Hansberry Square, Chicago, IL

The first phase of Legends South consists of 181 CHA, affordable, and market rate rental residential units (Hansberry Square) and 73 home ownership residential units (Hansberry Homes) on a site of approximately 11.5 acres is located on the South Side of Chicago, bounded by 40th Street, Root Street, State Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway. The design team for this site is Landon Bone Baker Architects and Johnson and Lee Architects of Chicago.

The formerly isolated super block high-rises of the Robert Taylor Housing Project has been replaced with a new site plan containing a variety of two and three story residential buildings, a park, and a 4,000 sf community building with various social services to support the residents that forms the base for the new neighborhood. Traditional planning principles have been used as a model for the site plan which incorporates new streets that reconnect the site to the existing city street grid. The size of the blocks are scaled for comfortable walking distances and cross-interaction between the blocks and a variety of public, semi-public and private courtyard spaces are incorporated throughout the site. The density provides the neighborhood with a sense of public contact and vibrancy. Each block is designed as an individual element, and yet each block is designed to relate to the whole site plan.