by Zach Mortice
Assistant Editor

Summary: The Islands and their Streams redevelopment project for the northern Chicago lakefront uses natural, biological processes to create park space and purify water. This, coupled with the removal of Lake Shore Drive from the shore and out into Lake Michigan, helps to create a less obstructed and impacted relationship between the city and the lake.

Trish VanderBeke, AIA, calls her Islands and their Streams plan to redevelop the north side of Chicago’s lakefront “extra-natural,” not in a sense of moving beyond nature, but in terms of incorporating nature with the built environment. “I think you have to go with an extra-natural approach to help these places out and maybe even use our own ingenuity to take the processes that nature has shown us and intensify them so that some of these places can do more than they would have done,” she says.

VanderBeke’s Islands and their Streams redevelopment plan drastically re-imagines North America’s most famous urban lakefront by inviting the lake into the city and coaxing some of the city into the lake. It adds streams that flow into Lake Michigan from six El stops. The streams flow towards acres of island park land built in the lake, which also supports a redirected Lake Shore Drive. More than a specific redevelopment plan, VanderBeke’s project is an articulation of her personal parks philosophy. The idea of the sylvan nature preserve-styled park, she says, is no longer relevant in developed spaces. New parks have to adopt “extra-natural” ways of collaborating with the human footprint.

“If we really want to have something to show in the future, it’s not enough to just put aside those little pieces that are still good and say, ‘Okay—you need to serve the cleaning and cleansing the soul and body purpose for everything,” she says.

Back to the lake
VanderBeke, a sole practitioner in Chicago who calls her firm P.K. VanderBeke, primarily works on sustainable single family home projects, but has also developed several eco-friendly ideas for altering Lake Michigan’s urban shore. Her plan begins with six streams that run through the center of the streets and all begin at Chicago El train’s Red Line stops. This natural demarcation is the watershed line for Lake Michigan. These streams collect storm water and roof runoff and are filled with “living machines”—a natural system for purifying water with anaerobic and aerobic bacteria and natural vegetation. The “living machines” process was invented by ecologist and biologist John Todd, who specializes in ecological restoration and wastewater management.

As water flows into the channels, it’s first exposed to anaerobic, then aerobic bacteria in submerged ducts. A clarifier pulls off indigestible sludge for composting. It’s then filtrated by natural vegetation before being returned to the lake. Because water is collected at every length of the stream, all the elements run concurrently. “It’s really what goes on in natural streams with plant life,” VanderBeke says. And a return to how the lakefront ecosystem used to operate. Before a massive public works project reversed its flow in 1900, the Chicago River flowed into Lake Michigan and not into the Mississippi River basin. VanderBeke says returning any amount of water to the lake can help it restore itself.

Such maintenance of natural systems follows VanderBeke’s plan to the outlying islands. An arc of six islands comprising 109 acres of park space are to be added about 1,000 feet from the shore. Each island (all ranging from 4.5 to 37 acres) is shaped like a comma, with a thick round head that embraces an inlet and a thinner, curving tail that connects to the shore, adjacent to each stream’s mouth. They’re connected by a three-mile pedestrian and bike path. VanderBeke envisions native-fish lagoons, grass marshes, and oak savannahs taking hold of the land on their own. “[The parks] might need help from people, but it also might populate itself in ways that are best suited to the wind and water conditions that are sort of hard to foresee,” she says.

Breaking down a barrier
Though the Islands and their Streams plan is mostly a way to reorganize natural space, it does bring one of Chicago’s most iconic urban features into Lake Michigan. Currently, the Lake Shore Drive freeway terminates at Hollywood Ave., about 2.5 miles from the northern Chicago city limits, spilling a wall of traffic into a no-longer quiet residential neighborhood. VanderBeke’s plan extends the Lake Shore Drive out under the islands in a tunnel roughly three miles long.

By moving the busy barrier-road away from shore, Island’s and their Streams helps create a more open and accessible relationship between the city and the shore; the urban space and the park space—to call people out to the water and call the water into the city.