Community

Riffing on the 19th-century worker cottage, Pratt and his team erected a timber structure on a vacant lot in one of Chicago’s redlined neighborhoods. Then, in six hours, they rebuilt it inside the Chicago Cultural Center for last year’s architecture biennial to start a conversation about affordable housing.

An area of Chicago that was essentially a food desert is now a wellspring of produce.

The barn is used for visual and performing arts, community gatherings, and whatever the neighborhood can dream up.

Once a cluster of neglected lots on Chicago’s South Side, the Thought Barn and surrounding farm are part of Sweet Water Foundation’s neighborhood regeneration strategy. The timber-framed barn, built and hand-raised by community members alongside Trillium Dell Timberworks, is believed to be the first timber-framed barn built in Chicago in more than a century.