The new food-tech city : adapting Chicago's post-stockyard urbanism

Abstract

This thesis examines the latent potential of Chicago's former Union Stock Yard, which consequentially draws attention to the polarities of industrial food production. The Union Stock Yard was once symbolic of an era where urban progress was equated with efficiency and growth. Today, the site is facing an identity crisis: it is characterized predominantly by underutilized warehousing, however, innovative closed-loop food producers (such as The Plant and the Iron Street Farm) are indicative of an emerging narrative that focuses on sustainability, health, and taste. This thesis offers a design proposal for a new food technologies cluster that includes multifunctional programmatic components for: research, production, and marketing (as well as new residential communities.) The goal is to formulate a design solution that selectively packages existing elements (river, warehouses, workforce) with new buildings, infrastructure, and public spaces - to build a flexible urban network that will reconnect to the larger square-mile Chicago grid. To do so the study draws upon original analytical studies and numerous precedents that convert decommissioned industrial land. The design product will provide reflection upon the past as it presents a scenario for the future.