Englewood Village Plaza

Englewood Village Plaza is a civic landscape rooted in care, memory, and collective action. Emerging from four years of shared work with Grow Greater Englewood, local residents, and public institutions, the plaza transforms a long-dormant site into a living commons for gathering, nourishment, and cultural expression on Chicago’s South Side.
As the inaugural built project of the nation’s first Agro-Eco District, the plaza functions as both a neighborhood anchor and a prototype. It is a place where agriculture is culture, land stewardship becomes a public practice, and healing—social, ecological, and historical—unfolds through everyday use. Markets, workshops, performances, and informal encounters animate the space, reinforcing its role as a threshold between daily life and longer ecological and seasonal cycles.
Designed through an evolving, community-led process, the plaza pilots the Englewood Agro-Eco District Design Guidelines as a living framework rather than a fixed plan. Existing trees are preserved, materials are reused, and new plantings support soil remediation and urban biodiversity. Together, these strategies transform histories of disinvestment into spaces of possibility, resilience, and collective pride.
At the core of the project is a commitment to design justice. Art and science intersect through research, drawing, planting, and construction, guided by ancestral knowledge and local leadership. The plaza does not overwrite the past; it holds it—honoring cultural heritage while making room for future generations to gather, grow, and imagine.
Englewood Village Plaza is one of several projects developed through Botanical City’s ongoing collaborations. Visitors are invited to explore this and related works to discover how landscape can operate as civic infrastructure, cultural memory, and a shared act of care.