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Life In-between the City of Chicago Chicago has established itself as one of the major US and global cities, with a metropolitan population of just under 2.7 million people. It has a booming city center containing a variety of activities, offices and expensive housing complexes. But, when you zoom out and see the city in its whole, you will realize that the city center is only a small fraction of the whole and that the surrounding suburbs are segregated from the city center. Consequently, there is a need to break this division of space towards an affordable and accessible space. The disparity of space in the city can also be seen in the streetscape of Chicago. Its grid division is ideal for real estate sales so that the ownership of a plot of land can easily be transferred. It is designed to be functional and not for its inhabitants. This can be seen even in the smallest infrastructure of the city, the alleyways. It is designed as a utilitarian service lane, a buffer for all the unsightly elements. Nonetheless, alleys are places with many potentials. It is hidden in-between the buildings, creating an informal space on a more human scale and as shown throughout history it can be a significant social space for the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, at present, this in-between space is neglected and underutilized. Alongside the alleys, you have the residential dwellings. It is the place where we feel the most at home and also where we have spent the last 2 years in refuge from the pandemic. This event has forced us to reshape our way of living, working and how we connect to each other. It made us re-think the space we live in and the need for it to be not only a house as it is now, but a resilient space that opens the possibility to do much more. In addition, we also learned the importance of social interaction and being self-sustainable. It is now a pivotal moment to re-think the relationship between living-working and the city. This dissertation proposes decentralising the city center towards the suburbs and creating a self-sustainable neighbourhood where living, working and leisure can happen simultaneously in a new typology of spaces where functions are interchangeable. Therefore, I will expand on the now mono-functional alleyways into a shared extension of the existing dwellings by fully using the potential of the alleyways as an informal, semi-public space. By doing so, creating spaces that aren’t just alongside the dwellings, but connecting them. This will add a new layer to the city, a buffer to soften the boundaries between public and private and strengthen the relationship between the inhabitants of the city.

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