Come Home is a design competition and wealth-building initiative that will support “missing middle density” infill housing in Auburn Gresham, Bronzeville, East Garfield Park, Englewood, Humboldt Park and Woodlawn neighborhoods of Chicago.
Our proposal continues the City’s work of re-activating commercial corridors by enhancing the space between home and street: a Middle Ground. Residents will come home to generous outdoor spaces, a luminous building stair, and winter gardens that reinterpret Chicago’s bay windows. As such, Middle Ground connects indoor and outdoor living, and neighbor to neighbor. While the traditional six-flat locates the entry stair in the center, resulting in narrow and deep units, our proposal maximizes front- and rear- facing rooms, allowing more daylight to enter each apartment and emphasizing connections to neighbors and the street.
A socially resilient mix of two duplex townhouses and four flats accommodates how we live today. Anticipating a variety of household types, the bedrooms are treated equally, with a third room (townhouses) and winter gardens offering the flexibility and acoustic privacy to work from home. A separate front door to the lower townhouse further expands the range of lifestyles accommodated, while living rooms are oriented to the rear, activating this shared space with the second means of egress.
Middle Ground incorporates sustainable measures that don’t require costly application or certification processes, such as cross-ventilation, ample daylight, and a PV array on the roof. We illustrate the use of CLT floor and roof slabs, spanning between traditionally framed unit demising walls. Windows are standard dimensions, and exterior cladding is shown either in metal or brick.
To come home implies a return to the familiar. At the same time, new prototypes offer the opportunity to recalibrate housing for updated lifestyles, economic realities, and sustainability goals. We propose a Middle Ground.
See more on Dwell.
