Adding Water to the Site Design 1

More Designs for the Garden

Walkway option 1

Walkway option 2

A Day of Service

Come join friends and family of Emmett Till Math &Science Academy, the University of Chicago, and Architreasures for a day of Service. Help us revive our Learning garden and celebrate the newly added Arbor / entrance way to the garden.

When: Saturday, May 12th, 2012
10am - 1pm

Where: Till Learning Garden
6612 S. Champlain
Chicago, IL 60637

What: A Day of Service  We need YOUR help!
Clean-up, tilling soil, weeding and celebration
Please dress in clothing you don’t mind getting dirty

Next Steps

Our action plan for the future is to add a walkway, seating, a mural, mosaic tiling, trees, and a memorial to Emmett Till. There will be a day of service and celebration on May 12, 2012. 

It is also a goal to find partnerships to improve the quality of the garden. In the future, we hope to secure funding for professional development seminars and training sessions to help teachers incorporate the school garden (i.e. an outdoor classroom) into their curriculum.  

Arbor (Entrance Way)

Mr. Vance, a fresh college graduate, turned an empty classroom into a woodworking room within a month of being hired. Mr. Vance and a group of fifth and sixth graders created unique geometric designs that were a result of student imagination—the students visualized what type of personality a specific geometric shape such as a cube might have. They then cut the designs out of wood using a jig saw and finished by painting the designs in black and yellow, the Till Academy school colors. archi-treasures installed the arbor into the school garden on December 2nd and the student artwork was installed onto the arbor shortly afterwards.

With the installation of the arbor, the Till Academy school garden also received an official name and is now the “Till Learning Garden.” The following activities took place in the Till Learning Garden in 2011.

New Art Teacher

The arbor project began with a rocky start when an unexpected obstacle occurred one week before the beginning of the 2011/2012 school year. Unfortunately, Mr. Waggoner, the art teacher at the core of the arbor project, resigned from his position just as the project was about to begin. archi-treasures communicated regularly with Mr. Asiyanbi, Till Academy’s principal, in late summer to determine how to proceed with the project given the unanticipated challenge

Under Mr. Asiyanbi’s leadership, Mr. Vance was hired as the new art teacher by mid-October and archi-treasures staff met with him on his second day of work to “dig into” the project. During that first meeting, a final arbor design was created and Ralph Hoffman at archi-treasures began arbor construction shortly afterwards.

Designs for Arbor by Ralph Hoffman

Charette (Design Meeting)

In April of 2011, archi-treasures facilitated a two hour design meeting or charette at Till Academy. The charette brought together 30 students, teachers, parents, design professionals, community members, and representatives from various departments at the University of Chicago. This discussion and planning meeting was not only an opportunity to brainstorm about possibilities for the school garden in the future but it was also a chance to create designs as well as set priorities and timelines. While there were many ideas discussed at the charette, the group consensus was to beautify the entrance of the school garden with an arbor that would include student artwork.