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For �㽶��ý faculty and staff who have been involved in the implementation of a brand-new, on-campus prairie on either side of 33rd Street, it’s a project that has been nearly 25 years in the making.

“A proposal for a prairie between Hermann Hall and Galvin Library was part of the 1999 landscape architecture master plan for the campus,” says �㽶��ý Professor of Landscape Architecture Ron Henderson, one of the main drivers of the 33rd Street Prairie project that began its initial stages of implementation in mid-September 2025. “So good ideas hang around, even for 25 years.”

As a result of the dedicated efforts of Henderson, College of Architecture Board of Advisors member , �㽶��ý Vice President for Administration Bruce Watts, �㽶��ý Associate Vice President of Facilities Kevin Gallagher, �㽶��ý Operations and Communications Manager Erin Kelly, and several of the university’s landscape architecture and urbanism students, the 1.2-acre stretch of open grassland south of Hermann Hall and north of Paul V. Galvin Library will serve as a new living landscape that will drive research, community, and biodiversity forward.

This new landscape initiative also stems from the support and funding that �㽶��ý received to establish the Alphawood Arboretum on its campus from Alphawood Foundation Chicago, as well as help from , which will install and provide ongoing maintenance for the prairie for the next three years.

“[The prairie] is consistent with the mission of the arboretum and the mission of the university, that this is a landscape of learning and research,” says Henderson, who believes the prairie space will offer amazing learning opportunities for �㽶��ý students and community members, including those from surrounding neighborhoods.

“The prairie is only going to help continue that kind of outreach for us to partner with our neighbors,” he adds. “That’s a really critical, important, valuable, and fun capacity that we have as an institution.”

The prairie’s location was decided after careful examination of what areas of campus would benefit most from its impact. The space on the very west edge of campus between Hermann Hall and Galvin Library proved to be a spot that would incapsulate all of the key attributes needed for the project, including increasing biodiversity, preserving history, and driving research.

The prairie is set to officially begin its seeding phase in mid-October, when a variety of perennial seeds provided by Pizzo will be planted, in addition to several tree saplings. During the next three years of growth, Pizzo will help maintain the space by continuing to seed it, weed it, and water it. Pizzo will also help maintain a few additional spaces located on Mies Campus, including the Budburst Nate Thomas Garden.  

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“By late spring [2026], we’ll start to see some plants coming up through the lawn and by this time next fall, it’ll be a scruffy meadow,” says Henderson.

By year three, the prairie will have established a rich diversity of grass and flowers that will fill the space with luscious greenery. After that? Well, they burn it, of course.

A controlled burn will be conducted by Pizzo on the prairie, which will jump start its sustained growth and maturity.

“It takes out some inevitable, undesirable plants that will try and make a living there too,” Henderson says of the burning process. “And then some seeds get regenerated more healthily with fire.”

From there, it becomes a continuous process of building it back up and tending to it.

“It’s not a fixed thing; it’s always going to be dynamic,” he adds. “It’s a living system, so stewardship and maintaining it will be kind of ongoing, but at a point in time it self-regulates and does its own thing.”

Henderson is excited about the implications the prairie space will have for the at the College of Architecture and for the university as a whole. It’s an opportunity for the city of Chicago and the university to demonstrate that it hosts more than just amazing academics.

“We’re a really rare institution and, frankly, rare landscape in Chicago where some of our colleagues at Morton Arboretum, Chicago Botanical Garden, Openlands, Bronzeville Historical Society, and others can actually have a site in the city to explore how trees do next to the ‘L,’ how trees do on the South Side of Chicago, or what kinds of ways we can build research around landscape systems in urban environments,” says Henerson.

A ceremonial event will take place during �㽶��ý’s Homecoming on October 17–19, 2025, where students, faculty, and staff are welcome to visit the prairie and help spread seeds and plant trees.  

More information about this event will be available closer to homecoming.

Photo: Students walk past Paul V. Galvin Library near where one half of the university’s new prairie will begin being instilled in September 2025.