The National Public Housing Museum (NPHM) in Chicago will be the only cultural institution in the U.S. devoted to educating and immersing visitors in the stories of public housing. The proposed museum will be built on the former site of the Jane Addams Homes, one of Chicago’s oldest federal housing projects. The NPHM will feature a permanent exhibition space, 15 mixed-income apartments, communal gathering spaces, and a sculpture courtyard with Edgar Miller animal sculptures. The museum broke ground in Fall 2022.

Civic Projects has designed the Corner Store Co-op as a unique Museum Store for the National Public Housing Museum, the only cultural institution devoted to telling the story of public housing in the United States.

Building upon the legacy of historic cooperatives in Public Housing throughout the US, the museum store follows this model as a collective of current and former public housing residents developing and curating the Corner Store to feature and highlight entrepreneurs and creators who are connected to public housing - past and current residents, advocates, and supporters. The Corner Store will not only be a place of retail for these products and makers, but the working group envisions it to be a place for convening in community, a place of resource and sharing of knowledge, history, and skills.

Civic Projects engaged with the Corner Store Co-op working group to discuss these goals and ideals, and how that manifests in a physical space; sharing research of examples of other museum stores, communal retail spaces, and actual cornerstore or convenience stores. The final design was reached through reviewing and examining this research with the working group to determine their vision and direction for the store. A place to not only put the products on display, but the history and stories of the makers of these products as well.