Creative Grounds

We are students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. This project proposal was created through the course Process(ing) Transformation: Inclusive Approaches to Repurposing Closed Chicago Public Schools taught by faculty Paola Aguirre Serrano during the Sp...

This was our last community meet up day at Overton – Chicago's winter weather started to arrive, and was time to take a brake to incubate new ideas. As the winter light gets more dramatic and brings a different tint to the classrooms, we were able to make a few additio...

During this weekend, Overton School participates in Open House Chicago – a free, two-day public festival that offers behind-the-scenes access to 250+ architecturally, historically and culturally significant sites across the city. An added feature of this activation day...

Photos by Sandra Steinbrecher

During the summer of 2019, Overton was opened up for a series of Activation Days during which architects, artists, and community members were welcomed into the space to learn about the space and work on installations around the premises. Af...

The weekend prior to the opening of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, all teams were all hands on deck! It was very exciting to see international contributors selected by CAB curatorial team in build mode at the same time that local teams. The energy was great! Betwee...

On Saturday, August 31st, we held our third public activation for Process(ing) Transformation – this was a day full of action! Our creative community keeps growing activation after activation, and the groups are in hands-on mode to keep advancing projects. As usual, we...

On Saturday, July 27th, we held our second public activation for Process(ing) Transformation. This time around, a total of five teams and a few volunteers came to collaborate, each team being at different stages of the design and installation process. 

Be...

From July 15th to 19th, Creative Grounds and Chicago Architecture Biennial, hosted a bootcamp week for architects, designers, and artists from around the world who will be showcasing their work at Overton in September as part of the Architecture Biennial 2019 and Proce...

On Monday, July 15th, teens from the Chicago Architecture Foundation's Neighborhood Teen Ambassadors program visited former Overton School. As part of their place-based research program, teens visit historic buildings and culturally-important sites throughout Bronzevil...

On Saturday, July 6th, Creative Grounds hosted the first of three public activations of 2019. 

It was a hot summer day and we were ready to get messy with our spray paints and markers, necessary for prototyping for the Bronzeville map installation, planned to be finishe...