213 North Institute Place

Horwitz Matthews
62 (Commercial) Units, 7 Stories
Chicago, IL

Built as a bicycle factory in the late 1800's, this renovated loft warehouse was the first conversion that initiated development north of Chicago Ave. in what is now known as atrendy rehabilitated area for shops and restaurants. The structure was converted into 62 flexible loft office suites. Kitchens, baths, and entries are manipulated to give spatial form and identity to the individual spaces. Inside, symmetry, grid shift, forced perspective, isolations, integrations, and metaphor are employed to alter and enhance the relationship of these elements to the open loft shell and the highlighted and articulated structural grid and mechanical systems. Corridor partitions are skewed to force perspective, broken, partially covered, and painted to articulate and vitalize the circulation sequences.