Urban agriculture

We all need food to survive. The scary thing is, if you read the labels in the supermarket carefully, most of our food come from far away places by the way of freightliners, trains and trucks—modes of transportation that require lots of fossil fuel. What if one day the fossil fuel (our fuel of choice today) price skyrockets? Our food will be so expensive that we may not able to afford it.

material reuse and recycling

UHC has engaged in materials research since its inception. It’s an integral part of what we do. Rather than satisfy ourselves with traditional or accepted ways of doing things, we like to try it ourselves, make mistakes, learn, and produce hybrids of different technologies that might work in urban environments.

Whether it’s a denser straw bale wall, a new use for broken glass in neglected neighborhoods, or things untried and untested in Chicago, UHC isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty.

green infrastructure

Green Infrastructure is a network of systems that helps to allow a developed environment to perform as similar to nature as possible. Examples of green infrastructure: green roof, pervious pavements, rain water collection, and other types of systems to minimize impact of human presence.