Meredith J. Evans has a Bachelor degree in Interior Design from Philadelphia University. She currently works as an architectural intern at the West Loop firm, zpd+a and is pursuing her architecture license in the State of Illinois. Meredith’s roots in East Coast DIY music and social movements have given way to a socially integrated art and architecture practice. Evans has been able to cultivate these interests as a Consortium Fellow for the Chicago Consortium for Art in Society in 2014 and an Anthony A. Yoseloff Scholarship for the Society of American Baseball Researchers in 2013.
Armour Square Self-Build District
“What if there was a place where the disenfranchised could build their own world as it suited them?”
Baseball and its physical neighborhoods are a key part of American life. What if this existing culture and commerce was used to contradict the existing American class war and housing crisis? The Armour Square Self-Build District uses an existing tourist draw and epicenter of city sports pride, U.S. Cellular Field, where the Chicago White Sox play their home games, as a site for a new type of cooperative neighborhood. Providing building shop space for teaching purposes as well as an open shop for the community, the District allows the users to learn how to build their own homes and in the process gain certifications to enter the building industry as a career path. The neighborhood also offers opportunities for small businesses that would like to appropriate traffic from the White Sox games and telecommuters who would like to build their work/live space to suit them directly. The community provides a prefabricated method of building, but residents can build how they choose on their site. A Community Center on site gives space for co-working, classrooms for vocational and community purposes, a multi-purpose room for large gathering and building material purchase.. The Armour Square Self-Build District rethinks how a community is physically and socially built.
