The infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre set the site for the community police center in Chicago.
A small satellite police center with holding cells, administration, classrooms, and a basketball court was an intimate three-week project based on a group visit to the area. Sketches and study models initiated most of the design for this center.
The bloody past and the compact nature of the site created crumpled and distressed forms. With the cells below ground, the office above ground level and the basketball court two stories above, a large multilevel, sunlit lobby was designed to connect the public spaces over the area where the crimes of Al Capone were committed. Where the execution wall once stood, a rusty grated walkway allows the visitors to explore the nature of the site and look down into the small windows of the holding cells and the subterranean donut shop.
LOCATED: Chicago, Illinois
STATUS: Unbuilt design study