CYDI greenhouse construction

In Spring 2013, Dr. Stephens supervised a team of undergraduate students from the Structural Engineers Association – IIT Student Chapter (SEA-IIT) that was designing a greenhouse structure for the Community Youth Development Initiative (CYDI), a charter high school on Chicago’s south side. CYDI already had garden space where students learned how to plant and raise their on crops, and ultimately put them to market. This awesome group of students in SEA-IIT wanted to give CYDI a greenhouse that would allow them to extend their growing seasons deeper into the harsh Chicago winters. So the team got to work! They submitted a proposal to construct the greenhouse internally to the Armour College of Engineering‘s Student-Led Projects Program and ended up winning funding to complete the project. They began work early in Summer 2013 and by the end of the summer, they had the finished project below!

Take a rest, Laurit, you earned it!

This awesome group of students, led by IIT CAEE undergraduate student Laurit Dide and with help from several other undergraduate and graduate students throughout IIT, built the greenhouse within just a week onsite. Check out some photos from the entire construction process below.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Jonathan standing next to the finished product

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful for financial support from the Armour College of Engineering at IIT. Laurit Dide’s shoulders are now 10 feet wide because of the load he carried on this project. Great work, Laurit! Also many thanks to all of the project volunteers, including BERG member Parham Azimi and several others.