reSAWN TIMBER co.

Ford Calumet Environmental Center / Valerio Dewalt Train

Once an ecological sanctuary dominated by wetlands, Chicago’s Calumet Region was transformed by over a century of industrialization, leaving behind environmental damage from steel mill slag. Big Marsh Park, the Chicago Park District’s largest reclamation project, represents a major effort to restore this landscape, creating a place where industry, nature, and culture can coexist. The park now features a 45-acre bike park and a network of walking trails that provide eco-recreation opportunities on the city’s Southeast Side. At its entrance, the Ford Calumet Environmental Center (FCEC) serves as a gateway and educational hub, housing exhibits, classrooms, offices, a bike repair area, and visitor amenities within a 9,300-square-foot facility. Designed with materials that reflect both the site’s industrial past and its sustainable future, the building features weathered steel cladding, exposed Nail Laminated Timber, and wood-clad rooftop light monitors that flood the double-height exhibition area with daylight. Flexible interior spaces include mobile displays and retractable classroom walls, while floor-to-ceiling windows connect visitors to the surrounding landscape. To ensure security and bird safety, large hydraulic steel hangar doors fold down to cover the windows when closed and act as shading canopies when open, paired with fritted glass to prevent bird collisions. Notably, the FCEC incorporates Chicago’s first constructed wastewater wetlands system, filtering the building’s blackwater through natural marsh processes before returning it clean to the site. As both an architectural and ecological statement, the Ford Calumet Environmental Center symbolizes the region’s ongoing transformation—reclaiming an industrial scar into a living model of environmental stewardship and sustainable coexistence.