The Wild Mile: Restoring Chicago’s Urban River

“Re-Ground” delves into restoration grounded in nature’s logic, minimizing human interventions like levees in favor of ecological rejuvenation. Such ecological revival of rivers can be approached in straightforward, scalable ways.
The Chicago River, tainted and made inaccessible post-industrialization in the 1850s, has embarked on a 21st-century rejuvenation journey, repurposing the riverfront as a civic expanse. In an effort to revert the river to its natural wetland habitat from the last ice age, SOM in collaboration with Urban Rivers designed a sprawling 2,000-square-foot floating eco-park.
The “Wild Mile” initiative aspired to foster community engagement, amplify river access, and craft an environment where nature and wildlife flourish. This undertaking involved pinpointing and reviving native plant species across diverse river stretches. Central to the design approach is the modularity, enabling components to be merged and extended. Features such as floating modular platforms, tethered habitats, access ramps, observation decks, and docking units can be scaled and modified based on local demand and financial constraints. This showcases a blueprint for reinstating natural habitats utilizing a replicable design that doesn’t always hinge on cutting-edge technology.