Aon Center South Plaza

Aon Center’s South Plaza is the front door to the fourth-tallest building in Chicago’s skyline. This redesign project creates a formal entry and a casual front yard to enhance social opportunities for today’s workforce. The client embraced a vision of transforming what was a private garden into a more public park and neighborhood amenity. A ten-foot elevation change from street to plaza level—previously a vertical barrier—was replaced with a lightweight landform creating a seamless transition between public and private realms. Robust planting areas with native, pollinator-friendly vegetation account for four-season interest and the complexities of existing subsurface infrastructure.