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The New York Times Home and Garden section (yes, we sometimes read the Home & Garden section) checked in yesterday on the West Town home of two Art Institute faculty members, Frances Whitehead and James Elniski, whose West Town home is starting to turn heads. According to the article (which is accompanied with a nice slide show), the couple has approached their home like a conceptual art project, and in so doing, they've pretty much set a new standard for sustainable urban design.
We've strolled by Whitehead-Elniski home several times, and were it not for the pair of 1 kW Windside vertical-axis wind turbines popping out of the roof (as identified by GreenBean), we never would have taken notice. Between the corrugated steel siding and the green enameled brick façade, the place looks sort of like a garage that might have been designed by Rem Koolhaas, and it does its best to fit in with its surroundings. The building itself is a converted brick warehouse, and it’s equipped with a green roof and rooftop solar panels.
Chicago has a reputation for green architecture and design, but few of the buildings in our fair city have gotten the sort of widespread recognition as, say, the New York's Hearst Tower. There are a couple dozen LEED certified buildings scattered around the city (including the Merchandise Mart, which currently holds the title of the world’s largest building with LEED certification). Maybe, between the Whitehead-Elniski residence, Frank and Lisa Mauceri's Bucktown home (the first home in Illinois to earn Gold LEED certification), and the forthcoming Green + Wired exhibit at the MSI, it will be residential architecture that will really raise the city’s profile as a leader in green design.
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This is a case of the Emperor's New Clothes. There have been plenty of "green design" buildings in the news lately that have been bland boxes.
Often they are butt-ugly, just like this one.
Architects respond to such criticism by saying, "Oh, you don't understand the architecture" when, in fact, many of us understood boxes by the end of kindergarten.
the interior is beautiful, but i wonder why these homes so often care so little about the street (read: community) that they are a part of. the front of this home is a garage, putting it in the same group with all of the suburban cut-out homes that put the garage front and center. sort of sad that these two artists decide to cut off the street and reduce the warmth of the block. the car is the most polluting part of this home, and it gets front billing.
Let's get a few things straight:
One: This project has nothing to do with or even resembles anything OMA/Rem Koolhaas does.
Two: This project, as stated, is a renovation/addition to what was previously a warehouse. The couple is obviously striving for green functionality of the project. For those who don't know, this is expensive. You know what is also expensive? Architectural detailing. The un-articulated exterior, while austere, is probably a product of economics. They chose a cool enameled brick and corrugated aluminum. These things can be used in cooler better manners (and the raw materials thing still doesn't make it Koolhass-ian), but they did what they could, I'm sure. Most projects of this type are "works-in-progress." So, as time goes on, hopefully it changes. Maybe the façade will change, other things might happen. The garage thing is interesting, it is front and center but perhaps doesn't have to be so austere, also. Again, they are working with a previous condition. I'm not sure how this building looked before, but it might have been a giant garage door for the warehouse before they took over. Depending on the zoning, too, if the lot for the warehouse isn't zoned residential, you're not allowed to live/occupy the first floor, so they naturally would be moved to leave the first floor as the parking, and add on to the second floor.
There's more to the choices than just trying to connect to the community or make it better than it looks. These people, I'm sure, aren't stupid, and thought of these things, too, and did the best they could.
Holy ugly house, Batman.
While the house ceratinly looks a little plain jane from the curb, I can completely get behind the idea of repurposing an old building and going green. The real problem in West Town and other areas of Chicago, however, is the proliferation of single family homes and multi-unit condos that adopt the same "box" style asthetic to simply save money and maxamize square footage with none of the "green" benefits this house strives for (at least that I'm aware of).
I don't mind the exterior of the house--a little nondescript, but I tend towards the minimalist aesthetic anyway...
Did you view the slideshow? That place is stunningly beautiful on the inside. And is that a tree I see growing inside the house just off the kitchen??
I have to agree with lorax. It probably would have been "greener" to just ditch the car and build a normal non-green house.
Michael -- The house is zoned residential (it's actually spot-zoned RT4 -- the only lot of that zoning on the block). It would have just taken a little bit of creativity to move the garage to the alley instead of the front. This design with the curb cut would not be allowed under the current zoning code as it was recently rewritten to preserve the walkability of our streets. If expense was the issue, it would have been greener to ditch some of the "green" features to help preserve the walkability of the street. Imagine if every house was designed like this with cars pulling in and out of the front and garage doors welcoming passersby -- how many people would want to walk down streets like that to run their errands? About as many as in the suburbs. They'd all drive everywhere. If it's not something everyone could do without causing harm, then it's not sustainable.