Architecture for Community Empowerment
Creating meaningful change in challenging circumstances takes vision, boldness, and tenacity. BNMO Design is proud to partner with organizations who are striving to turn obstacles into opportunities. Working side by side with our clients to establish vital neighborhood amenities and resources, BNMO designs solutions focused on strengthening a sense of hope, pride, and agency in their users.
Project H.O.O.D. – Community and Business Development Center
The Woodlawn neighborhood on the south side of Chicago is an area struggling with a high rate of gun violence, crime, poverty, and underinvestment. Project H.O.O.D. (Helping Others Obtain Destiny) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to eradicating these problems through initiatives that offer youth an empowering alternative to gang affiliation and street life. BNMO engaged with Project H.O.O.D.’s founder, Pastor Corey Brooks, to help realize the organization’s mission to provide better education and business development opportunities in Woodlawn.
Project H.O.O.D.'s new Community and Business Development Center will sit on the former site of an abandoned motel that in recent years had played host to gangs and drug dealers. After Pastor Brooks raised enough money to purchase the building, he demolished it and commenced work with BNMO to envision the community hub that would take its place.
Community Day - Summer 2026
Pastor Corey Brooks started a roof top campaign in November of 2011. He stayed 94 days in a tent on top of a dilapidated motel, home to drugs and prostitution, to raise awareness and fund to purchase the motel, demolish and build a new community center. He raised the required fund in February of 2012 and demolish the motel. The site is currently home for all Project H.O.O.D fundraising efforts.
A Program with Purpose
The interior of the new center will fully support the program’s goal to offer youth a place to hang out and find productive things to do with their time. Lounges are integrated throughout the center with wifi, books, and media. The design makes space for physical fitness with a large multipurpose gymnasium with two basketball courts and a swimming pool. Creativity will thrive with an auditorium and multi-purpose spaces for dance, art, video production, music practice, gardening, and cooking. The center will also bring much-needed mental health services, counseling, and support to its users.
The design of the facility provides a variety of space types to encourage community to come together, team up, and work on projects. Ground-level retail space will be available to lease to establish funding for operations as well as job opportunities for the neighborhood.
An Image of Hope
BNMO designed the building’s façade to bring modest but refreshing color to the existing monotone character of the stretch of King Dr. where it is located. Clad in colorful polycarbonate panels, the façade creates a bright translucent layer over the gym walls and floor-to-ceiling windows, allowing the building to project a warm glowing light at night while giving a subtle glimpse of the activity inside. The rooftop community garden can also be seen from the street, adding motion to the streetscape through visible activity during the day.
Currently in permit phase, the project will target carbon neutrality and seek Net Zero certification from the Passive House Institute US.
Fundraising Progress
Pastor Brooks has set a goal of raising $35 million to cover the costs of the project. Primarily via his well-known “tent-a-thon”, in which he invites donors to camp out with him on site – in the Chicago wintertime – to raise money, he has reached over $10 million in donations. BNMO assisted in the latest tent-a-thon, providing banners with building images to display at the campsite, helping to publicize the vision and goals for the center.
