Intervention Along The Chicago River."
Perkins+Will asked its designers to reimagine redeveloping 200 acres of abandoned, contaminated land just south of the Loop along the Chicago River. The winning design (shown) from Silas Haslam and Yanwen Xiao in Perkins+Will's DC office, is called Grid | River | Landmark.
Silas and Yanwen, cognizant of the fact that the Chicago River's flow was reversed to accommodate urban development and push the flow of pollutants to the south, created a design that will create a wetland area and a landmark building as a system to purify the water. View the other winners here.
