Kinzie Park

The Enterprise Companies
136 Units, 7 Stories
Chicago, IL

This former industrial site includes a river-walk, strategically placed fountains, distinctive lighting, elegant paving, and detailed landscaping. The master plan responds to difficult urban edges, shielding itself from intense rail lines and major arterials while opening itself to the river edge. The site plan organizes townhouses around two brick-paved interior streets, creating a quiet enclave of traditional masonry and stone facades. Differentiation through variations in material and detail emphasize individual personality while maintaining a unified whole.

The seven-story, masonry mid-rise building acts as a visual gateway to the project, bringing a strongly anchored form to busy Kinzie Street. Highly articulated, the building uses offsets to deftly incorporate balconies while reducing the appearance to bulk and mass. A stone base gives way to walls made of Norman brick above the first floor, stratified by color. Closely spaced and elegantly proportioned windows allow the building to be very open while the continuous ribbons of glass above the entry add a subtle twist to the vocabulary. A steel cornice completes the building's upward thrust and unifies it with the vocabulary of the adjacent townhomes.