Orchard East House by Wheeler Kearns Architects

this urban residence of orchard east house for a family of four located in Chicago, Illinois. A broad, introverted, opaque volume of private spaces floats above a fully transparent, extroverted space at grade that extends, below the canopy of the volume above, into the garden. This orchard east residence is a warm, intimate home that can transform into a place of assembly as needed and has an integral connection between interior and exterior experiences.

Light and air courts, terminating in a series of reflecting pools, perforate the volume and extend vertically through the house to distribute reflected light, and activate the interior with rain and snow; further reinforcing the blurred boundaries of interior and exterior space.

A collaborative design process led to architectural and structural innovations that include vertically post-tensioned concrete thermal mass with forty foot cantilevers; pultruded fiberglass wide-flanges, filled with closed cell spray foam insulation, sheathed in aerated autoclaved concrete and pigmented cement stucco; thermally broken floor to ceiling glass curtain wall and sliding door system.

For more information visit Wheeler Kearns Architects website – here.

orchard east house by wheeler kearns architects

orchard east house pathway

orchard east house exterior sculpture

orchard east house exterior garden

orchard east house exterior patio

orchard east house exterior terrace

orchard east house interior terrace

orchard east house interior livingroom

orchard east house interior library

orchard east house back garden