Once a dumping ground for slag from nearby steel mills, the 280-acre Big Marsh park opened in 2016 on the southeast side of Chicago with a 40-acre bike park as well as walking trails. The Chicago Park District asked Valerio Dewalt Train (VDT) to design a 9,300-square-foot environmental center that would serve as an education and information hub and as a gateway to eco-recreation opportunities throughout the region.

The design team responded to the park’s industrial past by marrying the industrial with the natural, choosing a nail-laminated timber (NLT) structure, exposed on the interior, in tandem with glulam columns and beams. The exterior is clad in a rain screen of weathered steel that recalls the site’s steel mill history and will develop a protective patina of rust over time. Two large rooftop light monitors are clad in exposed NLT and flood the double-height exhibition area with daylight.

The district wanted the building to convey a sense of openness while also retaining the ability to be secured when park staff were not on site. The design team responded by creating 10-foot-square floor-to-ceiling windows on all four sides that allow natural light deep into the space. Large movable hydraulic hangar doors made of steel hinge downwards to fit flush with the exterior wall, covering windows to secure the facility when it is closed. The doors’ perforated metal screens preserve visibility to the interior.

Given the marsh’s importance to migrating birds, it was essential that the design be bird friendly. The hangar doors form a canopy when raised, providing shade and ensuring that birds flying overhead do not see landscape reflected in the windows and fly into them by mistake. The windows are fritted as well to further avoid possible bird collisions. Exterior lighting at night is minimal, and there is no uplighting.

The facility meets the needs of both bikers and nature enthusiasts, with a bike repair area as well as nature exhibits, two classroom spaces, offices, restrooms, and storage spaces. VDT’s experiential design studio, Media-Objectives, is designing the exhibits.A constructed wastewater wetlands system—the first in Chicago and one of the first in Illinois—serves as an economical (and environmentally friendly) alternative to connecting to the city sewer system on the other side of the river.

The use of NLT for the structure brings a number of environmental benefits as well: it is a renewable resource, wood can be grown locally rather than shipped overseas, it is highly effective at carbon sequestration, and it requires much less energy to produce than steel or concrete.

Team:
Architects: Valerio Dewalt Train + Media Objectives
Other participants: Chicago Park District, Chicago Commercial Construction, Primera Engineering, dbHMS, Jacobs Ryan Associates, Matrix Engineering, TetraTech, BioHabitats
Photography: Tom Harris

Material Used:
1. Facade cladding: 
Weathered Steel Facade - Dri Design
Thermally Modified Ash - Arborwood
Lewis Vertical Grain Western Hemlock - ReSawn Timber

2. Flooring: Tile - Crossville, Carpet - Shaw
3. Interior furniture: Steelcase

A Bold New Environmental Center redeems a Former Brownfield Site created by steel mills dumping toxic slag for almost a century in southeast side of Chicago.  In 2016, The Chicago Environmental Fund (CEF) dedicated $3.7M for the construction of the Ford Calumet Environmental Center at Big Marsh. Funds were originally provided to CEF by Ford Motor Company. The center design began in late 2016 and opened to the public in August 2021.

DeepStream Designs is proud to part of this positive environmental transformation providing recycled and recyclable aluminum screen wall and gates to create the dangerous equipment enclosure to the Center which is built with Corten steel.  Every DeepStream product generates a donation the Trees.org to plan trees and train farmers in sustainable agriculture projects around the world.

The City of Chicago and the Chicago Park District teamed up in early 2000s to restore this area to a healthy habitat and eco-recreation park.  The Chicago Park District acquired the site in 2011 and began the park planning, environmental assessment, and community input process.  A Framework Plan for the park was completed in 2014.  Design for the bike park feature in the southwest section of the park began in 2014 and the bike park opened in 2016.  The northwest section of the park also opened to the public in 2016 with a new walking trail and parking lot.

Park 564 “Big Marsh” is a 280-acre area commonly known as the Calumet Area Reserve was acquired by the Park District in 2011 and opened in 2016. The vision of Big Marsh is to provide a new type of recreation in Chicago that marries habitat restoration with public use.  45 acres are developed for eco-recreation opportunities including hiking, adventure courses, and off-road biking. The eco-recreation elements are located primarily on existing slag fields where plants have a hard time growing and good habitat creation is unlikely. Other acreage is reserved for more passive recreation including bird-watching and walking.