IIT Architecture students receive 2018 ALSA Student Award

MLA+U students Jamie Sun and Yu Si were selected as the Honor Award winners in the Student Community Service category of the 2018 American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Student Awards for the design of their Jazz Fence project.

Jazz Fence is a vibrant and colorful design exploration of how to enclose an urban "hurts conclusus" with cultural resonance and construction economy. The project was designed as an independent initiative by the MLA+U program with support from Illinois Tech Office of the Provost and Professor/Director of MLA+U Ron Henderson.

“The Jazz Fence is beautifully executed. I love the fabrication; there is a clear historical relationship; there is community service," stated a 2018 ASLA Awards Jury member. 

Jazz Fence encloses the Bronzeville neighborhood's new Great Migration Sculpture Garden and was designed and built by two students of Illinois Tech's Master of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism program, in collaboration with community leaders, construction trades, neighborhood youth, and professional advisers. Jazz Fence was a design investigation of shadows, geometry, and color to augment the sculptural program of the garden which was constructed on a surplus site donated by the City of Chicago to the city's southside Bronzeville neighborhood.

The garden illustrates the positive influence that arts and teamwork embody as paths for opportunity for neighborhood youth. Engaging high school students and artists from the community, the Jazz Fence was fabricated from cutout shapes of marine-grade plywood, painted, and assembled on site with leadership by the Landscape Architecture students. The Jazz Fence is a visually striking contribution to a community-engaged project that transformed an abandoned site into a vibrant place for the neighborhood.

Read more about the project and the award at ASLA.