Depave Chicago and The Montessori School of Englewood
Chicago, United States
WebsiteDepave Chicago and The Montessori School of Englewood are partnered on the first pilot project for this emerging community-based depaving program in Chicago. The project involves depaving 10,000 SF of the school’s primary playground and transforming it into a green, living schoolyard. Depave Chicago is part of a larger international network of organizations focused on depaving parking lots and asphalt playgrounds in disinvested communities where improving ecological well-being is essential for community regeneration and quality of life. TMSOE (an elementary-middle charter school in West Englewood) is undertaking this project to create a safe, healthy, and life-affirming environment for its students and teachers and a space that signals care and future-building within the broader community. The DepaveChicago/TMSOE partnership is an opportunity to dialog with city agencies and organizational leaders about urban adaptation, community engagement, and urgently-needed transformation of the paved urban environment. Depave Chicago is financially supported by the Walder Foundation to host webinars, trainings, equipment purchasing, and design and engineering services for the pilot project. The Depave Chicago program organizational start-up is guided by Depave in Portland, Oregon, the first established depaving organization in the USA. Dozens of volunteers across Chicago have reached out to get involved in the planning and depaving for this pivotal site.
CAB 5 Contribution
Project Overview
Depave Chicago + The Montessori School of Englewood
Depave Chicago and The Montessori School of Englewood (TMSOE) are working together to undertake a 10,000-square-foot project on TMSOE’s South Side campus. The project embodies practices of codesign and future-building focused on depaving (replacing impermeable surfaces with green space and natural materials) and remaking urban land as a space for critical reflection and direct action on the built environment in our communities. TMSOE, a nonprofit charter school of 350 kindergarten through eighth grade students, teaches the Montessori method of child-centered education and hands-on learning, with a focus on empowerment and healing of trauma. Together, Depave Chicago, TMSOE, and dozens of volunteers from across the city, will learn how to depave the site together in a two-day event, then undertake several weeks of planting, gathering, ecological and creative education, and renewal. The project is a live demonstration of coproduction that expands the regenerative and liberatory capacity of rebuilding land in our schools and communities.
Drawing by: Mary Pat McGuire, Bowen Dong, Vidhan Goel, Wendy Wang, in partnership with TMSOE teachers and staff: Maggie Mikuzis, Rita Nolan, La Kiesha Dunn, Jonathan Howell, Vicki Bowens, Tina Rush, Vicky Coleman-Cox, Ebonie Townsend, Lynetta Denson, Caleb Wagner, Candice Rogers, and TMSOE students: Kahmani Hester, Armani McLaurin, Jade Nutall, Jazmynn Thomas, Brandon Littleton, Alexander Jones, Melany Renderos, Asia Starling, Leah White, Trinity Crockett, and Ceonna Black
Past Works
Project Overview
Team Members
Project Overview