Project Description
Architectural Design Detail / Merit
This residential tower turns a box into three-dimensional sculpture. The freeway-facing southern façade features staccato balconies protruding from a concrete frame, a response to the adjacent taller buildings and the highway’s energy. “It makes a kinetic billboard, a Mondrian-like façade that picks up the movement of traffic,” says Ralph Johnson, FAIA. The northern side, viewed from a shorter distance, is more intimate in scale, and its flush grid of inset balconies reflects the skeleton-expressed buildings of the Chicago school of architecture. To save on exterior wall costs, the units are deep, with rear bedrooms borrowing light from the loftlike living spaces.
“The building changes from different angles,” a judge said appreciatively. “It’s a big gesture, something Chicago is good at.” —Cheryl Weber, LEEP AP