UChicago Architecture: Landscape Architecture at the University of Chicago, Peter Lindsay Schaudt

There's no other space in Chicago like it. There's a unique characteristic that when you're here, you know it's University of Chicago. The institution, the people, the legacy of education here is second to none. But it had a pretty ordinary quad. And now, in my opinion, it's really up to the elegance that this institution deserves. In order to make change of this historic area, you really had to start from scratch. Our original goal was to look at the historic quads, as well as Hitchcock and Harper quads, and try to transform the existing roads into places for people and vehicles. Both of those had to coexist on the same pavement. This campus really inspired me to fit in some new ideas. We narrowed all of the roads to the pathway width. And so we increased the amount of green space so all the pathways are level with the grass. The most recent work that we've done is primarily pavement surfaces. We decided that a dense limestone would be appropriate for this collegiate Gothic campus. One of the main ideas for the paving came from the traditional Oxford and Cambridge campuses in Britain. And so I looked for historical examples for those two campuses to apply them to University of Chicago. But at the same time, using technology and porous concrete as a component mixed with the traditional cobblestones to absorb stormwater. And the striped patterning was based on a lot of the carriage pathways in Oxford and Cambridge. And the center stripe, in this case, collects water on the walkways. And it also creates a center line for Pomp and Circumstance and for graduation. Our firm worked on Botany Pond. The planting was inspired from a scientific botanical nature that was also to be used in the classrooms. And then the whole court space next to it was all native plants from the Midwestern region. I think seasonality is such a strong component of practicing landscape architecture in Chicago and the Midwest. And I think a sense of being in a changing landscape. To me, that's what the Midwest is all about. From the prairie to the lake to wetland areas is a constant change of seasonality. And that's one thing that we do as landscape architects is really paint a picture month by month. One of the things that I love about this kind of architecture is it creates a boundary with beautiful portals and gateways. And there's a threshold for everybody to come through, keeping it still open. And once you're inside, there's no other space in Chicago like it. One thing that I learned working here really was simple kind of elegance to design, but not to over-design and do too much to take away from the beauty that's here and work within the context of this historical setting.