Walsh Development
10 Units, 4 Stories
Chicago, IL

The mixed-use project features 10 residential condominiums above a ground-floor retail and parking garage base. Through its modern interpretation of traditional brick construction, the building fits contextually within the surrounding neighborhood, yet challenges the typical conventions found in most infill buildings. Built on a corner site, it purposely erodes rather than defines the corner. This dissipates the focused energy of the corner and distributes it across the entire façade. The overall building mass is broken down into two distinct systems: static and fluid. A lighter modular brick “grid” element is visually contained by two darker edge-defining brick masses. This serves to give the building a layered quality not only in plan, but also in elevation. As the edge masses do not physically touch, the gridded element delicately defines the corner. Expressing the voided nature of the corner also provides an ideal location for outdoor terrace areas, thus activating them with outdoor uses. The darker “street-edge” masses are architecturally detailed through the use of Norman brick with a raked horizontal joint and struck flushed vertical joint. This gives them a unique directional quality as opposed to the non-directional quality inherent in the gridded element. Through the use of a perforated metal panel, a railing is created which not only serves to protect individuals using the balcony, but also provides additional screening from the neighborhood.