Millennium Park Rennovations

For the final action project in Urban Planning we had to take an area of the city and redesign it to make an improvement. I decided to change Millennium Park in downtown Chicago because I felt like there is a lot of modern art there and that it is the center of our city and a landmark that is known by all who visit Chicago but it has nothing about our history. Seeing as Chicago was a bridge to the west in America back when it was just a trading settlement and it's development has involved lots of bridges due to the Chicago River I felt it was only right to show the history through bridges. I designed two bridges to make crossing Columbus drive more historical and make the drive more of an experience.

This is the original image of what Millennium Park next to Maggie Daley Park looks like. The road in the middle is impossible to cross without being at one of the two ends of Columbus or by taking the one bridge. The distance from one end to the other is almost half a kilometer, which with the bridge being in the middle makes it a quarter of a kilometer walk just to cross the street. Both of these parks are apart of the larger Grant Park yet are so distant for their relative closeness because of the lack of accessibility between the two parks.  If there were to be two more bridges built, one near Randolph and one near Monroe. Putting these bridges there will not only connect two of the green gems of Chicago but will also create an experience for the drivers on the road. The three bridges will be spanning over Columbus Drive and the be a gateway into the garden in the city, which ties in with the city's motto, “Urbs in Horto.” This phrase in Latin means the city in the garden and Grant Park is a prime display of how the city is in relation with nature and how the “garden” is apart of Chicagoans lives.

The new map would look like this with the addition of two bridges. The two different bridges would be examples of the progression of Chicago and its architecture styles. First the top bridge near Randolph would be a truss bridge because of the iconic truss bridges that span the Chicago river in numerous places. The other new bridge near Monroe would be made of glass and be a more transparent and have a futuristic look that would represent how Chicago is an ever changing city that is always advancing and accepting of the future. This would create a pathway through the two parks that would be as meaningful as the parks themselves that everyone could experience. This would also allow people to explore the parks easier without a long walk and experience a part of Chicago history at the same time. The addition of these bridges is essential to the Chicago spirit as it brings together the necessity of accessibility to parks that already exist and brings the Chicago mentality and essence to the drivers on Columbus Drive.

I came to think of the addition of these bridges because when walking through Millennium Park, I wanted to go over to Maggie Daley Park but the walk to the bridge in the heat and crowds was going to take 30 minutes. I thought that it would be so much more convenient if there was more than one bridge. I then got to thinking about what kind of bridge should be put in that would also be a monument for Chicago. Immediately I knew that one of the bridges had to be some sort of truss because of all of the historic trusses around Chicago. This bridge is to symbolize the change that has gone through Chicago as a truss is one of the original bridges in Chicago and the bridges get more and more modern showing Chicago's path. The second bridge idea came to me because they have been replacing some of the trusses around Chicago with newer bridges and have been adapting Chicago by building more modern bridges. The idea of the history of Chicago leading to the future of the city was something that I wanted to capture and I felt this second bridge was the way to do it. The other idea that made me think of this as a gateway was the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Japan, which is a path of torii gates that feels as if you are progressing through the different stages of life as you walk through it. These bridges would be like walking through the stages of Chicago’s history.

Calculations:(These are approximations as I could not get the exact area of every part of the bridge and calculating the volume of a bridge is slightly unrealistic prior to construction.)

The glass bridge, the futuristic one:  271x6x21+30x20x16=43746 cubic feet

Truss: 268x18x28 - 6x30x220=95472 cubic feet

Area of Millennium Park and Maggie Daley Park:1,957,831.48 ft squared