“How do you want to live?“

The LightBox

“We want an inside/outside space with a new kitchen & place to gather”

We believe architecture can help almost any space to welcome light and nature. Architecture should be restorative, move us away from our screens and provide a place to invite and experience the beauty of the seasons.

A couple purchased a narrow, attached, masonry row house in Chicago's Grand Boulevard–an area known for its rapid conversion from an open field into a dense, beautiful, upper-middle-class neighborhood in the 1880s. New, luxurious amenities coincided with the Columbian Exposition, yet the row house was crudely divided into apartments during the Great Depression. Fast forward to the 2010s. A contractor restored the building’s single occupancy status, but the the rear of the house no longer had any light and air, not to mention the “backyard” was a gravel-and-dirt pad.

Our clients’ request: create an indoor/outdoor space for a new kitchen and a comfortable place to gather that would feature light, color and materials, that would reflect a sense of family, community and mindfulness.

Our contractor brought a refined level of detail to the project and made it better. We collaborated with him to design a steel tube post and sleeve that is hidden in the wall. Quartzite benches are siliconed to a steel tube frame that slide into a larger steel tube sleeve into the posts hidden in the wall. The owners could remove the benches to clean or paint behind them. We were honored to work with these clients and for maintaining their design focus to a beautiful finish.

This was–and is– a unique situation. Only 2 or 3% of today’s contractors could have accurately built the post and sleeve. Our result was well-crafted and beautiful because of clear communcation and consistent alignment among the clients, the architect and the contractor. #lincolnparkhouseaddition #oldtownhouseaddition #lincolnparkarchitect #chicagoarchitect #modernarchitect #wickerparkhouseaddition #goldcoasthouseaddition #hydeparkaddition #modernaddition #remodelista #dwellarchitect

Published: Archipendium and Gizmodo and the American Institute of Architects

Photographer: Gregory Scott

makeArchitecture

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