The HUMAN project, in collaboration with Sweet Water Foundation (SWF), aims to foster the resilient, creative, and ethical deployment of AI technologies that reinforce the experiential, rooted-in-place urban ecological and Regenerative Neighborhood Development values.
The partnership will engage in a three-pronged project.
The project's first component is a co-taught undergraduate studio/field-based course, Interrogating the Ecology of Place: From Generative AI to Regenerative Neighborhood Development, that examines the potential and pitfalls of AI for Regenerative Neighborhood Development and urban ecology. This course draws from SWF's "Communiversity" and Lake Forest College's Environmental Studies curriculum to provide students with an interdisciplinary grounding in the environmental humanities and sciences. The course synthesizes historical insights, social justice goals, ecological objectives, and architectural and urban design methods.
The second component builds on SWF’s Urban Ecology Global Fellowship and Regenerative Neighborhood Development Internship programs by selecting groups of Lake Forest College student interns from the course to incorporate the findings of the AI-centered collaborative research into the daily operations of SWF during their growing season.
The project's third component culminates in a collaborative exhibition/installation on Lake Forest's campus as part of the capstone HUMAN Symposium. This exhibition will showcase the outcomes of the course-to-integration process and highlight the potential applications of AI in Regenerative Neighborhood Development and urban ecology.
About Sweet Water Foundation
Sweet Water Foundation (SWF) is a community-rooted organization that practices Regenerative Neighborhood Development (RND), a creative and regenerative social justice method that cultivates safe, healthy, and inspiring spaces and places. RND is an interdisciplinary and intergenerational practice that offers a unique blend of design, carpentry, agroecology, and lifelong education to create the physical spaces, programs, and resources necessary to heal and nurture people across cultures, geographies, and generations.
Since 2014, SWF’s flagship site, The Commonwealth, has re-generated and re-storied six blocks in the South Side of Chicago into The Commonwealth. Today, The Commonwealth is a bio-dynamic campus for urban ecology, human development, Civic Arts, and neighborhood development. It is the heart of SWF’s Communiversity, an emergent institution through which humans from all walks of life come together to learn and engage in SWF’s practice of Regenerative Neighborhood Development (RND).
While acknowledging that AI cannot fully reproduce these experiences, SWF already uses AI and digital tools for tasks such as plant and insect identification, environmental monitoring, and conceptualizing the architectural and ecological possibilities of the Commonwealth's expanding transformation of vacant land. The collaboration with the HUMAN project will further explore the potential applications of AI in supporting SWF's practice and values.