See the Final Booklets 2013

_{“Low-CarbonLife” by Yu Lei, Qiang Hu, and Xiang Chen Zhang, provides a city complex, which the stacked parks and ramps are incorporated into.}

Using the framework of the DeCarbonization Plan, this comprehensive design studio seeked to design tall buildings which are positive additions to the city’s skyline visually, urbanistically, and environmentally. Students were in pairs, and each pair worked with tutors to establish a unique set of environmental Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) - a set of quantifiable goals which drove the design. These KPIs allowed students to work toward the goals set in the DeCarbonization Plan. Students also developed unique building programs depending on the location chosen. 

The project site was the Wolf Point, Chicago, which is the location at the confluence of the North, South and Main Branches of the Chicago River in the present day Near North Side, Loop, and Near West Side community areas of Chicago. In 2007, the owner, Kennedys, planned to develop the property with three high-rises and skyscrapers to designs by Argentine-American architect César Pelli. In 2012, updated plans were proposed with several target completion dates over the next decade. The property is a coveted real estate location that has had several serious redevelopment plans in the past. As the largest real-estate development in Chicago since the bubble burst, the $1 billion Wolf Point project has now broken ground. The plan called for three towers, 2.3 acres of riverbank park land, and a river walk.

Students were free to determine the size, height, function, accommodation and responsibilities of the building, according to their site study & research. It was possible that the building was mixed-use in nature. Possible influential factors on detailed program (in no particular hierarchy) may be: site area, urban grain, neighbouring buildings, city requirements, community requirements, the commercial market, social responsibility, sustainability, aesthetics, proportions, plot ratios, transit/mobility, infrastructure,  etc. Students needed to devise design solutions to respond to the local climatic, social, cultural and financial conditions.