Award
2019 Merit Award
Site
Chicago, IL
Category
Design
Landscape Architects
Confluence, fka Wolff Landscape Architecture
Project Details
EMME is located on the site of the Haymarket Square Riot of 1886. A sculpture by Mary Brogger memorializes this historic labor conflict. The site history and the sculpture influenced the building’s site plan, setting it back from the street. The setback was developed as a public park funded and maintained by the building owner, Gerdling Edlen.
The landscape consists of two areas, the pocket park and the 3rd floor amenity deck. The park is organized around a wandering flagstone garden walkway furnished with L-shaped benches in a landscape of multi-stem Whitespire birch trees and low shrubs and groundcover. The amenity deck features a large gathering area with a firepit, a tilted plane of grass surrounded by tiered seating, and a walkway flanked by two rows of Winter King hawthorns. The west end of the deck is devoted to a plot of raised beds, bringing productive urban agriculture to this urban location.